I DON'T WANT TO POLL ON WITH YOU LIKE THAT: The Elton John ballot poll voting thread!

http://www.droptheleash.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Elton-John-70s.jpg

Rank your top 20 Elton John tracks. If you feel like digging deep and including duets and/or other things he's sung on, that's your prerogative. Really, though...can't you find 20 Elton John songs to vote for?

normal scoring: 1:40, 2:36, 3:33, 4:30, 5:28, 6:26, 7:25, 8:24, 9:23, 10:22, 11:21, 12:20, 13:19, 14:18, 15:17, 16:16, 17:15, 18:14, 19:13, 20:12.

Parts 2 and 3, both optional:

2. Include your ranking of Elton John's five best albums.

3. Send a ranked list of your three MOST HATED Elton John tracks, with #1 being most hated. The votes from this ballot won't negatively affect the point totals for tracks -- I'll do a separate "most hated" countdown.

Send your ballots to me at johnnyilxfever AT gmail dot com, or via ILXmail. Deadline is midnight EDT, August 19th. That's a Monday night.

Cliffs:
1. Ranked ballot of TWENTY (20) Elton John, etc. tracks
2. Ranked list of FIVE (5) favorite Elton John albums
3. Ranked list of THREE (3) most-hated Elton John tracks
4. Deadline is @ MIDNIGHT MONDAY, AUGUST 19TH

True confession right up top: "The Last Song" sometimes makes me cry like a baby.

Yes! A major artist who is also pretty much terra incognita - this is the holy grail, what a treat.

Also, "Crocodile Rock" makes me want to kill. I've been able to suppress that impulse so far in life, but that may not always be the case.

I'm pretty ignernt of his work past the 70s -- will do some listening for this poll. Don't sleep on Rock of the Westies, y'all!

I'm pretty sure my earliest memory of Elton was the "I'm Still Standing" video. Even though his fame had diminished a little in the 80s, it still always seemed like he was around—new albums, new singles—and I really like a lot of his work in that decade.

It's basically The Lion King-thru-present day that you have to dig for gold in mounds of feces.

It's there though. Songs from the West Coast is the one album we own, quite a few nice numbers on that. 'Original Sin' is a lovely ballad.

Earliest memory: "I Guess That's Why They Call It The Blues" and "Don't Go Breaking My Heart" on The Muppets.

Best album: Rock of the Westies or Honky Chateau but GYBR and Caribou have highlights.

Healing Hands and Sacrifice from 1989 are definitely worth not sleeping on when voting time comes around.

They were his first UK no.1s iirc

although all his albums have clunkers here and there, his run of nine studio albums from 1970 to 1975 is pretty damn amazing.

"i want love" holds up as a great single from the 2000s.

^^^ that's how I feel about "This Train Don't Stop."

that one's good too!

here's where I admit: "Don't Let The Sun Go Down on Me," "Daniel," and especially "Crocodile Rock" leave me cold.

crocodile rock is sick man

I like Rob Sheffield's terse description of "Daniel": "apparently about dropping your brother off at the airport."

lol tell me there's no subtext

here's where i admit for probably the third or fourth time on ILM: bernie taupin is a godawful lyricist whose lyrics sound amazing coming out of elton john's mouth.

Earliest memory: "Rocket Man" on the radio when it was a hit. Liked that; didn't much like the next one, "Honkey Cat"; liked the one after that, "Crocodile Rock"; didn't like the next one at all, "Daniel." After that, he was huge.

I think that's pretty otm xp

Woo! 'Snowed In On Wheeler Street' from the last Kate Bush album.

as an example of how badly he can sing?

His duet with Pete Doherty at Live 8

Listening right now to the whole Too Low for Zero album, and it's just one good track after another. Title track is pushing all my buttons atm.

I'll rely on you fine people to let me know how many songs are worth salvaging b/w the Blue Moves-Jump Up! period.

TLFZ has "Cold as Christmas" and "Religion" as solid album tracks.

I'm here to 100% rep for The Union with Leon Russell. If you havent' heard the album, please please hasten. It's gorgeous and p marvellous.

Also the acommpanying documentary about making the album is worth yr time (v tearjerky)

Cocaine's a helluva drug:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xh2hkTzcT7c

I've been meaning to listen to that. I saw them play on tv a few places during the PR push for that album, and it was always really nice. xp

Does he have some kind of pony/rat tail hybrid in the Heartache All Over the World video?

he's on some cocaine/speed hybrid in that video

^^^ that's how I feel about "This Train Don't Stop."

― first I think it's time I kick a little verse! (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, August 6, 2013 5:00 PM (22 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

that one's good too!

― fact checking cuz, Tuesday, August 6, 2013 5:00 PM (22 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yeah, this is better than I remember. Which 00s single had Justin Timberlake as young EJ in the video? Was it this one? I know Robert Downey Jr. did one too.

"This Train," which I saw for the first time stoned in a Disney World hotel room in early 2002. For the length of the video I didn't move.

We All Fall In Love Sometimes is so great

(xp) robert downey jr did "i want love" and justin timberlake did "this train." that was a pretty awesome run of two videos.

I just watched them both for the first time in many years. Very good indeed.

I always think that I don't like 'honky cat' but whenever I hear it I fall in love with it again

Oh, that song is fantastic.

I have never listened to Honky Chateau

maan oh man Mellow might be my perfect ideal of an Elton John song. His voice, and that gorgeous piano is just sending me off to another place

I fucking loved 'I'm still standing' when I was a kid.

I like to think Elton listened to Nilsson and tried to write his own Nilsson tunes ("I Think I'm Going to Kill Myself," "Slave").

We All Fall In Love Sometimes is so great

― Ismael Klata, Tuesday, August 6, 2013 5:36 PM (18 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This understated reading may be my fave Elton John cover:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AUq9sgPqfJ8

^^^ otm i love that

Yeah, that's how I knew it first. Left me gasping for breath many a time.

elton's two-part harmony with himself (at least i think it's himself) on the chorus of "mona lisas and mad hatters" is one of my favorite vocal moments by anyone.

I like to think Elton listened to Nilsson and tried to write his own Nilsson tunes ("I Think I'm Going to Kill Myself," "Slave").

Paul Williams was in this clique as well.

Listening right now to the whole Too Low for Zero album, and it's just one good track after another. Title track is pushing all my buttons atm.

i was obsessed with this record when i was a kid

i like don't expect to participate in this poll bc elton's a big blindspot for me except for too low and the first greatest hits. and, weirdly, made in england, which i remember as both kinda leaden and kinda great

Possibly controversial most-hated vote: "Bennie and the Jets." Though, you know, still better than any of those damn Lion King singles.

Not having received any ballots, I can't take ilm's temperature of Elton favorites...but I'd expect Bennie to be one of the big contenders for coming in #1. Or not. Who knows.

is that Elton playing all the synths on the TLFZ title track?

"Grey Seal" or "Hard Luck Stories" will be #1. Print it.

o wait! I do have ONE ballot. Now it's officially a thing.

I don't hate "Bennie" quite as much as I hate "A Man Needs a Maid," but as far as songs that drag otherwise brilliant albums to a temporary screeching halt, its nearly equivocal for me.

is that Elton playing all the synths on the TLFZ title track?

I don't have the liner notes in front of me, but discogs and allmusic both list him as the primary keyboard/synth player on the record. Johnstone is the other one, but he mostly does guitar.

goodbye yellow brick road, the song, is almost guaranteed to always make me cry like a little kid

here's where I admit: "Don't Let The Sun Go Down on Me," "Daniel," and especially "Crocodile Rock" leave me cold.

― first I think it's time I kick a little verse! (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, August 6, 2013

agree 100% - none of these will be appearing on my ballot

tempted to vote for "take your mama" tbh

goodbye yellow brick road, the song, is almost guaranteed to always make me cry like a little kid

I'm not bawling or anything right now, but it's really transcendent! Something you kind of forget if you don't listen to it often.

the whoohooo hooo/aaahaaaahaaahhhhhhh's really mess me up

^^ truth

it says a lot about the arrangement and performance that yellow brick road succeeds in spite of the horny back toad business

That lyric is like the little bit of rust on a Rolls Royce. Gives it character.

it says a lot about the arrangement and performance that yellow brick road succeeds in spite of the horny back toad business

well that's kind of how the entire john/toupin oeuvre works.

taupin. not toupin.

well that's kind of how the entire john/toupin oeuvre works.

― fact checking cuz, Tuesday, August 6, 2013

ha. fair. this probably won't make my ballot but it's my all-time favorite case in point:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8S-jdXJ0H4w

I've noticed an embrace of Tumbleweed Connection in the last ten years. Christgau, who's good on Elton, wrote this:

Tumbleweed Connection [Uni, 1971]
Between the cardboard leatherette jacket and the cold-type rotogravure souvenir booklet is a piece of plastic with good melodies and bad Westerns on it. Why do people believe that these latter qualify as songpoems? Must be that magic word "connection," so redolent of trains, illegal substances, and I-and-thou. Did somebody say Grand Funk Railroad was a hype? What about this puling phony? B-

i dunno but i'll be voting the heck out of at least 3 tumbleweed tracks and wouldn't be surprised if it's more.

btw top ten youtube typeaheads for "elton john ___" are intrsting. add "bennie and the jets" to my idgi list.

man i hope nobody forgets to vote for "holiday inn"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KsC3g3N_qUQ

Scary older-brother music that was a hit here when I was a kid. Didn't know until years later that it was Elton's.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uK5VlKLrwgI

Long before Almost Famous--haven't seen this in 35+ years, when it played on TV here regularly.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3qX-uwMKd5k

(I've been meaning to order the DVD for a while.) I hope Almost Famous didn't ruin "Tiny Dancer" for anyone. Why it would, I'm not sure--that was one of the film's best scenes. Anyway, I hope the song does well here.

First run through of possible Top 20 and not one song post-1984. Still looking, but doubt anything will change.

nah still love 'tiny dancer' and madmen. knew elton plenty growing up, his big comeback circa 'i'm still standing' is one of the first rock conversations i can remember hearing my parents and their friends have, and one of my best friends in the navy was a incredibly huge elton john fan, owned literally every single album and knew each of them well (even victim of love). stoked for this, the 70s stuff is pretty great (and i'll rep for blue moves) but i do hope the 80s and 90s (and maybe beyond if anyone has any recommendations) aren't neglected.

man me in johnny fever in sync here - LOVE 'the last song', HATE 'crocodile rock' (though not as much as i used to)

obligatory:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYk2IaHxUeA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DvQwXOCKNLY

xposts: Man, Aloha Bobby and Rose! I got a bootleg of that late last year. What a soundtrack--tons of Elton, some ELP, Little Eva playing under a car crash.

Unlike other polls I've run, and the many more I've voted in, I have no clear #1/#2 choices out of the gate. I would happy to vote for any of 20-25 different Elton John songs my #1.

i have a weird fondness for Little Jeanie fyi

the melody is v comforting

i think if you gave me five guesses i could call #1 and maybe #2 but i don't want to tilt the scales

they all got played alot on radio so there's yr hint 'elton john songs that got airplay'.

Oh my guess for the poll's #1 is probably Bennie and the Jets, and a couple people have already made a point of saying they either don't like or don't get the love for Bennie and the Jets. ILM history dictates that its chances of winning increase when that happens.

I checked on Aloha, and apparently I missed my chance when I saw a cheap re-release for sale a couple of years ago--it's back to those fantasyland out-of-print prices. (Do I remember this correctly, CGM: at one point, they're driving down Sunset Strip and there's a big billboard for Neil Young's Time Fades Away?)

I voted for "Amoreena," but I had to check the title--I just think of it as the Dog Day Afternoon song.

lol it is funny that ppl haven't figured out that trashing a song on one of these threads only helps its totals out in the end. which reminds me, yknow what really sucks? 'philadelphia freedom'.

(Do I remember this correctly, CGM: at one point, they're driving down Sunset Strip and there's a big billboard for Neil Young's Time Fades Away?)

