Good evening Rawkers. Good to be with you after a semi-long new year's absence. So how best to celebrate a return than by celebrating one of the best rockers, musicians and songwriters (along with Bernie Taupin) -- Sir Elton John.The guy is flat-out a genius. You don't like him? Jump off the wuss cliff. You are dead to the G.O.T. You don't have to like the new stuff, i.e. anything after 1974s Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy (Elton's last great album). God knows i don't. The nearly 30 albums released since that date are mostly suckage, excluding greatest hits combinations and the rare song that is great (tell me you don't get warm and fuzzy to "Can You Feel the Love Tonight" from the Lion King....).
But if you haven't listened to the early stuff, shame on you. The material transcends most of the superlatives you can offer. Consider these consecutive albums:
Elton John
Tumbleweed Connection
11-17-70
Madman Across the Water
Honkey Chateau
Don't Shoot Me....
Goodbye Yellowbrick Road
Caribou
Captain Fantastic....
If you're ANY kind of fan, there's way more than one favorite on every album. And if you're not, then your taste is rock leaves something to be desired.
And his band....Nigel Olsson on drums, Dee Murray on bass and Davey Johnstone on guitar, along with Elton, made up one of the best rock outfits ever to lay grooves on vinyl.
This stuff rawks, people. Don't get hung up on duets with Kiki Dee, donald duck costumes, homosexuality or any other light-weight, worthless drivel. Elton -- in his day -- was one of the best rockers on the planet and wrote some of the best material of all time.
I -- for one -- celebrate, honor, respect and thoroughly enjoy this one-of-a-kind rock superstar. Long live Sir Elton.
Go in peace....
G.O.T.
Oh God, where to start. How about with your intro- When Elton rawked... Oh I say about the same time that Yanni rawked, or Kenny G rawked or Barry Manilow rawked or Wayne Newton rawked. How about Air Supply.
ReplyDeleteI'll take "Crocodile Rock" out and give you the rest of the worthless Euro-trash light weight girly music. Someone gave me Yellow Brick Road for X-mas in the 70's- it was great, one of the best Frisbees I ever owned. And even worse than his music is looking at the fruity bastard.
Thunderfish -
ReplyDeleteGood blog. Clearly Rockin' Jerry is a one dimensional homophobe.
To put Elton John in the same category as Yanni, Manilow, Kenny G and Wayne Newton, is just plain silly.
My guess is that a Yellow Brick Road record was a hell of a gift in Oklahoma where the normal toy for kids is dirt. I would also venture to guess that even in a state where teeth are few and far between, even Sir Elton would pass up a gummer there.
As a songwriter / musician / entertainer Elton John shits on all the aforementioned artists, and the unfortunate bottom line is that someone paid $6.98 cents for Yellow Brick Road, when they could have saved 6 bucks and bought a Wham-O instead for the ungrateful Rockin' Jerry who would still be using it today as a dinner plate in his single wide. ...... word
The Ferg
Hey Ferg. Get your facts straight- It's a DOUBLE wide!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
ReplyDeleteAny "dude" and I use the term loosly, that was on VH1's Diva's show, is NOT a rocker in my book. Was there ever even a guitar in most of his music? This was Adult Contemporary shit. If my parents liked it in the 70's, there was definately something wrong. This guy invented the wuss cliff.
ReplyDelete