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

EJ: Bernie, I've got Cliff Richard in tomorrow & I've got nothing from you & honestly, I don't know what i'm going to do with him (coke rant ensues)

BT: look, look, Reg let's...all right: "Still waters run deep." there's your hook. something something still waters run deep, bang bang

EJ: for fuck's sake, "still waters run deep?" really? how about "you've got a friend" while you're at it?

BT: okay, okay look...alright, "slow waters run cold."

EJ: "slow waters run cold"

BT: yeah. and "shallow waters run low," something something else. can you work with that? I'll get the rest to you after a cup of coffee or something

"Heartache Over the World"

http://youtu.be/Xh2hkTzcT7c

http://www.vinylrecords.ch/E/EL/Elton_John/heartache/elton-john-heartache-1242.jpg

GIRLS GIRLS GIRLS GIRLS GIRLS GIRLS GIRLS GIRLS GIRLS GIRLS GIRLS GIRLS GIRLS GIRLS GIRLS GIRLS GIRLS GIRLS GIRLS GIRLS GIRLS GIRLS GIRLS GIRLS GIRLS GIRLS GIRLS GIRLS GIRLS GIRLS GIRLS GIRLS GIRLS GIRLS GIRLS GIRLS GIRLS GIRLS GIRLS GIRLS GIRLS GIRLS GIRLS GIRLS GIRLS GIRLS GIRLS GIRLS

"All Over the World," I should say.

peaked at #45 in the UK, #55 in the US: ouch!

His first single to miss the top forty.

key change at 3:21 sounds like it was done at gunpoint. Davey Johnstone should've been arrested for impersonating a rock star in that video.

Neither a good song nor performance but, hey, I'll take this frantic approximation of joy than the noodling unmelodic stuff on The Fox.

"Angeline"

http://youtu.be/fIQYI_hVnEQ

http://blogs.houstonpress.com/rocks/elton.jpg

"let me use you like a sex machine...On your knees when you speak to me" class stuff

"Alan Carvell got a songwriting credit for developing the 'oohs' and 'aahs' on 'Angeline'" Opportunity knocks (once) for Mr. Carvell

what the hell? A soccer chant?

Kevin Hoffman4 months ago

Even his worst album has a few great songs---and this is one of them! Fun!

"Memory of Love"

http://youtu.be/1AyAsibPTCk

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2010/12/25/article-0-02E3CEAF0000044D-117_634x348.jpg

"Memory of Love"

http://youtu.be/1AyAsibPTCk

http://resources3.news.com.au/images/2013/10/03/1226732/532955-b3b43aec-2c0f-11e3-8800-e6347622c0aa.jpg

crosspost!

The first time this fetid reunion with Gary Osborne has gotten this attention.

fantastic! we've never had an x-post before

another YouTube link courtesy of a person who hectors you on screen for the first two minutes about how great Leather Jackets is

"I REPEAT, BEAUTIFUL SONGS ARE IN THE EAR OF THE LISTENER"

"Paris"

http://youtu.be/jqIiuf4Rc8o

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-awcL3Qcfoik/TfsY2RAdHbI/AAAAAAAADUI/b2VR1eq3FzI/s1600/Nanette+1.PNG

by the grim standards of Leather Jackets, this isn't that bad, even given Taupin's tourist brochure of a lyric. Some odd, convulsive bass playing in the verses. "Just Like Belgium" had more of a kick, though

It's not offensive but he's not even trying for the youth market; this is for Dionne Warwick fans. The synths stink like hot garbage.

Tomorrow's song isn't terrible.

palate cleanser: http://youtu.be/2hcXdtqojFg

"I Fall Apart"

http://youtu.be/soWK6-6sx1s

http://assets-s3.rollingstone.com/assets/images/gallery/500x595/9cac0aa5b424aadaa7d14521571a784b40b6bc1a.jpg

ye gods. best match of title and photo we've had yet

to me the album's best ballad. I'm going on memory: I'll have more to say in a little while.

He does tug a bit hard on those verses, like he's trying to pull off a George Michael impersonation (that' s his idea of eighties soul).

yeah, he's trying to regain a bit of dignity here, and trying a bit too hard---all the thundering on his piano bass keys in the bridge. Some interesting production touches for once--is that reversed guitar towards the end?

Leather Jackets is not good at all, but it's not substantially worse than the previous two. Those just benefited by having at least one good single to orbit the lesser tracks around. So when you've got the Cliff Richard duet and "Heartache All Over the World" as your centerpieces, you've got trouble.

OK, so let's recap.

A Single Man: OK, not worse than, say, Caribou. "Part-Time Love" has taken permanent residence in my brain.

Victim of Love: As gross as its reputation suggests, although a couple of track suggest he could've pulled a Philly/disco crossover if he'd had the songs.

21 at 33: Faceless.

The Fox: Worse.

Jump Up!: The discovery. Were it not for the last third, it'd be his best since 1975.

Too Low For Zero: Same.