You are correct sir! There's also boards up for Ringo Starr (the s/t album I think), Goat's Head Soup, the second (?) Bette Midler album and Goodbye Yellow Brick Road.

You see glimpses of most of these (no Neil) in the trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKo-gpcxbo4

VOTED!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kc-ixsyq9mk

my five worst is two jamaican themed tracks, two rrhof covers, and i nearly gave the last slot to 'crocodile rock' but then again, no.

Let no one forget "I Don't Wanna Go On With You Like That," which I tend to forget is his biggest US hit (#2 behind George Michael's "Monkey") between "Little Jeannie" and the '91 duet with George Michael. I like the obnoxious finger snap program and the rare (for this period) Elton solo.

Don't know if I'll vote in this, but I've had such an on again/off again relationship with Elton. Thanks to my parents and one of my aunts, I grew up hearing Madman, Honky Chateau, Captain Fantastic, Don't Shoot and Goodbye Yellow Brick Road all the time, and I loved a lot of his 80s singles. But 90s Elton and Disney/Broadway Elton became so wearying to me, that I started falling victim to Phil Collins Syndrome, where his later work began negating anything I used to like about him.

In a just world, "Funeral For A Friend/Love Lies Bleeding" would be #1. Tempted to submit a ballot with "Healing Hands" as my #1, though. That was a pretty good single for that period of his work.

I may be the only person alive who feels a rush of Proustian nostalgia when hearing this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qbDAp0lKolc‎

No, wait, shit, "Empty Garden" would be my #1 vote. The last chorus and outro of that song make me cry like the end of E.T. does.

Phil Collins is worth bringing up. Collins has the better pedigree and is more talented yet sounds weightless next to Elton, who plumbed this hybrid of English eccentricity and L.A. professionalism that still sounds one of a kind.

I always bracket Elton and Bowie together, in that they wouldn't necessarily have looked too different starting out. No doubt whose career you'd rather have though.

but Bowie's hasn't been terrible though.

my ballot will be 80s heavy because that's when I came to know him and those are the songs I sing when I think of him. 70s albums are kinda...proggy? and that's not my thing. some dope 70s singles (I used to be a rolling stone you know) but hearing "I'm Still Standing" called a comeback when I first started on MTV, I thought he'd been gone for a long time, but he'd had what, two bad years saleswise?

That's what I wanna know: other than "Mama Can't Buy You Love" and "Little Jeannie" did he really disappear down a hole between 1978 and 1983?

For some reason I thought Don't Go Breaking My Heart was later, and perhaps the only brief moment of success in that period, but it's from 1976.

yeah Kiki's overalls in the video are a kind of giveaway there

anyone here rep for "Act of War"?

xp it was no.1 when I was born

Totally stoked for this. Not ready to put together a ballot together but here are a few HYPE MOVES for those who aren't as familiar with the back catalog. I might throw these into a Spotify playlist or something, for those who aren't ready to get up to speed on EVERYTHING. Songs to NOT MISS from the classic '70-75 run, album by album:

Tumbleweed Connection - this album is more about 'feel' IMO or maybe i haven't dug into it enough - sometimes the whole conceit just strikes me as too corny - but opener "Ballad of a Well Known Gun" will give you a good idea if you'll like it or not and is a pretty solid song.

Madman Across The Water - the big hits ("Levon" and "Tiny Dancer") give you the idea here - piano ballads layered up with orchestra and so on. Backing vocals really coming into focus here. The slightly twangier things are fantastic: "Holiday Inn" will make my ballot, and "Rotten Peaches" is nice. "Indian Sunset" is a huge chore though, might make my 'worst.' O great father of the Iroquois??? I used to be in love with one of an inseparable pair of girls who adored "Razor Face" so I can't be rational about that.

Honky Chateau - a concise, listenable rock-ballad record. You know "Rocket Man" (this will be #1 in the poll IMO) and you should listen to "Honky Cat" again to realize how much craft there is in it. The fan favorite is "Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters," which is kind of a Tiny Dancer II. "Hercules" is my favorite deep cut here though.

Don't Shoot Me I'm Only The Piano Player - I feel like this one gets overlooked a lot, maybe because everybody hates "Crocodile Rock." (I've actually warmed up to it a bit, in the context of the album) and is lukewarm on "Daniel" (a super lovely song IMO). This is maybe his most "fun" album, closest perhaps to the Nilsson comparison above - see "Texan Love Song," "I'm Gonna Be A Teenage Idol," and most especially "Elderberry Wine" which is an earworm and a delight. "High Flying Bird" is one of his finest Wistful Album-Closing Heart-Stirrers.

Goodbye Yellow Brick Road: The token double album with maybe a little too much. See the poll thread: Elton John's Goodbye Yellow Brick Road - the POLL You know the title track, "Candle in the Wind," "Saturday Night's All Right For Fighting," "Bennie & the Jets," and if you grew up on classic rock radio then you are assuredly already going to vote for "Funeral For A Friend/Love Lies Bleeding," whose two halves are him at his proggiest and most rockingest. The key deep cut is "Grey Seal." I also rep for "The Ballad of Danny Bailey."

Caribou: A slight album - not sure I even have a copy currently. "Don't Let The Sun Go Down On Me" is better than later covers might have you remembering. Never really went for "The Bitch Is Back" though.

Captain Fantastic - His best record. Has its own, neglected thread ("Captain Fantastic" C/D?), and I have a hard time cherry-picking. With a longer ballot I'd probably vote for almost every song. The title track! "Tower of Babel"! "Meal Ticket"! "Better off Dead"! "Curtains," an incredible closer. And of course "Someone Saved My Life" which has grown over-familiar but is still an incredible song and performance. Elton & Taupin were so theatrical and lyrical, very McCartney-ish in their tendency to do character- and story-songs, work in genres. This record is them applying all their craft, at its peak, to a theme and a narrative that was theirs and it reveals an alternate world where all those goofball Taupin lines in previous songs had been replaced by heart-wrenching confessions (i.e. seven albums of "Rocket Man"-level greatness) - granted, we might have lost a lot in the trade but it's still striking to me. This album should be listened to on good speakers, in the evening, with a glass of something and a readiness to soak it up.

Rock of the Westies - Inevitably a bit of a comedown but I think it's underrated - this is the return to the "Honky Chateau"/"Don't Shoot Me" model of just a solid, not-too-long collection of well-done songs. ("Caribou" tries but doesn't have the meat.) The second side falls off a bit but I think the first five tracks are as good as any five-song run on any of his albums. It sort of depends on how much the plot/themes/language of "Island Girl" and "Grow Some Funk Of Your Own" make you cringe - as compositions and performances they are killer, and it's understandable why they were hits, just as it's understandable why they've since sort of fallen off the radar. The riff on "Grow Some Funk" just draws you right in. "Dan Dare (Pilot of the Future)" makes more of an attempt to actually assimilate some funky sounds, and I like the raw bark of the hook despite a somewhat wandering verse. "I Feel Like A Bullet In The Gun Of Robert Ford" is no "Someone Saved My Life," but it's a very solid ballad of betrayal, good use of the falsetto.

Non-album: The hell with "Pinball Wizard" but I will totally throw a vote at "Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds," just for the endless finale and the way he yells "Lucy!!"

Voted. Nothing after 1972.

^^Two guys on the same page as me. Will leave the rest of you to figure out the best songs from after he ceased to exist for some of us.

Man, maybe I should have put this on my ballot.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evEbAbQ2sQk

Caribou gets short shrift but as others have noted yeah it has its moments; Grimsby and Dixie Lily among them.

my all time under-rated track choice would be this. utter bafflement this wasn't a single

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rls8cfomkBQ

Don't Shoot Me I'm Only The Piano Player - I feel like this one gets overlooked a lot, maybe because everybody hates "Crocodile Rock." (I've actually warmed up to it a bit, in the context of the album) and is lukewarm on "Daniel" (a super lovely song IMO). This is maybe his most "fun" album, closest perhaps to the Nilsson comparison above - see "Texan Love Song," "I'm Gonna Be A Teenage Idol," and most especially "Elderberry Wine" which is an earworm and a delight. "High Flying Bird" is one of his finest Wistful Album-Closing Heart-Stirrers.

Possibly my fave Elton record, though "Texan Love Song" is a bit too snarky (kind of his "Southern Man," since I've been into making Elton/Neil connections since this poll started). Agree with all of the other songs highlighted here, though you didn't mention "Blues For My Baby and Me," which is my favourite Elton "deep cut."

My current plan of attack for the poll is to re-listen to everything from Empty Sky through Rock of the Westies, which I'd long ago designated as a reasonable cut off point. Also, the three Greatest Hits volumes; I realize that more comprehensive collections exist now but a) these discs were childhood staples in my house and, b) no way am I voluntarily subjecting myself to "Can You Feel the Love Tonight" again.

"I Feel Like a Bullet From the Gun of Robert Ford" kills me – his best ballad imo and that's saying something.

Love Rock of the Westies. It's got inscrutable tunes but also "Hard Luck Stories," one of his best Stones rips.

The key deep cut is "Grey Seal." I also rep for "The Ballad of Danny Bailey."

both probably in my top twenty

i'm presently working my way through the 80s albums. Jump Up! is in no way bad, but Ice on Fire definitely is. AWFUL.

OH NIKITA YOU WILL NEVER KNOW

Love Nikita

<3 Wikipedia:

The video for the song "Nikita", directed by Ken Russell, featured Anya Major in the role of Nikita and a cameo appearance by Justin Lewis. Russell says he didn't realise[citation needed] that Nikita was a man's name in the Russian language (e.g. Nikita Khrushchev) and Elton John accepted the proposed script written by Russell which was a male-female love interpretation of the song, as indeed the depicted East German border guard in the video is a beautiful blonde woman with short hair. Scenes showing the two together in various happy situations, including wearing the colours of Watford F.C. of whom John is a supporter, were based in fantasy, and many were expecting a follow-up after the fall of the Berlin Wall in which they would free to be together, but it never materialised. In interviews John, who is openly gay, has said that he was aware that Nikita was a male name in Russian.[citation needed]

Nikita is a nostalgic favorite from my childhood. When you're up to your neck in pleading-with-russia-themed songs and bloody Sting is laying it on thick, Nikita is a nice reprieve.

Re: latter-day tracks, if this were a 40-song ballot I would seriously consider "Circle of Life" and "This Train Don't Stop There Anymore" (never realized that was JT in the video!) from his ponderous crooner era, and "Sad Songs" and "I'm Still Standing" (CLOWN BY NOW!) for 80s Elton. 20 is going to be really fucking hard.

http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/i/MSNBC/Components/Photo/_new/130614-obama-putin--file-jsw-1110a.jpg

LOOK TOWARD THE EAST AND FIND A FRIEND

man I woke up CRAVING a spin of 'Little Jeannie'

Now I really want to hear "Blue Eyes."

I think I like Elton John a lot more than I think I do.

omg blue eyes

<3

I think I like Elton John a lot more than I think I do.

I think everybody does.

though I have to say right here and now that I don't think I can ever hear 'Sacrfice' again without barfing. My Mum had that album and played it ALLLLL the fucking time. ALL the time.

did I say ALL the time? ALL the time.

I like Elton John exactly as much as I think I do.

Elderberry Wine" which is an earworm and a delight

seconded!

VG that's too bad. I really love that song.

to make up for hating Sacrifice, I just realized that I really love 'Heartache All Over the World' for reasons that I don't quite understand. It's a TERRIBLE song. But it was on the first compilation cassette I purchased with my own money H'Its Huge 85

I am voting for both "Sacrifice" and "Daniel" but based as much on the Sinead and Tortoise/Bonnie Prince Billy covers as the originals.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWa-aMiqQKE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4TDtTeZZSKw

TOKYO TO ROME
(TOKYO TO ROME)

"blue eyes" is gorgeous but would have been way better with wtf bernie taupin lyrics instead of the way-too-on-the-nose gary osborne lyrics. "harmony" gets this right.

lol almost posted the same about 'sacrifice'

as much as i love 70s Elton i hate 80s Elton pretty much entirely. or i think i do. hopefully these threads may show me the light!

