Goodbye Yellow Brick Road [Remastered] - Elton John > Reviews > Old Four Eyes as genius

Author's product rating:   

Originality	Definitely a cut above the rest
Lyrics	Sublime
Quality and consistency of tracks	Flawless
How does it compare to the artist's other releases	Outstanding
Value for Money

Advantages:	the songs, the playing
Disadvantages:	None

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

If anyone should think of Elton John as a talentless MOR performer then they should get a copy of some of his early material, such as this fine double album. Goodbye Yellow Brick Road is undoubtedly one of his finest creations, with probably only Captain Fantastic And The Brown Dirt Cowboy a couple of years later a serious rival in his entire catalogue.

In 1973, Elton John and his lyricist co-writer Bernie Taupin were probably at the peak of their form. They'd been around together around four years and had refined and developed their style through a number of patchy albums, Empty Sky, Elton John, Tumbleweed Connection, Friends, Madman Across The Water, Honky Chateau and Don't Shoot Me, but by the time they had arrived at this double album they'd perfected their songwriting art and were churning out some stupendous material and great singles. The earlier albums had marked John and Taupin out as strong songwriters, although for much of the time they tended towards the maudlin and overblown, with a couple of the first releases overladen and weighed down by orchestral arrangements. However, by 1973 the mood was lighter and less introspective, aimed firmly at the charts with some classic pop songs.

This album shows off the duo’s talents wonderfully well and it is jam packed with instant classics like the title track, Candle In The Wind, Saturday Night's Alright For Fighting, Bennie And The Jets, Sweet Painted Lady, Harmony, Your Sister Can't Twist and Roy Rogers, but it was the opening instrumental Funeral For A Friend and the track it segued into, Love Lies Bleeding, which did it for me.

The opening track was all moody atmosphere, built around the piano of Elton and the synths of David Hentschell and shows exactly what a fine musician Elton actually was. For some inexplicable reason it's probably my favourite track of his ever, but the single Saturday Night's Alright For Fighting runs it a very close second.

Elton was wonderfully supported on this album by his regular band, guitarist Davey Johnstone, bassist Dee Murray and drummer Nigel Olsson, although Hentschell added some excellent bits and pieces on the odd track.

For most of the time it’s an upbeat and bouncy approach with songs that didn’t take too long to catch your attention with their instantly addictive hooks and dynamics. Repeated listens don’t tend to reveal too many hidden depths and what you see here is in general exactly what you get, but there’s no reason to knock the album for that, you don’t need to make excuses for making excellent pop rock music, and that’s definitely what you get here.

Full track listing –
Funeral For A Friend
Love Lies Bleeding
Candle In The Wind
Bennie And The Jets
Goodbye Yellow Brick Road
This Song Has No Title
Grey Seal
Jamaica Jerk Off
I've Seen That Movie Too
Sweet Painted Lady
The Ballad Of Danny Bailey
Dirty Little Girl
All The Girls Love Alice
Your Sister Can't Twist
Saturday Nights Alright For Fighting
Roy Rogers
Social Disease
Harmony

There are a couple of fillers here in Jamaica Jerk Off and Social Disease, but for the most part it’s high quality pop music, which Elton John was wonderfully equipped to deliver.

Now if Elton John had always produced material like this he would have been even bigger than he undoubtedly was in the mid 70’s, but he seemed to lose it after this album, even if Captain Fantastic was a wonderful creation in 1975. He split up with Taupin and went for a very American orientated sound, somehow losing the spark and the magic along the way. However, he left magic stuff like this to remember him by so why should we moan too much.