Breaking Hearts: He's losing focus.

Ice on Fire: More offensive than Leather Jackets.

Leather Jackets: Breaking Hearts without "Sad Songs..."

I'm pretty much the same. Victim of Love is by far the most flat-out awful album of the set for me. I don't even remember 21 from 33 anymore, so faceless, yes. I have a slight preference for Fox over 21 as the former is Elton trying to do something new on it---some sort of art-schlock European-oriented conceptual thing. It's an interesting failure, at least.

Curious whether the next album is indeed the proper "comeback" or no.

B-side blast:

"Highlander" B-side of "Heartache All Over the World"

http://youtu.be/s0TtLTe1RAE

"Billy and the Kids" "Slow Rivers" B-side

http://youtu.be/UE5FjZeT9E4

and "Lord of the Flies", another "Slow Rivers" b

http://youtu.be/21Qw1zy8-_Q

http://davidmcgough.com/photos/Elton%20John,%20wife,%20Renata%201986%20NY.jpg

the "Highlander" theme is EPCOT music.

"Lord of the Flies" is the best thing he recorded in '86, IMO. Why did he bury this?

"Town of Plenty"

http://youtu.be/2alDsRygZC4

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v291/MadScntst/appearances/1980s/19880708aids/324.jpg

We're in Reg Strikes Back territory, another comeback.

He's lost the ability to rock persuasively, and the arrangement is hamhanded (the synth stabs are gross; his voice is swathed in echo). Not terrible but I wouldn't play it again. And dig the "Kids Incorporated" video.

looks like i'm gonna have to hear Jump Up then.

thank God we're out of the mullet years at last. Starting to see the "grand dame" Elton look of the '90s emerge.

this one's overbearing: EJ pushes the verse as loudly as he does the chorus and he hectors you half the time, while the production buries the (admittedly irritating) keyboard hooks. Bernie does his part by rhyming "media" with "media"

"A Word in Spanish"

http://youtu.be/QUBDJ3Kyv0c

http://img.youtube.com/vi/QUBDJ3Kyv0c/0.jpg

The second single but I don't remember it.

video reminds me of "Domino Dancing" -- young man as object of lust in tropical climate.

As for the song, it would be prettier if he didn't sing it like a carnival barker.

yeah, what's with the oversinging on this album so far? It's like after the vocal chord operation he's hell-bent on exploiting his restored pipes. Plus maybe some delight from being out of his marriage & David Geffen's grasp (a bio has EJ calling his Geffen era "six years of pure hell")

"Spanish" goes on a minute longer than it needs to, and Johnstone's "Spanish" acoustic guitar solo is as inevitable as it's dull, but there does seem to be a touch more life in these songs than in the past trio of albums.

"Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters, Part 2"

http://youtu.be/k8gAY-NM6Hg

http://www.biography.com/imported/images/Biography/Images/Galleries/Elton%20John/elton-22-sized.jpg

I couldn't find it separate from the classic original.

yeesh, hearing those back to back does the sequel little favors. Again with the bellowing, again w/the hateful synth stabs, and there's barely a melody in the chorus. Because there's just not enough going on in overworked thing, we get a few quotes ("CIT-AY!" like Stevie Wonder; a "Drive My Car" beep-beep-yeah) too. At a loss, EJ turns things over to Freddie Hubbard, who gasses on for about a minute.

"boy, i hope he plays 'Mad Hatters Part 2 tonight!" said no one at an Elton John concert ever

it made me realize what a thing of beauty the original is.

what's with the "Wrap Her Up" production?

the original is my favorite elton john song. those two-part harmonies with himself melt me. "part 2" is no "your gold teeth 2," let's just say that.

Elton in the wild: "Nikita" softly playing over the PA in the supermarket this morning

"I Don't Wanna Go on With You Like That"

http://youtu.be/Wyi9AbfUa1E

http://i1.ytimg.com/vi/Wyi9AbfUa1E/hqdefault.jpg

A #2 in America, his biggest hit under his own name since "Don't Go Breaking My Heart." I can't deny how generic it sounds on, but after years of Taupin's excesses the simplicity of the lyric reads like poetry. Elton's first great vocal in years too ("one more set OF BOOTS on your welcome MAT"). As a kid the finger snap percussion fascinated me; it didn't sound like anything else at the time. Finally, an excellent (and again simple) keyboard solo from EJ himself. Everyone sounds like he's having fun.

My parents used to always have the AC stations on in the car growing up, and they played a lot of 80's and 90's Elton John (and not much of his 70's). "I Don't Wanna Go On" was one of my favorite tracks of his at the time, and it still holds up pretty well. I like the chord change in the chorus on "I just wanna tell you honey" that lightens up the song for just a second. For some reason, the simple structure works much better for me here than in say, "Sad Songs". And yeah, the ending solo is great.

The song has vanished though. I don't hear it at all, and even at the time it was a bigger video hit 'round my part of the world.

Protegé George Michael and his "Monkey" kept it from #1 btw.