That's the thing. I listen to 70's elton and I'm so in love with that sound and style and the writing...but there's a lot of 80's elton that I just dig for fun stupid reasons. I enjoy all the fruits of our cultural tree, lol

Unless something unexpected happens, "Sacrifice" is likely to be the only post-1975 thing on my ballot. Lovely song.

Found a vinyl copy of Reg Strikes Back in my in-laws' basement recently, but I don't know if I can be persuaded to listen to it. Never liked "I Don't Want to Go On With You Like That" in the first place, and the idea of 80s Elton revisiting "Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters" is kind of frightening.

Listening to Tumbleweed Connection this morning

Man imagine if Elton and The Band had recorded together. (I'm imagining this in a good way as a Band fan, do not imagine this if u hate the Band, obv)

Anybody into Candle In The Wind 97?

NO

'i'm still standing' is the only one i'd really consider putting super high though i know alot of ppl rank 'sad songs (say so much)' super high. listened to leather jackets last night and it was pretty dire. that comeback talk circa too low for zero may seem sorta befuddling - that down period falls right within that ridiculous streak of twenty something consecutive years he had a top 40 hit - but i could imagine for ppl that knew him as his ridiculous midas height the mediocre to poor album a year w/ a track that hits top 40 but comes nowhere near #1 version of elton john would seem pretty diminished. too low for zero also height of elton john's visibility on mtv so it was the first time since rolling stone interview/blue moves that he would've seemed as big as any of these new wave kiddies. plus i'm sure the label pushed that angle. i can remember reg strikes back and the one were promoted heavily as comeback albums, though w/ the one he may have just been talking about his hair.

Finally checking out 11-17-70. The cover of "Honky Tonk Women" is making a pretty good case for this....

oh man, an Elton John Basement Tapes would have been incredible.

I can't be the only person who'll stan for "I Guess That's Why They Call It the Blues" can I? That'll be in my top 5.

Candle in the Wind 97 > Candle in the Wind imo

think I will not vote for it though

"I Guess That's Why They Call It the Blues" will be VERY high on mine

ROLLIN LIKE THUNDAH

Will only vote for "Candle in the Wind" if it *doesn't* count as a vote for the '97 version as well.

can't imagine voting for anything post-75 except maaaaaybe "i guess that's why they call it the blues," tho the backing vox kinda wreck that one.

Candle votes will not be combined. I'm not a monster!

CitW '97 was instantly the top of my hated list.

ah shit, no, it's the 1988 live Candle in the Wind that I really like. never heard 97

BTW, it has to be said that Geir should be here for this one.

1997 is the one rejiggered for Princess Diana.

yeah fuck that obv

also just want to give a shout out here to davey johnstone

goodbah england's roooose

barf

yeah Davey rocks no doubt. every bit as good as Ronson at times.

there was that weird era circa the early 1990s when albums like The One and Made In England were considered to be a return to form but they were crap aswell, he was just fashionable again after 'Sacrifice'.

"I Guess That's Why They Call It the Blues" will be VERY high on mine

― Euler, Wednesday,

TOP FIVE

Circa '97, a friend of mine used to like to improvise CITW-like lyrics every time a celebrity died ("Goodbye Gianni Versace..." etc)

"The One" got massive airplay in summer '92, but, again, comeback from what? "Sacrifice" got more airplay than its top fifteen position would suggest and the George Michael actually hit #1.

not crazy about 'candle in the wind' in any way which is odd cuz i love elton when his beach boys fandom comes out and i love 'empty garden' so really 'candle in the wind' should be up my alley. 87 version is my 'fave' i guess but i'm not wild about his voice on it. i might even prefer the 97 version to the goodbye yellow brick road version. tbf the songs i don't like on goodbye yellow brick road i tend to go overboard in hating cuz man is that the proverbial double lp that would be amazing pared down to a single.

xpost I think balls has it - wrongly perceived comeback from perceived slump in form of going from year-after-year smash albums everyone loved, to intermittent Top 40 presence. Most people would be pretty happy to knock out a moderate, forgettable hit on the regular, but this guy was once the second- or fourth-biggest act in the world for the better part of a decade.

I pitched the "pare it down" angle on the poll thread, nobody really went for it though.

without spoiling the fun here's what's def going in:

Harmony
Blue Eyes
I Guess That's Why...
Have Mercy on the Criminal
Hard Luck Stories

I Guess That's Why >>>>>>> Sad Songs

yeah johnstone's one of those guys. no one ever talks about him but when they do it's all good stuff. great player, super versatile. lick from love lies bleeding is all-time and super fun to play.

Wasn't he simply the biggest from '73 to '76? Maybe Led Zeppelin was bigger, I don't know...you'd have to decide how to weight albums/singles/tours.

want to put a word in for the take on "Madman on the Water" with Mick Ronson; sooooooo much better than the one that would eventually end up on the (next) album

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHq625bJiGs

guys TWO of his albums debuted at #1. That's huge.

this really wasn't in the running for my ballot but i have a weird soft spot for this even elton's barely awake on it and musically it's 90s sting. if i hear it in a publix or whatever i'll be 'o blessed - nice! o pineapple's on sale - nice!'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6CCsODb6D0g

Was just going to say: Captain Fantastic was the first album ever to do that. It was a weekly thing once Soundscan came in, but at the time that was a big deal. (Maybe it just meant he had better people rigging the charts for him.)

I got Made in England free as one of those Columbia Record Club deals. I remember being puzzled by the number of one-word titles and by the complete collapse in his ability to rock (the title track).

Wasn't he simply the biggest from '73 to '76? Maybe Led Zeppelin was bigger, I don't know...you'd have to decide how to weight albums/singles/tours.

― clemenza, Wednesday, August 7, 2013 1:07 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I haven't done the heavy lifting of looking at chart performances etc but he was certainly bigger than Zeppelin! I was thinking of, like, Stevie Wonder and the Jacksons. Probably somebody else huge I'm just blanking on.

yeah those albums debuted at #1 when that was an astounding feat. in the u.s (or north america i guess) i can't really think of any genuine comp (esp considering how ridiculously prolific he was)(at the label's insistence right? another way the music industry's changed) and any contenders i do come up w/ (namely stevie wonder) provoke an immediate 'yeah, you wish' from the corner of my mind. the supremes gave the beatles more comp in 64.

Jacksons, definitely not (they were just kind of hanging around in '74-75); Stevie Wonder in terms of awards, but I don't think he sold as many records or charted as high/as often as Elton (but I'd have to check). I wouldn't discount Zeppelin, though, at least not through Physical Graffiti.

xxxpost

I kinda like the Keith Richards-y guitar in this (I'd ask if it actually was Keith, but you know), even though the lyrics are some of the most 90s old guy would-be profundity this side of the Eagles' "Get Over It"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7ezHCJoC-w

i think a elton vs zeppelin comparison is gonna be like mariah vs pearl jam for early nineties. slightly different ballparks and whoever wins depends on who's the home team.

Of course, Elton was pretty vague in those days about which team he was on.

Bud dum!

his wig was at its worst on the covers of The One and Made In England too. a small point but for the man who had some the best artwork in the history of mainstream rock for much of the 70s, a key one i feel.

he had a real run of flop singles in the late 70s / early 80s. haven't even heard some of them
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elton_John_discography#1975.E2.80.931979

Wasn't he simply the biggest from '73 to '76? Maybe Led Zeppelin was bigger, I don't know...you'd have to decide how to weight albums/singles/tours.

― clemenza, Wednesday, August 7, 2013 1:07 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Saleswise Elton probably edged out Zep, but Elton was by far the bigger star, being all over TV and magazines and such. Can't imagine Zep on the Muppet Show.

that's his hair man, proud of those plugs

xpost

while it is all too easy to imagine Elton himself as a Muppet

Highly recommend this Playboy interview from January '76, the very zenith of his celebrity:

http://launch.groups.yahoo.com/group/eltonjohncorporationinenglishgroup/message/780

Lots of stuff about record collecting, the competition, and other pressing matters of the day.

PLAYBOY: More recently, people like David Bowie -- or even Led Zeppelin, when they showed up at an L.A. party in drag -- have outdone the Stones in kinkiness and in projecting an androgynous image. How do you react to that? In fact, do you get off on the bisexuality scene?

JOHN: Ah, I sort of got pneumonia sitting out in this theater last night. So fucking cold...And, um, I played tennis on the court the other night. It was so foggy I couldn't see the other players.

PLAYBOY: Our question had to do with your feelings about the bisexual-chic trend.

JOHN: I really don't know what to say about it.

are hair plugs *your own hair*? i suppose they must be.

yeah i think they take them from yr ass

those would be butt plugs.

Wow, "Pain" is really great. I'd forgotten how great. I probably wouldn't even have bothered going back to listen to it, so thanks for the youtube, crypto.

I really don't know what to say about hair plug chic.

he had a real run of flop singles in the late 70s / early 80s. haven't even heard some of them
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elton_John_discography#1975.E2.80.931979

yeah see when was the last time (if ever) you heard "Ego" or "Part-Time Love"?

i'm not gonna sit here and pretend his hair looks better on caribou or rock of the westies i can tell you that

wish you could still embed audio like in prime noise days cuz would love for results thread to play george michael going 'ladies and gentlemen mr. elton john!' every time you opened it

4 ballots already. Totally understand waiting to vote, though. My own probably won't come until the last minute.

anything on all four ballots? everybody stepping into christmas so far?

how comes he fell off a cliff, in terms of hits, i wonder?

xp Yeah, still a few. Don't have an exact number because I haven't plugged anything into a spreadsheet yet.

rolling stone interview (there's no way this didn't hurt him in america), drop in quality of music, break w/ taupin, change in styles in larger culture

It's too neat, I think, to say "He admitted to his bisexuality, therefore his sales fell." Already on Blue Moves and even ROTW he showed signs of wear. No one in that era could have maintained his level of productivity and exposure.

how comes he fell off a cliff, in terms of hits, i wonder?

Probably a combination of him being so huge for so many years that people were bored AND he was making inferior records.

amazing that a song with this title grazed the top 40:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ao7dPd2OGp8

No Taupin, no kickass rock backing band, shitty album covers that make it look like River of Dreams a decade early, rock audiences going either heavier for metal or sky-high for corporate rock making his Beatlesy-Stonesy thing seem vaguely dated (Billy Joel notwithstanding), no attempt that we know of to 'respond to' punk/new wave/disco (Kiki Dee notwithstanding)... and basically his own personal well had run dry I think, he kept up a psycho recording and touring schedule for longer than the Beatles, plus cocaine, right?

Like by all rights, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road should have been his flew-too-close-to-the-sun moment, it's nothing short of miraculous that he did some of his best work not long after but also not surprising that he'd slide from the top. The cracks are showing on Caribou, Captain Fantastic stiffed on followup singles, and ''Island Girl'' and ''Funk'' are good but not ''Rocket Man'' good...it only looks like a cliff because the end-of-decade records are SO forgotten.

although as we've said already his wattage dimmed but he was still scoring the occasional top fiver.

Can't remember - did we decide if we had a 'New Jersey'?

ROTW.

like you said, "Island Girl" got to #1 on career momentum.

also reading that rolling stone interview now which is right before blue moves (which is the first one to relatively tank) and which is where he comes out as 'bisexual'(and it's a pretty funny read, esp w/ how really unnecessary it is for elton to actually say the words - there's a bitchfest w/ david bowie and he's hanging out w/ divine) they mention the slight decline in sales he was already going thru (captain fantastic one of those blockbusters that's also probably bursting the bubble, cf honey w/ mariah) and him wanting to slow down and take a break. plus he had been a huge star for several years, nobody stays at the top forever. stevie's getting pretty shaky around this time also.

I just saw an ad on youtube for a new album in September. Produced by T Bone Burnett. Hmmm.

Songs in the Key of Life the third album to debut at #1 btw

Wonder avoided a New Jersey by recording a double album soundtrack to a plant documentary.

