Mama Can't Buy You Love: The Official ILM Track-By-Track ELTON JOHN 1978-1988 Listening Thread

well, "Born Bad" isn't found anywhere. Listened to it on Spotify: it's decent. Generic disco beat, popped bass, a hoarse-sounding Elton singing a vocal he probably cut after a heavy lunch, a "bad to the bone" lyric that its performer can't really sell.

oh, and guitar solo that sounds like it was lifted off an Aldo Nova record

21 at 33, I can see you from the opposite shore.

Nah you gotta week at least til we get there. Don't forget the two France Gall duets.

"Born Bad" is on grooveshark: http://grooveshark.com/#!/s/Born+Bad/3Qj5p1?src=5

I'm so behind on these.

aren't you lucky

"Thunder in the Night"

http://youtu.be/C_3gMWOqszI

I'll say this: if Hercules & Love Affair created the first minute in 2008 no one would blink.

http://www.yarden-uriel.com/elton66.jpg

Oh, why did he have to start singing? was pretty great until then. "My woman says she ain't my woman!" The choruses on this record really are subpar: this like the sort of disco you'd hear in a nightclub scene in "Falcon Crest."

Those clavinets work.

i'm way behind on this thread, but checking in to say this starts out sounding exactly how i would expect, and want, disco era elton to sound. but yeah that chorus is completely underwhelming. would it be asking too much to want early-'70s elton to flash forward for a minute and finish late-'70s elton's song?

as it turns out, Elton didn't write (or play) a note on this record. Blame due to the stellar composing team of Pete Bellotte, Stefan Wisnet, Gunther Moll and a few others

described in a bio as "German disco songsmiths." Other details: EJ flew to Munich and cut all his vocals for Victim in a single day, in about eight hours.

"Spotlight"

http://youtu.be/JTfGrExMw94

http://binaryapi.ap.org/7e3897b3eb2742d0a785f6c5415d0328/512x.jpg

Same formula as "thunder in the night": the first minute sounds like something that would get a Best New Music on P'fork, then Elton stumbles in.

cavecairo70
1 year ago

Caribou is a masterpiece compared to this album!!

i'd bet EJ hasn't listened to this record since it was made, if he even listened to it then

didn't he go to Russia around this time? i recall that being a big deal. there was a TV special.

"Street Boogie"

http://youtu.be/xHZdk0jtpd0

http://i1.ytimg.com/vi/xHZdk0jtpd0/hqdefault.jpg

"Street boogie got a hold on me" eh

Chicago's "Street Player" is 100x better than this

man, we're dying on the vine here. let's finish off this mess of an album:

"Victim of Love"

http://youtu.be/PkkhoCpvLZU

http://eil.com/images/main/Elton+John+-+Victim+Of+Love+-+7%22+RECORD-171661.jpg

The single!

he sounds like Gary Numan singing over a France Joli track.

What a weird, anonymous way to do a disco cash-in album. You feel that if EJ could've outsourced his vocals to some German soundalike, he would've.

This farrago confirms my theory about "dated" as a pejorative: a track's dated if it uses the most obvious, recognizable patterns and sounds of the day without alteration (Donna Summer hasn't dated one jot).

B-side "Strangers" not available, so here we go into 21 at 33!

Chasing the Crown

http://youtu.be/KdLgZVSq0Fg

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/66/Elton_John_in_1980s.jpg

I swear, hearing those power chords was like walking out of a smoky bar into sunlight and air.

yeah, it's nice to hear the "Elderberry Wine"/"Bitch is Back" Elton return after that dismal exile in Munich. Guitar and backing vocals are garish, Taupin's lyric is Bernie trying to do "Sympathy for the Devil" on a budget, but this is the most awake EJ's sounded since the Ford Administration.

Our first big hit!!

"Little Jeannie"

http://youtu.be/Wlz6mTyiMZc

http://cdn.pianosheetmusiconline.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Little-Jeannie-Elton-John.jpg

I gotta say: its success mystifies me. The electric piano part, the chorus horns – ick.

I have some fondness for this one solely out of nostalgia: it embodies the kitschy "adult pop" world ca. '79-'81, the Christopher Cross/Player/ "Music Box Dancer"/"Stumblin' In" etc world that I heard on the radio and was my first concept of pop music. agree it's icky but you can't deny the hooks, either.

I also can't ever hear it without recalling how the kids on my school bus renamed it "Little Weenie," a title that made the rest of the song ludicrous ("I want you to be my acrobat!")

Apparently it was a hit the old fashioned way: it got on the radio and people kept requesting it and buying copies (it's certified gold back when gold meant shipping a million).

this, of course, becomes Elton's survival formula for the rest of this survey: however crap the album, crank one hit off it and you're good for another year (exceptions include The Fox, natch)

"Sartorial Eloquence"

http://youtu.be/LB1rim3VXo0

http://www.ioffer.com/img3/item/141/940/781/elton-john-live-in-central-park-+bonus-footage-1980-dvd-46c8.jpg

lyrics by Tom Robinson!

The second single.

A crowded arrangement: high synth, rhythm guitar strums, backing vocals, piano, all on the chorus.

Only clicking on this thread sporadically to see if you've got to Passengers yet. One of the worst singles of the 80s.

and a top five in England. How odd.

When I was 10. It's one of the few songs I distinctly remember hating at that age. Looking at the lyrics now, it seems to be a protest song but about what I'm not exactly clear.

apparently cracked the US top 40 too, but I don't recall hearing it

Figured I'd jump in to remind ya'll this one ("Sartorial Eloquence") features among the many voices on the chorus ilm's favorite douchecanoe harmony duo...

DON: After years of being fans, it was an honor to actually take part in a session with our friend Elton during one of his lowest periods, both personally and creatively. I honestly feel our Eagle harmony magic elevated his song right where it was needed most.

GLENN: Speaking of being elevated, I think between us Don & I lost a whole pack of cough drops in the, er, echo chambers that night.

DON: Well, yeah.

Congrats. You've mastered the Henley sincerity.

"Two Rooms at the End of the World"

http://youtu.be/bzTKdafOnAo

http://www.ioffer.com/img3/item/141/940/781/elton-john-live-in-central-park-+bonus-footage-1980-dvd-46c8.jpg

was this album some kind of make-work program for underemployed session musicians? There's like 50 people on this track, including a prominent cowbeller.

abt 3 minutes in, I realized "2 Rooms" was just going to be the same tune-lite verse-refrain repeated over and over again, and resigned myself to it, and suddenly it became a Chicago record for a bit.

That's the problem with the album (so far): not bad melodies smothered by desperate arrangements.

ode to a muse:

"White Lady White Powder"

studio version not on YT (it's on Grooveshark/Spotify) but here's the live version from Central Park '80:

http://youtu.be/7BbismoORP0

http://eil.com/images/main/Elton%2BJohn%2B-%2BWhite%2BLady%2BWhite%2BPowder%2B-%2B7%2522%2BRECORD-498449.jpg

lol @ white man danger

brace yrself for that one. Political satire by B. Taupin