Elton John
This was Elton’s second album, though it was supposedly recorded as a set of polished up demos with the aim of having other artists record the songs, a shop window for Elton and Bernie.
The first track, though, is Your Song and the rest, as they say is history. With hindsight, there’s plenty that’s familiar here, but I’m not sure that it would have been obvious at the time what was to come. There’s nothing to anticipate Saturday Night’s Alright For Fighting, for example. There are some good songs on here, plus one or two that don’t seem to me to go anywhere.
There’s also an attempt at a Rolling Stones pastiche that predates and anticipates Exile On Main Street. One or two of the tunes sound familiar, and I can’t figure out if it’s because they remind me of other specific songs or if they’re somewhat generic. Elton’s voice is on the western side of transatlantic, as is much of the material. It reminds me a little of Leon Russell.
This is early in Elton and Bernie’s careers and they would go on to much greater heights. There’s nothing wrong with this album, but on the whole it doesn’t do a lot for me. Your Song is a classic, of course, and I like Border Song. Not a keeper overall though.
I listened on Spotify, and there’s a YouTube playlist.
Recent Comments