Oh now I see the Elton/Leon Russell thing was done with T Bone as well. Still need to listen to that.

also elton totally had his disco moment (neverminding thom bell)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUNiuISEh6M

guess where this ended up on my ballot

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ndbBNslpBf8

I just saw an ad on youtube for a new album in September. Produced by T Bone Burnett. Hmmm.
--Ⓓⓡ. (Johnny Fever)

This just makes me hungry for the inevitable valedictory Rubin joint.

my best friend, partly as a joke, bought me a pristine copy of The Fox last Xmas. Man, does that album define clocking it in. Some of the titles look like word exercises ("Just Like Belgium," the title track). The only "hit" was "Nobody Wins," which he didn't write. There's a touching coming-out song called "Elton's Song" with lyrics by Tom Robinson.

wish i could find that long UNCUT mag feature from 2001 where he talked about the 70s but it doesn't seem to be online

http://www.vinylsolution.com/images/products/64815.jpg

Wow, "Pain" is really great. I'd forgotten how great. I probably wouldn't even have bothered going back to listen to it, so thanks for the youtube, crypto.

thank god i'm not crazy in remembering made in england as sorta good

man is "Wrap Her Up" embarrassing and depressing: two closeted homos trying to out-het each other.

"Just Like Belgium,"

I hope the chorus to this is:

Ooh-ooh, fries and mayo
Ooh-ooh, soft and Flemish
Oooh-ooh, just like Belgium

the lockjawed groove of "Kiss The Bride" conveys the same kind of desperate fumbling for het cover.

Haha! That's why I almost love it, but can't quite get there. xps to Wrap Her Up

One night last week I woke up at 2:28 in the morning literally singing the chorus to Rocket Man. It was the weirdest fucking thing.

i just noticed for the first time in my life that the album i grew up knowing as 11-17-70 is called 17-11-70 everywhere else in the world. i mean, of course. but it never occurred to me.

In 2001 Elton regarded Heartache All Over the World as the worst song he'd ever recorded, calling it "pretty insubstantial".[5]

In 2000, Gus Dudgeon said: "There was a chance he could polish himself off. He'd go out and do some coke and it'd be all over his mouth, his nose would be running and I'd go: 'Oh God, this is just awful'."[6]

However, lyricist Bernie Taupin believes The Big Picture deserves the honour of worst album.[3]

Wow, "Pain" is really great. I'd forgotten how great. I probably wouldn't even have bothered going back to listen to it, so thanks for the youtube, crypto.

You're all I ever wanted, I.M. Pei

Made in England is actually a very solid album. I haven't heard any of Elton's classic albums and probably won't vote in the poll, but I dug the singles off MIE when I heard them on the radio as a kid, and the album didn't disappoint. "Cold" is another excellent album track.

HEY NIKITA IS IT POLLED

Disco and punk pushed a lot of people out of the limelight in '77, so I'm not surprised he was never again the #1 guy after that. And as people have already pointed out, throw in drugs, bad timing (I've never heard Blue Moves, just the big single, but I take it it's ballad-heavy--terrible move in 1977), and his personal issues, and decline was probably inevitable.

supposedly Graham Taylor was responsible for getting EJ off the booze and the coke. not sure how.

He hauled him into his office and tore strips off him iirc, but he didn't know anything about the coke, just thought Elt had a problem with whisky.

They secured a three-year songwriting contract, with Taupin and John earning pounds 10 and pounds 15 a week respectively. It was an intense but strange period. Elton recalls a particularly strange project where he had to try to make Nick Drake songs more commercial. 'An impossible task, really,' he says, smiling. 'I needed the money, so I did it.'

Did this ever see daylight? It seems a bit unlikely.

appeal of this guy eludes me, curious to see if poll results change that

Ditto. I love "Philadelphia Freedom" -- far and away my favorite song by him -- but everything else never really appealed to me. Still gonna lurk & learn.

hey tarfumes you should vote

a lot of the things I find irritating about Billy Joel are mirrored in Elton - the broadway-schtick dressed up as rock, the uniformly terrible lyrics, the obvious insecurity (masked by aggression with Joel, masked by camp with Elton), the unbearable 80s hits, Disney dreck, etc

and of course both have a penchant for getting REALLY unpleasantly maudlin

I'm not here to judge anyone's relationship to EJ, but Philadelphia Freedom seems like a weird favorite to have if it's the only thing you like by him.

that song is ALMOST the best though

song's a masterpiece

me and casino used to get in heated (like breaking bottles iirc) arguments over elton john vs billy joel. stones vs beatles. curious if his involvement here means he's seen the light.

Elton's weirder than Joel.

SMC OTM, although I'll take Elton over Joel in a heartbeat. Elton never did uncomfortably forced "Please take me seriously as a rocker!" moves like Joel always did.

cuz Elton is British. They like pop! They lack the hangups Americans have.

soul train!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhJHL34DiBY

so does anybody own Blue Moves? Is it on Spotify?

Everything Joel does, Elton does just a little better (sing, play, create a persona, etc). Except Joel writes his own lyrics, and they're only sometimes embarrassing, but I don't know if that's any reason to ding Elton's tally, since it's no secret he doesn't even try writing his own.

I like both, btw.

omigod guys remember "Through The Storm"?

xp Blue Moves is on Spotify. "Sorry Seems..." is still probably the only track on it I'd consider voting for, but it's not awful or anything.

I like it too. Best song on that Ray Charles Grammy album too.

Elton's weirder than Joel.

lol well I live in a city of drag queens, Long Island seems like a foreign country by comparison

Dunno why I dig "Philadelphia" so much more than his other songs, but there's a certain kind of charm and sincerity that I don't really hear in most of his other stuff (only know the hits, though). Also, the bass player kills in the choruses.

Drag queens aren't weird. Elton is weirder than a drag queen.

soul train!

Fucking love that clip.

They secured a three-year songwriting contract, with Taupin and John earning pounds 10 and pounds 15 a week respectively. It was an intense but strange period. Elton recalls a particularly strange project where he had to try to make Nick Drake songs more commercial. 'An impossible task, really,' he says, smiling. 'I needed the money, so I did it.'

Did this ever see daylight? It seems a bit unlikely.

― Ismael Klata, Wednesday, August 7, 2013 3:52 PM (54 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsfk4hd6uiI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGG1N6uryCI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90ILaeRPyA4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0GqTeu7t-I

iirc, a young Linda Thompson was one of the other singers on that Drake covers/publishing demos session.

Listening to Tumbleweed Connection this morning Man imagine if Elton and The Band had recorded together.

"ballad of a well known gun" and "up on cripple creek" are pretty much the same song, musically speaking.

xp - Nick Drake vetoed the arranger that (producer) Joe Boyd wanted to use for Five Leaves Left; instead, he wanted to use Robert Kirby, a friend of his who had never arranged a record in his life. But he turned stunning arrangements for the string quartet and winds on Five Leaves Left and Bryter Layter, and went on to do arrangements for Elton John as well (on Madman Across the Water), as well as for John Cale, Sandy Denny, Richard and (yes) Linda Thompson, Ralph McTell, Elvis Costello, Nick Lowe, Paul Weller, and even the London Symphony Orchestra.

There are some John and Beverly Martyn covers of Drake's material from around that time as well.

other EJ polls for reference

Elton John's Seventies Albums Poll
eLTON jOHN - hONKEY cHATEAU pOLL
Elton John's Goodbye Yellow Brick Road - the POLL
Tumbleweed Connection poll + thread where we talk about how it's the best Elton John album and how anyone who thinks otherwise is kinda crazy
Elton John Greatest Hits Vol. 1
You Wanted It (I Think), So Here It Is ... Elton John's "Greatest Hits, Vol. 2"
Mo' Elton -- Greatest Hits, 1976-1986 (for Greatest Hits, Vol. 3)

balls - haha, seriously!? This is hard for me to reconstruct. The aforementioned crush on the "Razor Face" girl was in full effect by then for one thing - and I'd owned and enjoyed Goodbye Yellow Brick Road for years, having nicked it from my parents' collection as a teen. It definitely wasn't until my Ohio years (also my ILX years) that I really started getting into deep cuts though. It's possible I was slightly biased by the other main exposure I'd had to Elton: the 1976-86 greatest hits, one of a handful of CDs owned by my parents, and largely baffling to me.

But yeah, I'm now a pretty heavy-duty fan.

(working on 'deep cuts' spotify playlist)

please!

you did sing 'goodbye yellow brick road' as yr last song but yeah I remember that very clearly, blew my mind as much you loving joe jackson but hating elvis costello.

The GYBR "Classic Albums" episode is on Netflix btw. Just watched. I'll never tire of hearing about bands who went to Jamaica to record in the 1970s only to find out they'd barely escape with their lives.

Believe it or not, I bought that just today in a 2/$10 bin (along with Plastic Ono Band). I'd flipped past it many times in various sale bins, so I guess credit this poll. Later heard "Rocket Man" in the supermarket. Forces are gathering.

SPOTIFY PLAYLISTS FOR PRE-BALLOT RESEARCH

ALBUM TRACKS recommended in thread, LESSER-KNOWN SINGLES, and JUST GENERALLY COOL SHIT that's come up:

http://open.spotify.com/user/doctorcasino/playlist/7dwOdISxoEzhub1zAsw3Wq

LATE SEVENTIES, EIGHTIES and NINETIES SINGLES that i can't REMEMBER BY NAME, plus ODDITIES mentioned on thread:

http://open.spotify.com/user/doctorcasino/playlist/05z4fseJjCDymTtQTc8L9B

will update as more stuff comes up

omg <3 u balls for remembering that

i did such a shitty version of it too, voice was already shot from "Message In A Bottle" and "Stand and Deliver." I did get a sweet, kind goodbye kiss from Razor Face girl (who prefaced it by singing a few bars of "Kiss Me" by Sixpence None the Richer) but that might have been at the preceding Tuesday's goodbye party (DJed by Kanye Twitty or perhaps Th1ghs on the Pr1ze)

ok, refresh my memory. does razor face girl = http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2008/06/15/images/mikemills_lgl.jpg ?

hahahahahahahhahahaha

no

razor face is pretty fucked up and mean btw, that's got simpson's fingerprints all over it.

no Caribou and ..Westies on Spotify (UK) bafflingly.

Cariboooooo

listening to "Pain" right now, predictably lolling at "I.M. Pei"

Keep wanting the "doot doot doot doot"s from "Hungry Like the Wolf" to come in though.

(btw the "songs i don't know" playlist does include a lot of stuff that's gotten love in this thread and elsewhere on ILM, e.g. "Song For Guy," "Little Jeannie" etc - but they were hits (???) and figured I'd keep the 'deep cuts' playlist clean. But if you're like me and 80s/90s Elton is generally a total fog beyond the blockbusters you might find this enjoyable)

also, listening to "Dan Dare (Pilot of the Future)" makes me think Taupin could rate a similar thread to rap music's memorable banalities , but focusing on moments of particularly un-illuminating nonsense. "Dan Dare doesn't know it / But I like the Mekon"?

I think I've halfway figured out pivot tables, even though what I've got right now looks pretty jacked up. Still, it's already a lot easier than adding each ballot in by doing the math manually.

As asked earlier, with four ballots in, only two tracks are unanimous already.

Starting to piece together my own ballot. I was going to ditch Someone Saved My Life Tonight in favor of some deeper cut, but I can't do it! It must stay, sugar bear.

though there isn't quite enough elton here for it to merit a vote, this is my all-time fave elton collaboration:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTTVx--i3m0

Elton could party, sez Andy Taylor:

There were lots of celebrities around in Cannes and one day we discovered that Elton John was in town, filming the video for his song I'm Still Standing. This was before Elton became teetotal, so he was still a steaming party animal; we went up to see him at his hotel and spent the afternoon getting blasted on Martinis. We decided it would be a laugh to get him drunk and we were slinging the drinks down him 'Ooh, you are lovely boys,' he screeched, loving every minute of it. We got him so drunk that eventually he went upstairs and threw a wobbler in his suite. It caused all sorts of chaos - but it was a great party.[4]

went to Cannes because of that video & the video for "World" so thanks Elton!

I had to visit an "English"-to-English dictionary to find out what "threw a wobbler" means. Disappointed, tbh.

still Justin's best performance on filn:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SsuHAn54wPs

I have successfully narrowed my top 20 to just 24 candidates, but not sure which 4 to cut and how to rank them. In past, I've pointed and laughed at people who've posted about this predicament, so this serves me right!

that sounds turrble man. just send me the list and i'll let you know what to cut.

My first pass also comes out to 24 songs. Weird.

Still can't decide on a #1.

Been trying to check out the years' worth of mystery material but it's rough going. I totally dig "Pain" but some of these other picks are baffling to me...

Decided to throw all strategy out the window and go with my guts. Felt good.

still Justin's best performance on filn:

wth is this? it isn't particularly funny so I assume it's not SNL and it *sounds* like Elton (kinda) and not JT singing...? (hooray for PeeWee tho)

It's an Elton John video from 2002.

I mean, at the time it was kind of revelatory, because in 2002 he was still just the singer in NSYNC and Britney Spears' boyfriend.

Shakey, he's playing young Elton at his peak.

well yeah I got that much I just didn't get the context, had to google it

the guy w/ the glasses is supposed to be elton john. the dude playing him is justin timberlake from trouble with the curve.

plz what is an elton john

Elton Dean and Long John Baldrey had a baby, and they named it...

Ben Elton and Doctor John

i'm just now sitting down to dig into the catalog beyond what i already know and start working on my ballot. is it crazy that i kinda wanna vote for this, though?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5aVkVdFfLs

Honky Cat

xpost NO! I was thinking the same thing. I love it so much!

I'm wondering if I'm a terrible person for loving Kiss the Bride

also can I just

OH I FINALLY DECIDED MY FUTURE LIIIIIIES
BEYOOOOOOND THE YELLLOW BRICK
ROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAD
AAAAAAAAHHHAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

veg i wouldn't feel bad, i wanted to put 'kiss the bride' for being heteronormative or whatever but then again, no.

Lyrics aside, the attempt at "rocking out" is embarrassing.

it may have helped that i listened (sorta) to leather jackets right before listening to 'kiss the bride' again and hence thought 'well this isn't so bad after all'

"Passengers" was a hit in England!

omigod I had no idea "A Word in Spanish" was a single. Did this get any airplay?

and the Aretha thing.

I vaguely remember "A Word in Spanish" from when I was a kid. Possibly heard it on Casey Kasem's Top 40.

yeah i heard it some, it wasn't a huge hit. decent song. reading up on elton's producers - chris thomas has had an interesting career. pretty amusing that the guy who mixed dark side of the moon (and the division bell!) produced the sex pistols.

and Roxy Music and the Pretenders1

man "Sixty Years On" is DOPE

hard to believe that Timberlake video is 10 years old

huh, so i knew the 'i want love' and 'this train doesn't stop there anymore' videos, did not know about this though:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlAik_LH89w

I like "a word in Spanish" more than "Levon"

and Roxy Music and the Pretenders1

― first I think it's time I kick a little verse! (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, August 9, 2013 7:08 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yeah, Thomas' production on Stranded is masterful. And he did great work on Townshend's Empty Glass and All The Best Cowboys.... Didn't know he'd produced Elton!

(also, got his start being drafted into the lead engineer role on the white album when Geoff Emerick abruptly quit)

yeah he's kinda traded off w/ gus dudgeon for most of the elton from the past thirty five years (and by and large produced the best stuff from that period). i caught it cuz at first i thought he produced leather jackets and was all disgusted that the guy who produced stranded produced that crap but instead i get to be disgusted that the guy who produced john kongos' "he's gonna step on you again" produced that crap.

I didn't know about the Mandy Moore "Original Sin" video either. Elton's cameo is fun.

man "Sixty Years On" is DOPE

― some dude, Friday, August 9, 2013 7:16 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Did not expect anyone to be repping for this one at all, although thanks to "The Greatest Discovery" I still only find it to be the second grossest thing on Elton John.

What a weird, weird record, by the way. Some hippie nonsense that sounds left over from Empty Sky ("I Need You To Turn To," "First Episode at Hienton"), a rather hilarious imitation of Beggars Banquet Stones ("No Shoe Strings On Louise") and then whatever the hell "The King Must Die" is supposed to be. Plus, you know, the song that went on to be one of the definitive Elton standards ("Your Song") and two other solid singles ("Border Song," "Take Me To The Pilot"). A truly disorienting listen.

i'm coming into this catalog with a pretty casual familiarity with certain pockets of it, and a lot of curiosity about the less predictable/known aspects of his sound, so things like that coming out of left field just sound really cool and exciting to me.

I'm curious to hear how you'll respond to Tumbleweed Connection, which was kind of his attempt at a very early-70s country rock concept record. It seems to be well regarded by many fans, but it frankly bores me to tears, though its one I keep coming back to hoping that one day it'll just click with me (as of this morning, however: nope, not yet).

Yeah, I should love Tumbleweed Connection. It's Elton. It's early 70s. It's country rock. It even sounds really good. But it leaves me incredibly cold.

yeah, perhaps predictably i am loving Tumbleweed Connection. kind of confused by its place in his career, though -- i'd heard its title enough to think of it as one of the big ones, but it didn't have any singles? and it sold more than the self-titled album that directly preceded it, and charted higher than Madman On The Water, which directly followed it, despite both having huge singles? did it have any FM staples at the time? was it just his breakthrough with critics back when that mattered? I guess "Amoreena" is well known because of Dog Day Afternoon, but that's been one of my favorite Elton songs ever since someone put it on a mix CD for me years and years ago.

i think "I Guess That's Why They Call It The Blues" is gonna be really high on my ballot. always loved this Tommy Davidson routine about it, though:

http://youtu.be/_e-ABdgDu7A?t=2m40s

what '80s albums are worth checking out if i have a big soft spot for that song and "Sad Songs (Say So Much)"?

You're in for rough going. Too Low For Zero boasts the most consistent album tracks ("Cold as Christmas," "Religion," the title song) and three singles you know well. Jump Up! (love the exclamation point) isn't bad either. I think Townshend plays on "Ball and Chain."

The quality disappears on Ice on Fire and Leather Jackets though. Fortunately you can sample all of'em on Spotify.

"I Guess..." will likely make my top five.

i doubt i'll get past the '70s in my crash course, i'm just curious if there's anything i should try to give a shot. will check those out if i have time.

Jump Up! has probably been my favorite discovery in this process. It's no masterpiece, but it's a solid album that transcends its time (at least a little).

Ha, it's funny - when I said above that Tumbleweed Connection is largely about 'feel,' I also meant "I've struggled to get to know it well enough to call out songs by name, but everybody loves it so it should be on this list I guess." I should give it some more spins this month. I like his other "Americana" records - Don't Shoot Me, Honky Chateau - but that one just isn't as hooky seemingly.

Suppose it's high time I cracked open the self-titled, though! "Your Song" has never done as much for me as it ought to given my vulnerability to 70s AM gold. Just a little too constructed and self-aware - the little "Huh!" and the whole conceit... phooey.

"I Guess" has some great things going for it but I could never get past the fact that he never actually says why they call it the blues. I realize this is like the "Ironic" line of complaint but, really.

I'm wondering if I'm a terrible person for loving Kiss the Bride

― set the controls for the heart of the sun (VegemiteGrrl), Friday, August 9, 2013 5:20 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

veg i wouldn't feel bad, i wanted to put 'kiss the bride' for being heteronormative or whatever but then again, no.

― balls, Friday, August 9, 2013 6:19 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Lyrics aside, the attempt at "rocking out" is embarrassing.

― first I think it's time I kick a little verse! (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, August 9, 2013 6:22 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I don't think he's trying to "rock out" even half as much as he is in The Bitch Is Back or Saturday Night's Alright (For Fighting). If anything he sounds more like he's trying to pull a Billy Joel/"Glass Houses"-style reckoning with a strain of New Wave that already passed him by.

hmm you're right!

but also Elton simply lost interest in rocking.

midtempo stuff and ballads would be his strengths for the rest of the decade

Predictably, I'm liking the s/t most when it sounds the most like the later, fuller records; "Border Song" is pretty clearly a blueprint for "All the Nasties" or maybe even "Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters." But I don't dislike the sparer songs either - kind of novel to hear Elton in these more conventional singer-songwriter settings. "Sixty Years On" was great despite some clunnnnnker lyrics ("You know the war you fought in wasn't too much fun"?). Looking forward to doing the second side after breakfast - particularly curious about the early version of "Grey Seal," which I never knew about before.

did he really rock at all until he became a 'rock star' though? it seems like the faster guitar-driven stuff only came once he was this huge touring act. not to say his heart wasn't in it or that those songs weren't sometimes great, but it never seemed like his natural forge.

forge=forte

am I wrong in thinking his seventies rhythm section was part of the problem? For them "rocking out" was more of an affect than a natural aptitude.

Faster guitar-driven stuff, maybe, but he did "rock" in that Americana saloon way before he was a megastar - take a listen to 11-17-70 and parts of Tumbleweed Connection. Then there's a digression for a few albums into piano-and-strings territory, with the rock moves sneaking back in through the bombast of "Levon" and the crucial role of rhythm in, e.g. "Tiny Dancer." But according to Wiki, until Honky Chateau, the label had insisted on keeping the touring band off the records, for some reason. So it may have been a more gradual transition than one hears listening to the studio albums.

dr casino very otm. as rocking with a piano goes, 11-17-70 is up there with jerry lee lewis. and though the arrival of full-on hard-rock guitars on songs like "elderberry wine" and "saturday night's alright." may seem a long time coming if you listen to his albums sequentially, keep in mind how fast he was working. both of those songs are only three years after "your song" and "sixty years on." for most bands today, that would be like one album later.

also, he was very obviously in love with glam, and i think his seventies band was really good at it!

man nobody on earth sings like Elton John. what an utterly one of a kind voice.

I think "Saturday Night" is more or less as exciting as anything by the Dolls or Slade.

I listened to just a little bit of the album with Leon Russell, and he's another one of those rare guys whose voice hasn't lost much in 40+ years. (I was thinking about that in relation to John Cale last week.) xp

man "Saturday Night" is a fantastic karaoke number. I can't think of many Elton songs that aren't.

When I was watching the Classic Albums ep on Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, Elton demonstrated how he'd lost a lot of the high range in his voice and that he can't even sing those songs anymore without pitching them down quite a bit.

I don't think the voice change really happened until maybe the Disney stuff, though, so I wonder what brought it about.

probably just age -- seems like voice problems just happen after time, don't necessarily closely follow years of hard drinking or hard touring or whatever.

happens in the 80s (maybe late 70s from that 'johnny b goode' clip), i mentioned preferring that live 87 version of 'candle in the wind' to the gbybr one to that elton freak i knew once and he scoffed and said elton's voice couldn't sing those songs any more and he really shouldn't even try. about a year later princess diana died.

I blame the Lion King.

fyi I saw the pre-broadway version of Elton & Bernie's 'Lestat' musical in SF in 2006. (Dave McKean did the set design!)
I barely remember any of the songs now though :/

possibly that is for the best

I did a quick scan of his wiki page and I think he lost some of the top end after some benign-throat-polyp surgery, and there's also mention of Thom Bell suggesting that he sing lower.

i liked his old voice, it was really kinda beautiful. but his low voice is nice too, it has a lovely timbre to it now.

Seems weird to me that Elton was never on Carson until 1980, but this is a great interview.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ppKem3YLvFo

Since childhood, "Saturday Night" is one of my most hated Elton John songs. One of my most hated songs, period.

I always think of Willie from Alf

http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20110925013940/alf/images/1/1c/Saturday_Night%27s_Alright.png

The only version of CITW I can stand is the '87 one tbhm

2 parts of a Phil Donahue interview from 1980:

http://youtu.be/dQI3eKMGpaQ
http://youtu.be/HlOCuLg1CT0

In it, Phil does his Phil thing and says at one point "$12.50 is a hell of a lot to pay for a concert ticket, don't you agree?" and Elton agrees totally. Anybody priced an Elton John concert ticket lately?

It's a good interview though.

I think what I love about Saturday Night's Alright is the collision of the Stones and Slade fandom with the Elton John band, who as mentioned above are not exactly the funkiest people in the world and are in their way almost robotically tight. Combined with the production and you get these just precise gunshots of guitar while the rat-a-tat trebley drums just keep punching away in the background. It doesn't really sound like any of the things it might be trying to ape, and that's even without considering the bedrock role played by the piano. And then, oh man, the bonkers SATURDAY! SATURDAY! climax. Do I believe any of these guys go out and get into fights on Saturday night? Uh, not really, but it's a blast.

that song goes so hard. Elton sings "a couple of sounds that i really like/ are the sounds of a switchblade and a motorbike," those are Jadakiss bars right there.

I'll say this for "Saturday": I prefer Elton's version to the Who's.

Take Me to the Pilot 4eva

I love Elton but other that GYBR, which I love, and his various greatest hits, I havent heard many albums of his. What else of his is best to check?

Captain Fantastic is his best IMO. Then it depends on your taste but I rep for Honky Chateau, Don't Shoot Me I'm Only The Piano Player, and if you like him more moody and theatrical ("Levon") then check out Madman Across The Water. If you look upthread I did a long rambling Usenet-type post with my takes on each album and the highlight 'deep cuts,' and I've also made a Spotify playlist of stuff that's gotten namechecked in the thread: http://open.spotify.com/user/doctorcasino/playlist/7dwOdISxoEzhub1zAsw3Wq

haha usenet-type. your posts itt have been awesome btw.

aww, thanks man!

throwing "The Cage" on the deep cuts playlist on first listen just for the fun factor of Elton's "A-OOoooHOOO!"s. Ooh and the dumb Switched On Bach synth! This is great.

"The Cage" really jumped out at me today, put it on my ballot as soon as i heard it.

I would be so happy if Papa Roach felt their "losing my SIGHT losing my MIND" thing was an interpolation of the "Losing my life" refrain from "Bad Side of the Moon."

ugh, just realized these are bonus tracks! i hate how spotify doesn't make that clear always. Granted, I could find this album for two bucks without too much effort (and really SHOULD own it already) but it's still irritating. Makes sense though, "The King Must Die" really did feel like a closer.

THE KANG IS DEAA-AHH-EHH-HEEHD!!!!

Next one to crack open for a deep listen: Caribou, which I dismissed as "slight" above but which in seriousness I'm not sure I've ever given more than three or four listens. Predictably, it's sounding pretty good so far. I always kind of forget about "The Bitch Is Back" or think of it as a "not as good" version of Saturday Night, but it's doing a different thing really.

yeah i'm curious to dig into Caribou because it's like 'hmmm, i've never even HEARD of this album but it was in between some of his most famous albums and has a couple classic singles on it, what could be so wrong with it?'

cover kinda blows, i'll say that

repent!

hahaha

all ballot polls should have sub-ballots for best/worst album covers IMO

true. could do a quickie poll thread for worst Elton cover at least.

haah so I was listening to this album and for four tracks it was like "Hey this is pretty solid, nothing to complain about here" and then I hit "Solar Prestige A Gammon" and was like "oh right." I suspect for some people here this may be a standout track though just for its self-indulgent silliness but it just feels forced to me, "let's have a nonsense-word track, it'll be like '#9 Dream'!"

lol, #9 Dream is just about my favorite Lennon solo track

Yeah, basically this album just has that feel of slightly second-string material being polished and buffed up to feel like the next killer Elton John album hitting the stands, but the songwriting and arrangements all feel a little worn out. As has been point out they'd been cranking these things out amidst constant touring for years running so the strain was bound to show. "Don't Let The Sun Go Down On Me" has an incredible hook but he hasn't really got anything to say. As I said over on Popular, it has the feeling of him demo-ing the song to somebody and explaining the metaphor in case they didn't get it: "See, this guy, he's losing everything, so it's like..." The ponderous pace makes the whole thing feel a little...emptier, too. Don't get me wrong - it's still darned good and you can see why it would be a hit (and an even bigger hit ages later) but it's not quite "Candle in the Wind" or "Tiny Dancer." Then you have a few songs that have a good idea or two going but not five minutes' worth ("Stinker" and "You're So Static"). Three-minute versions could have slotted into GYBR nicely but there's just not a full album's worth of killer material here.

Staggering to imagine that just four or five months after the sessions for this, they recorded Captain Fantastic.

Remember Mama said:
Chicken, chicken
Crazy boy, you'll only wind up with strange notions in your head
Here is...
Here is
Chicken!

thank you spotify for following that up with his godawful sputtering screeching "pinball wizard"

actually this might kind of be great in a way

Stevie Wonder was originally up for that role in the movie, but Ken Russell insisted on Elton (which, naturally, pissed off Stevie).

It struck me today that the guitar in "The Bitch Is Back" is basically the blueprint for mid 80s INXS.

Also, I came away from re-listening to Caribou really liking Sick City which I'd never really noticed in the past.

Stevie Wonder was originally up for that role in the movie, but Ken Russell insisted on Elton (which, naturally, pissed off Stevie).

That was probably for the best though. Otherwise it's "Blind Guy Loses To Fake Blind Guy", and I honestly think Steve would have had a tough time trying to pull off those boots:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ePiGVI2Hs-g

yeah i quite like Caribou, i've decided it's mostly just a victim of what happens to pretty much every single LP that follows up a successful double album (besides Purple Rain).

but lol @ this:

At one point, the title of this album was to be "Ol' Pink Eyes Is Back" a pun on Frank Sinatra's "Ol' Blue Eyes Is Back".

"I've Seen The Saucers" sounds like Elton trying to sing like Stevie Wonder with strangely good results

"Pinky" is great.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OB3MwB2F-wU

Why oh why does Elton have a song called Jamaica Jerk-Off?

lol, it's an ok song, I like most of the other album cuts on the first half of that album better tho.

he even gave everybody reggae-nicknames in the credits for that tune.

d'yer wanker

It's a terrific album, bar some of the titles and horrible sleeve. I can only listen to the ones that're on spotify, but he's made a big leap forward at some point between Tumbleweed and Yellow Brick Road

there's a lot of good on GYBR but very little that outright excites me besides "Bennie" and "Saturday Night," i may end up not voting for any deep cuts.

maybe "I've Seen That Movie Too," like that one

"Grey Seal" made my 24 but I don't think it's going to make my 20 - great composition, arrangement, real sense of adventure, but I have no idea WTF he's even talking about. And I know this is Bernie Taupin we're talking about, but especially so.

Oddly on this listen the deep cut that's most grabbing me is "Dirty Little Girl," which could easily lose 1:30 or so but has a nicely cacophonous alien quality to it, much like "Bennie," which it recalls very directly towards the end ("Dirty! Dirty! Dirty!"). It's not really quite as sleazy as the content would suggest.

The enthusiastic nonsense of "Grey Seal" is what I go for in Elton tbh

it's always funny when especially weird/bad lyrics come from a guy whose only job is 'lyricist.' like you can just go 'lol musicians come up with odd words to match their melodies sometimes'... THAT'S HIS ONLY JOB! THE WORDS! bless you, Bernie.

Gotta say Elton's appeal would collapse by at least 1/2 without the distinctive oddity of Taupin's lyrics. Like, let alone the great weird conceits and impenetrable gibberish - - - even if you just smoothed out things like "And there's no one there to raise them... if you did," something really important would be lost.

otm

taupin has an interesting ear for rhyme, i dig the weird things he comes up with

doc casino completely otm, once again.

and here's an appropriate place to shout out "sorry seems to be the hardest word," which i was reminded of by the johnny carson clip that johnny fever posted yesterday. a remarkably straightforward bernie taupin lyric, and a gorgeous song and recording despite some questionable choices in the arrangement and orchestration.

yeah I'm not dissing Taupin at all. clearly he's indispensible.

i wonder if taupin ever writes by onomatoepia, sometimes it's like the words make zero sense said out loud, it's just the sounds they make sound good together

Solar Prestige A Gammon: One Person's Opinions On Practically Every Song In The 1969-1977 Elton John Catalogue.

(not necessarily endorsing the above link, just noting it!)

Sorry Seems To Be... is moving up my ballot at a rapid pace. I love the arrangement/orchestration. It sounds very "Eastern Europe" in the middle part, like it's a byproduct of the obsession with Nadia Comăneci in the mid 70s.

Elton reportedly wrote some of that lyric.

btw Ray Charles' 2004 version kills.

You aren't kidding.

it does sound very "eastern europe" in the middle part, and then carrying through the rest of the song. and, nadia comaneci notwithstanding, that has always seemed odd to me.

well that's kind of how the entire john/toupin oeuvre works.

― fact checking cuz, Tuesday, August 6, 2013

btw i've been trying to determine my number one by finding a track without that signature one duff line that stands out like a sore thumb but it's not going well. The Taupin Touch.

It only took 6 ballots to arrive at a place where there are no more unanimous favorites. (Two songs are on 5 of the ballots.)

Too Low For Zero (the track), I'm now convinced, is among the cream of 70s artists dabbling in new wave sounds. The Human League couldn't have improved on it if they tried.

rogermexico, I was trying to do the same thing the other day! Then I realized it was leading me horribly astray. The "if you did" is distracting, clunky, dumb, superfluous - - - but let's not make any mistakes here, "Rocket Man" is surely one of the greatest John/Taupin achievements period.

See also: "sugar bear."

Best discovery so far in the "never heard this before" latter-day playlist: "Ball and Chain." Totally plausible blueprint for what an 80s-i-fied "classic Elton John song" might sound like. Someone's been at the arrangement with a dust broom but the strum of the guitar and the texture of the backing vocals is just enough to keep it linked back, sort of like the way Linda's vocals always kept Paul McCartney's records grounded back to the Ram sound no matter how far he wandered.

Pretty sure my ballot will be evenly split between 70s and 80s, or close, with one from the 90s.

Sartorial Eloquence is so wonderful.

(xp) "ball and chain" could easily be bruce springsteen circa the same period, or more likely a bruce springsteen acolyte like john cafferty.

It was mentioned somewhere in the thread that Pete Townshend is handling the guitar on Ball & Chain, which makes complete sense. It sounds very much like own stuff from that era.

A week left!

I had forgotten completely about the animated video for "Club at the End of the Street" and upon rewatching it...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rng0KRQJtJc

I'm wondering if Elton personally told the animators to make him look built like a weightlifter and also why are all these obviously gay people at this club acting heterosexual?

goddammit jf

i hate that song soooooooooooooooo much

same here

Yeah, it's really bad.

just thinking about that song puts me in a bad mood

ME AND YOU...RENDEZVOUS!

a great violence will befall you if you continue in this manner, jf

Don't forget to vote in the worst songs subpoll, people!

I kinda like that song! terrible bridge for sure, and the backing vocals sound like zombies, but Elton is...trying, I think

better than "Your Song" at least, hate that shit

then again...no

^^^ what I was about to say

euler

euler

wtf dude

wonder if Rod nicked the idea for this, from that

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NGkbjIxk68

this is bloody awful too

I feel like if you don't like some awful Elton John songs, you don't really like Elton John

(which is why I'm expecting to see "Your Song" place, uggh)

i like heartache all over the world i guess

but still

"The Motown Song" is better than "Club..."

Elton and Rod are BFFs, so they probably had the idea together.

i like heartache all over the world i guess

but still

GIRLS
GIRLS
GIRLS

MOTHERFUCK I am going to have "Club at the End of the Street" playing in my head for the next day or two & I am going to bellow it in the shower tomorrow; that is as good a definition of "good pop" as I know

had the same thing with "A Word in Spanish" the other day thanks to you all

club at the end of the street video was animated due to elton's unavailability cuz he was spending time w/ ryan white's family during white's last days.

so i hope you're all proud of yrselves. i hope you've all enjoyed yr 'chuckle'.

IT'S STILL A TERRIBLE SONG

AND a terrible video.

Besides, I feel no guilt in busting on it considering where I placed "The Last Song" on my ballot.

Ryan White would have hated it.

lol i am JAMMING "Club at the End of the Street" right now, totally watched that video as a kid and am feeling incurable nostalgia for this chorus i have not heard in 20 years

gross

:)

the way he sings "rendezvous" is classic elton imo

this thread now requires vomit bags

better than https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NGkbjIxk68

not as good as https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9eQShsxkj4

great now we're rodstewarting up the thread

I forgot in which thread I said recently that the '89 version of "This Old Heart" makes me tear up.

lol at toon elton appearing in that remarkably crap rod stewart video. also the 'every pop star younger than myself is garbage' windbaggery.

hard to overstate how weird a "crush" i had on the girls in that 'this old heart of mine 89' video.

xpost I think it was the Motown thread?

look at you :)

i wrote it in my journal

that "Motown Song" video is INSANE. "let's honor the legacy of Motown by throwing Michael Jackson down in the sewer!"

Finalizing my ballot before I go out of town. Just want to point out that this website: www.eltonography.com has a pretty great collection of horrible picture sleeves for Elton 45s, though they're easily missed as you have to click on the letter "S" when it appears to make it pop up.

It's a shame the scans are so small. I might still be able to use them for the poll, though.

VOTED! Already second-guessing everything but I just had to get it out the door.

I figure they have to be online somewhere else too, but it's handy for even knowing they exist and which ones would be worth searching. "Rocket Man"'s UK single is just wonderful.

Yours is ballot #8.

Vote, baby, vote!

Madman Across The Water is a really nice set

It's not understated as such, Elton doesn't really do that, but the restricted palette that he's working with makes it feel a lot more coherent than the other albums I've heard so far. Often he just seems to be tipping new ideas and arrangements in at random - sometimes within the same song - so it's nice to hear a set that sounds like a group of tracks, recorded around the same time, that seem to fit together somehow.

Madman is one of the records I remember liking, but I'm just not getting into it during my current Elton survey. Will try it again at least once more before voting (the two big singles will definitely make my tracks ballot, however).

Honky Chateau, on the other hand, holds up very well.

It has some of his absolute hammiest moments (WAAAAH-TAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH) but that's the price of getting him at his most unreservedly melodramatic. I maintain it would be much, much better without "Indian Sunset" dropping a sack of lead right in the middle of its running time, but I still rate it very highly among his albums.

Just a few days left. Only 8 ballots in.

9

w00p!

I've been on a little bit of a Jefferson Starship/Starship bender this afternoon and one of the biggest complaints about "We Built This City" I always hear from people is how stupid the lyrics are. Then I looked up the credits.

TAUPIN! It's all so clear now.

no way

mind = blown

Today in my Elton John listening: Don't Shoot Me I'm Only the Piano Player is still fantastic, still my fave Elton record overall. At least four tracks from this will make my ballot.

he also cowrote "These Dreams."

Wow. I thought that even in the 80s Elton was keeping Bernie busy enough.

They didn't work together for a long time, and I think a good portion of that was in the 1980s.

Oops, I was wrong.

The break was late 70s and very early 80s.

Wow, ''We Built This City'' makes an amazing case for EJ's ability to make something masterful out of Taupin lyrics.

On my flight just now one of the music choices was disc 1 of his in-print greatest hits (sadly ending at 'Sorry Seems To Be The Hardest Word,' though what I really wanted was 'Sartorial Eloquence). Made me feel I'd undervalued the hits in my ballot, especially Candle in the Wind and Bennie. CITW in the original is affecting, vulnerable, self-reflective and epic all at once. They make ''...and I would have liked to know you...'' contain SO MUCH, ugh. 'Bennie' is still kind of grating and underwritten but this is also part of its greatness. I wish I could unspindle the exact set of feelings and images stirred up by the way he says ''...read it in a magaZIIINE, OH!'' It's lurid and excited but also somehow venomous and challenging, an echo of some schoolyard argument, wrapped up in the faith of the passionate but ignorant fan that these rock superstars really are superheroes or saviors. It's basically the prequel to CitW which maybe explains the otherwise bizarrely frontloaded sequencing of the album...

''Don't Shoot Me'' is great, held up i think only by the terrible sleeve.

if he'd left candle in the wind as a tender album track it would probably be higher on everyone's ballots

more like candle up yr butt amirite

>:[

the original is fantastic and i just kicked it four spots higher for that

the only way I can handle the maudlin crap is by listening to the live '87 version

his huskier voice is just right

yeah I'd cut it but I'm gonna throw it a few for that remark

hahaha i actually do like the original, you just caught me in a waterface moment lol

i am 5 years old at heart fyi

my interest burned out long before my patience ever did

if he'd left candle in the wind as a tender album track it would probably be higher on everyone's ballots

― resulting post (rogermexico.), Wednesday, August 14, 2013 6:34 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

pretty much all of the big singles i don't especially like, i'd probably have a different perspective on if they weren't ubiquitous. i'm considering not bothering with a 'most-hated' ballot just because i don't think there's any Elton songs i really have a strong animosity for, much as will habitually change the station when "Candle" or "Crocodile Rock" comes on.

not even "Can You Feel The Love Tonight"?

not really. it is what it is.

i think the song whose placing i'm most curious to see is "Don't Go Breaking My Heart." i love it personally, but i have no idea if ILM could place it in the top 10 or leave it stranded in the 40s.

ha, well, when I think of "I Swear," "Stay," "Without You," "I'll Make Love to You," and the other colorless ballads dominating the Hot 100 in '94, I include Simba's anthem among them.

xpost

I don't mind "Don't Go Breaking My Heart" without ever having a use for it.

i'm not saying i like it. i'm just saying what i feel about it is closer to indifference than dislike. (xp)

probably the '90s bore i'm closest to hating is "The One." my mom had that CD and played the hell out of it.

yeah that one is fucking ponderous

WHEN STARS COLLIDE LIKE YOU AND I no it's impossible you boring fuck

"Can You Feel The Love Tonight" was disgustingly ubiquitous circa 1994-5, and while that was nearly 20 years ago now, it happened to sync up neatly with my discovering records like Don't Shoot Me and Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, so I learned to hate it as much in principle as in actual practice.

Pretty indifferent to "Don't Go Breaking My Heart," though. As Rock of the Westies is the cut-off point I long ago established for Elton, it falls just barely outside of that. Its way too 70s a song for me to link it to his crap 80s/90s work, but its also never a song that I had to deal with in my own Elton listening. Its kinda cute, I guess.

''Can You Feel The Love Tonight'' was the official 'love song' of our 7th grade 'graduation' (main theme: ''You Gotta Be''), and I can't remember if I was there but I remember it was considered a Big Deal and So Romantic that so-and-so danced with whose-her-face during it. Other than that it means nothing to me. Big, bland, but okay. I woulda made room for ''Circle of Life'' in a longer ballot tho.

''Don't Go Breaking My Heart'' is delightful! Utterly insubstantial and probably needs, like, some more lyrics (whither Taupin???) but fun to sing and all that.

Anybody rate ''Whatever Gets You Thru The Night'' or do you consider it more of a Lennon song?

for me, the definition of bland Elton = "Something About the Way You Look Tonight"

Something about this guy, with maybe a few exceptions at his worst he's just dentist office wallpaper. I don't go for a lot of those 80s/90s songs but I also forget them as soon as they're over so it's like, whatever. I didn't do a 'worst' ballot for this reason - it'd end up being more grating but more ambitious (and better) 70s songs.

"Something About the Way You Look Tonight" is another one that i know is tripe but am kinda okay with. at the time it seemed like it just road the coattails of "Candle '97" into eventually being a hit in its own right, but in the process it kinda stuck with me.

"Club At The End Of The Street" is the only stupid late period hit i'm actually thinking of voting for though lol

MEEEEEEEEEEEEEETIN YOU

RENDEZZZZZZZZZZZZVOUS

yeah i gotta give some credit to 'club at the end of the street' cuz that sucker got stuck in my head immediately in a way that merely reminding me of 'healing hands' or 'nikita' or whatever couldn't begin to approach. never noticed until now just how much of elton's 90s was devoted to that overblown vaguely beatlish style (ie combine the worst of 'hey jude' and 'imagine' in one bellowing monster of a song), it's like he caught whatever bug george michael had when he made 'praying for time' when they did 'don't let the sun go down on me'. i don't mind 'the one' so much (one of my friends in high school who was a huge g'n'f'n'r fan we would tease by blending in lyrics from 'the one' into 'november rain', and this was before the vmas), the only one of these that really ever annoyed me was 'believe'. 'don't go breaky my heart' is superfun but came nowhere near my ballot.

That "Club at the End of the Street" video looks like a clip from the most sanitary Ralph Bakshi film ever.

"Border Song" - Eric Clapton 4:21
"Rocket Man (I Think It's Going to Be a Long, Long Time)" - Kate Bush 4:57
"Come Down in Time" - Sting 3:38
"Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting" - The Who 4:32
"Crocodile Rock" - The Beach Boys 4:21
"Daniel" - Wilson Phillips 4:03
"Sorry Seems to Be the Hardest Word" - Joe Cocker 3:57
"Levon" - Jon Bon Jovi 5:27
"The Bitch is Back" - Tina Turner 3:38
"Philadelphia Freedom" - Hall & Oates 5:12
"Your Song" - Rod Stewart 4:49
"Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me" - Oleta Adams 6:02
"Madman Across the Water" - Bruce Hornsby 6:10
"Sacrifice" - Sinéad O'Connor 5:12
"Burn Down the Mission" - Phil Collins 6:58
"Tonight" - George Michael 7:23

Does anyone know Two Rooms? Because that is a pretty mighty assembly.

Yes, I waited my whole adolescence to hear Jon (!) Bon Jovi cover "Levon."

Sinead and Kate Bush the best.

Until someone mentioned it on The AV Club the other day, I forgot about Futurama's "Pharaoh and his Pets."

http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20110617084944/en.futurama/images/9/99/PharaohsFuneralSong.png

"Can You Feel the Love Tonight" was possibly the single most hated song in eight years of doing of my old fanzine. It had an extremely low average rating, and--hard to do--also an extremely low "controversy rating," which was something like standard deviation. No matter how bad a song was, with sometimes 15 or so ratings, you could always find two or three people who thought it wasn't the worst thing they'd ever heard. But "Can You Feel the Love Tonight" was hated, and hated by everybody. (I'm too lazy to check--it may have been "The One" I'm thinking of.)

I like a fair amount of Elton's 90's stuff, but CYFTLT - can't say anything positive about that one. At least "The One" has that piano coda.

I think we polled ''Two Rooms''!

A probably futile attempt at campaigning here, but "Ego" was mentioned upthread as a forgotten single, and really should be heard. I can't see youtube at work but this should be the promo video.

Great song, possibly Elton's worst ever look?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qt7xtcD40Dg

Has anyone mentioned "Crystal" yet? Despite suffering from some questionable production choices, this is a forgotten gem of classic mid-period Elton on an album at least half chock full of them.

will def be including "I Want Love" when i get around to this

it's probably his only song between 1985 and the present that i'm considering and it's kind of outstanding.

if anyone seriously considers "Hakuna Matata" then i just fucking give up on everything

I had a dream that my day job (at a teleprompting company) sent me to work a benefit where Elton was speaking and performing, and so I was prompting what he was saying but I was also next to a piano onstage and when he sang I was playing along, it was pretty ridiculous.

that sounds amazing.

i might vote for "A Word In Spanish" based on it being among the funniest songs i've ever heard.

Any takers for "Merry Christmas Maggie Thatcher"? I might put it at the bottom of my ballot for its WTFness.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=he4dNbs2Mlg

I hope a bunch of people decide to vote this weekend. I've still only received 9 ballots.

ima do it.

Definitely intend to vote. Got a few more Elton records I wanna give fresh spins to first.

I will!

Definitely voting this weekend. It's going to be singles-heavy, but oh well aint that the way things go.

if i can vote for only his section of "That's what friends are for" and not include the rest of the song

why is elton john so funny

his last solo vocal is the sound of spleens rupturing

"Whatever Gets You Through the Night" is crucial for this.

XP yeah i was mostly referring to his solo at the end where he gets all soul-man.

xps i'm trying to persuade the missus to do a separate one, JF, so it'll be either one or two from here

to honor Nikita's memory I will vote

with a catalog this big i think you have to assume there'll be more last minute ballots than usual. i'm definitely going to keep listening as much as i can until monday night. don't be afraid to push it back a little to encourage late voters! worked for me great with the neptunes/jay-z polls!

Happiest discovery of researching this poll: there is an official recording of Elton's live cover of "I Heard It Through the Grapevine" out there - it was included on a B-side in the mid 80s. Hoping it's the version from one of his Soviet gigs, as they featured some amazing piano improvisation.

man i really had to go and listen to every single '70s deep cut, really got rough at the end there with Victim of Love. there were some gems on The Thom Bell Sessions EP, at least.

right now going to listen to some extremely famous peak era hits that i wouldn't be able to hum or quote a lyric from with a gun to my head:

Daniel -- oh yeah, this one. feels 'generic 70s' in a way that his other songs don't to me.
Honky Cat -- i own GYBR so i know i've heard this plenty of times, but it never sticks. not bad, though.
Philadelphia Freedom -- i don't know if i only heard this a few times 20 years ago or if it just reminds me of some more famous disco era song.

"Honky Cat"'s on Honky Chateau.

I'm gonna maybe do a ballot tonight maybe :D

You can't tell "Philadelphia Freedom" is about Billie Jean King or whatever. The title and sound suggests an infatuation with the Philly scene: Gamble-Huff, etc.

lol i don't know why i said GYBR sorry

godspeed you black road

lol

I still stand by my ''Philadelphia Cream Cheese'' variation.

11 ballots. send more plz

ok fine, sent off my ballot; was gonna wait a little longer in case someone else dissed a song I liked (or mentioned a funny one I'd forgotten all about) but it's ok, looking forward to seeing "Hakuna Matata" #1

VOTED!

today I swear by all that is elton I shall vote

man too low for zero is as great as i thought it was when i was 5 or 6

gonna be difficult not to find a place for "Cold As Christmas.

damn, "i'm still standing" is way better than i remembered.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VGu5jZKBCrs

most of my favorite deeper album tracks were featured on this "nice price" comp
http://eil.com/images/main/Elton+John+-+Your+Songs+-+LP+RECORD-521516.jpg

''Elderberry Wine'' has been in my head a bunch these past few days. Maybe his best straight ''old fashioned fun'' type numbers. Love the dumb stuff he does with his vocals on the pre-chorus, the high-to-low of ''CAAAN'T help thinkin aBOUT the time'' to ''you aimed to PLEASE meh, you black-eyed-PEASED meh.''

Also IIRC the only video on youtube of it is some student project of setting it to footage from a silent comedy, which warmed my heart in its enthusiasm and silliness.

''Elderberry Wine'' has been in my head a bunch these past few days. Maybe his best straight ''old fashioned fun'' type numbers. Love the dumb stuff he does with his vocals on the pre-chorus, the high-to-low of ''CAAAN'T help thinkin aBOUT the time'' to ''you aimed to PLEASE meh, you black-eyed-PEASED meh.''

― Doctor Casino, Saturday, August 17, 2013 5:46 PM (16 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lol fergie taupin

heard some Elton in the store today. saturday morning in the dairy aisle's alright for fighting!

crocodile rock..."dreaming of my chevy and my old blue jeans"

who the hell dreams of jeans. stupid song

also today mr veg randomly t0rrentzed the elton greatest hits with no prompting from me so i have been grooving to elton hitz while cleaning & thinking baout my ballot

:D

crocodile rock..."dreaming of my chevy and my old blue jeans"

who the hell dreams of jeans. stupid song

― set the controls for the heart of the sun (VegemiteGrrl), Saturday, August 17, 2013 7:30 PM (20 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lol how much of bernie and elton's songs trade on unconvincing heterosexual stereotypes

right?!

It's not a favourite of mine, so I'm not really defending it, but "Crocodile Rock" makes more sense if you put it in the context of a particular back-to-the-'50s moment that started about '69 and went on for a few more years. Richard Nader's revival shows, Sha Na Na, American Graffiti and Happy Days, Cat Mother & the All Night Newsboys, the fadeout on "Bang a Gong," been a long time since I did the Stroll, etc. etc. It was rampant for a while.

I liked "Crocodile Rock" at the time. I switch it off whenever it comes on the radio now.

I would like to rep for Better Off Dead from the Captain Fantastic album.

oh shit you guys

Listening to Too Low For Zero. I almost forgot about 'Crystal'!!!!! I loved this song growing up. SO going on my ballot fyi

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUQT3ASwla4

gonna be difficult not to find a place for "Cold As Christmas.

― first I think it's time I kick a little verse! (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, August 17, 2013 5:28 PM (5 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Don't know this one, but I did cast a vote for a different xmas tune.

shit midnight? damn. i'm on it.

Wrapping my ballot up now.

Too Low For Zero suddenly killin' it up in here...

this thread has proven beyond doubt that Caribou = every bit as good as the canon albums either side.

17 ballots! Keep 'em coming.

<3 ''Better Off Dead,'' nice range from the demented piano-banging and repetiton of the title to the ''oohs'' backing up the ''never could catch us'' section.

Re: Crocodile Rock, I got to liking it when I realized it was an attempt to transcend the good-old-days rock revival thing by being simultaneously the ''but those days will never come back'' bleak lament and an actually convincing peppy sock-hop number (as evidenced by its popularity with kids etc). Dunno how unique that really is even in this subgenre but it's a more complete synthesis than, say, ''Svenes From An Italian Restaurant'n (which I also love). I still don't entirely get on board with the falsetto section and in general it could be shorter and more effective, but I think it's better than it appears.

It feels like demented-serial-killer mood music from a movie

That's another of its great qualities!

On the plane the other day my head was bumping the touchscreen and skipping between the piano intros of various Elton hits, creating a weird medley that actually kinda worked, segues from Levon to Crocodile Rock to GYBR...

haha nice

VOTED

I spaced and thought the ballot was 30

Imagine my horror when I had to throw TEN songs off the lifeboat D:

What is going on in Just Like Belgium? I've never heard a song with so many encounters with prostitutes.

Also, *what* is Just Like Belgium? So far as I can tell, he's saying that Belgium is just like Belgium. Maybe he's in north-eastern France.

hahaaha, ''wow, this place seems familiar somehow, what could it be?''

Re: crocodile rock, i also like that he packs ''crocodile'' into basically a one-syllable space. Wonder wtf Taupin expected him to do with that.

List coming this afternoon; gotta listen to The Fox to be sure I missed no other Low Countries.

someone sent you a ballot tonight

how many ballots are you up to now JF?

should be a good number by deadline time, I reckon!!

With yours and ismael's, we're at 19.

awesome

20+ ballots is usually a good time imo

Yeah, if I had to roll out the results right now, it'd probably be a top 40. It still may be, but let's see how many more ballots come in.

You'll get one more from this house at least.

mine's pretty much ready but i want an excuse to do more listening tomorrow

I put so little extra listening into my ballot polls anymore...y'all shame me.

*crosses arms*
*walks away*

Oh wait, was "y'all shame me" not a request?

Time capsule time!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9j0JLeDN4LQ

lol, it was more "y'all have done shamed me"

Sent!

Sent! man that was tough.

23 ballots now. Things are humming along nicely!

POLLIN LIKE THUND-AH

10.5 hours left to vote!

Even though I've already voted, I had a bit of an EJ splurge in second hand shops over the weekend - filling in a few gaps in my knowledge. Just so's I can comment with authority during the rollout - for once :)

Enthusiastic commentary is always welcome!

elton john vs. pnau

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=froqs4giHBg

Voters should read xgau's EJ essay, written at the moment before the collapse of EJ's sales:

http://www.robertchristgau.com/xg/music/john-76.php

i really love blue eyes, but i am really struggling to vote for a song that actually contains the lyric "baby's got blue eyes/like a deep blue sea/on a blue blue day." not to mention "baby's got blue eyes/like a clear blue sky." #missingbernietaupinreallybadlyrightnow

Vote for his voice and the melody (I did).

that's my general elton strategy. but jesus that one.

incidentally "Blues For My Baby And Me" was the most recent song i listened to today that i struggled with 'sounds great but lyrics are too bad to consider putting it on my ballot'

i was struck by the amount of great songs i had to leave off; about 5 absolute pearls that i just couldn't even fit into the best 20. that really surprised me. his best stuff might not be as good as my favourite artists' best stuff but the sheer volume of excellent tracks he did is pretty amazing.

In the past couple of weeks I've really come to appreciate how well Elton can create an emotion out of lyrics that on paper wouldn't even give you a clue as to how to feel. The way Elton can wraps the words around a melody deliver them with BIG feeling is really something

veg grrl very otm. the problem with "blue eyes" is that the lyrics on paper are extremely clear in the how-you-should-feel department.. like a clear sheet of plastic that you can see through. on a clear clear day.

That's exactly what that Christgau piece says. It also says this:

The songs begin with Taupin, who will write the lyrics for an album in a two-week flurry, spending perhaps an hour on each one, and forward them to Elton, who works out chords and melody for each lyric unchanged, a process that usually takes less than an hour. Arrangements develop during recording, which takes a few weeks per album at most.

which can't be right; and yet it can't be any other way.

In the Actor's Studio interview John admitted not much has changed.

the only part of that that sounds weird to me is taupin only taking an hour per song. strange as they are, his lyrics sound worked-on to me. but for a melodicist as gifted as elton, an hour per song seems right, and not unusual at all.

xpost I never did watch that one --- hmm, looks like I have found my lunchtime viewing today :D

actually that's a really cool part of The Union making-of documentary -- there's a section where the cameras sit in with Elton as he's working out the melody for a set of lyrics. Obv he's kind of uncomfortable with the whole setup so it's not exactly 'fly on a wall' but it's really interesting to watch

i never think it's very useful to hold up the time it took to make a piece of music as good or bad or even illuminating, but i do think people tend to underestimate how fast it can all come together.

for a melodicist as gifted as elton, an hour per song seems right, and not unusual at all

It may be common, but I find this astonishing. I've tried, and it's really hard!

I posted this already. Elton composing music for Peer Gynt:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OB3MwB2F-wU

I was listening to Saturday Night's Alright (For Fighting) at lunchtime and had this AMAZING lightbulb go off

What if Saturday Night was covered in the style of Bruce Springsteen's Racing in the Street
...and Racing in the Street covered in the style of Saturday Night.

I think that would sound p hilarious/awesome. In my head it seriously sounded like the greatest thing. MAN I wish I could play/sing/etc

As the runner of this poll, I won't say anything about its performance in the voting, but as a fan of songs that are good, I'll say that Sartorial Eloquence is getting slept on by a lot of people!

his own fault for not including lesser singles on his comps

"Part-Time Love" also good.

so will "Island Girl" make ballots? It's the most neglected of the imperial phase #1's imo

I gave it a bit of help!

I pretended it didn't happen

yeahhhhh

like, it's not hated in the visceral way like Sacrifice or Crocodile Rock, but it's a bit, hmm...shrill? Something. It kinda bugs me enough that I won't seek it out and I tend not to care if I hear it or not.

hahaha 'island girl' made my ballot so to speak

"Little Jeannie" on my most-hated list. That thing is like being boiled in oil.

hated in the visceral way like Sacrifice

http://awesomelyluvvie.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/EltonJohnshadeface.gif

Hey Mr. Fever,

I just sent you an email, hoping to swap out 1 song for another. Please let me know if this is possible

Sacrifice is viscerally hated?