Bernie Taupin Is A Godawful Lyricist Whose Lyrics Sound Amazing Coming Out Of Elton John's Mouth — ILM ARTIST POLL #41: ELTON JOHN

this poll has made me realize that I may actually prefer Billy Joel to Elton John, in that the former's angry self-righteous neurosis and crippling needines

yes but at least Elton has his neurosis indentured to a lyricist. Joel has to write his own psychodramas.

like, to me, I think "Billy, it's your own fault you can't articulate you neurosis and crippling neediness."

wait it's not over

00. "A Word In Spanish" (1988) [9 points, 99 votes, 999 first place votes]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wlRmzlBPf4

plus, I love Elton's British attitude towards stardom: he follows the pop charts assiduously, will know exactly where his late seventies singles peaked, no angst. Meanwhile Joel worries whether his albums get crit luv.

as a side note, before hip-hop was a force American artists were wary about looking like they care about silly things like chart positions; they're artists, man.

billy's a pessimist. elton's an optimist.

billy's a born pop singer-songwriter who wanted to be a rock star. elton's a born rock singer-songwriter who wanted to be a pop star.

Tracks

1. Someone Saved My Life Tonight

2. Rocket Man

3. Crocodile Rock

4. Blues For My Baby and Me

5. Grey Seal

6. Tiny Dancer

7. Levon

8. Sacrifice

9. High Flying Bird

10. Daniel

11. Your Song

12. No Shoe Strings on Louise

13. Honky Cat

14. Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters

15. Border Song

16. Step into Christmas

17. This Song Has No Title

18. Pain

19. Don’t Let The Sun Go Down On Me

20. Candle in the Wind (GYBR version)

Albums

1. Don't Shoot Me I'm Only The Piano Player

2. Honky Chateau

3. Greatest Hits (1974)

4. Goodbye Yellow Brick Road

5. Caribou

Shit List*

1. Can You Feel The Love Tonight

2. The Greatest Discovery

3. Sixty Years On

*my ignorance of post-'75 Elton shows here; "Wrap Her Up" was unknown to me until this poll happened, and it might even be a worse song than CYFTLT. Decided for #2-3 to punish yucky album tracks that sullied an otherwise solid record instead.

billy actually is an angry young (now old) man. elton actually is still standing.

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(sorry for the ugly formatting there; was copy/pasting from my original email to Fever)

billy may be a slightly better piano player. elton is almost certainly a better singer.

It's a draw when it comes to singing. When he lost his falsetto Elton's singing sounded more Acme imo

i love them both. but elton had more going on at his peak than billy had going on at his.

Maybe it's a piano guy thing? Zevon also had a Brand X quality to his singing.

Wouldn't have changed the Top 50 at all, but just noticed this in the final tally

Blues For My Baby And Me 2 49
Blues For Baby And Me 1 23

(xp) i think zevon was a fabulous singer, and his voice was really distinct!

(xp) that 1 23 was my last-second ballot!

Blues For My Baby And Me 2 49
Blues For Baby And Me 1 23

Oh phew! Glad it didn't change anything, but I thought I was keeping a close eye on things like that.

Okay, that explains it. I probably wasn't super eagle-eyed with the final ballot to come in.

he sang about the blues a lot. "blues for my baby and me." "i guess that's why they call it the blues." the "state of teenage blues" in "i think i'm going to kill myself." "this boy's too young to be singing the blues" in "goodbye yellow brick road." and of course "blue eyes."

billy's a born pop singer-songwriter who wanted to be a rock star. elton's a born rock singer-songwriter who wanted to be a pop star.

― fact checking cuz, Thursday, August 22, 2013 7:03 PM (10 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this is taupin-level catchy nonsense of the highest order, i can't begin to decode it but i guess it's a nice soundbyte

Credit Bernie for that, I guess. Elton has said on more than one occasion that he's always been (and remains) an avid collector and listener of music, so it wouldn't surprise me in the least to see a lot of blues music on his shelves.

His first band was Bluesology.

It's no Attila.

speaking of him, this poll had me thinking about the fact that Billy and Elton haven't toured in a while, in part because Elton has been salty and vocally criticizing Billy for not continuing to write songs and trying to add to his recorded legacy. meanwhile, this poll has zero post-River of Dreams songs in the top 50, and four of 'em in the 'worst' subpoll.

this is taupin-level catchy nonsense of the highest order,

kinda agree, EJ doesn't strike me as a born rock-n-roll guy (neither does Joel for that matter, altho his earlier work may belie this - I haven't listened to the non-Attila stuff)

tbf, I'm almost 100% certain nothing from River of Dreams would make a Billy Joel top 50 on ilm.

Billy Joel, EJ, and Bowie don't come to rock and roll naturally. Lump'em or leave'em.

haha wrong. "River of Dreams" would make my top ten.

only cuz in summer '93 the novelty of boomer-rock going Paul Simon over shufflebeat sounded like a novelty.

you're totally right that River of Dreams wouldn't rate, by no means was i implying otherwise. what i meant was that listeners have decided that both these guys' put their best writing days behind them a long time ago, whether they willingly gave up or not.

yeah there's probably a good degree of nonsense in what i wrote. but billy HAS always self-identified as a rock and roller, while elton has always leaned "pop." i can't, for example, imagine billy doing a duet with kiki dee, and i can't imagine him ever doing glam either.

(i am however, flattered, that anything i write might be considered taupin-level catchy nonsense!)

I'd forgotten what "The River of Dreams" actually sounded like until I played it on youtube just now. Yeah, that's a good song. Also, Joel still had his falsetto in the 90s, which is more than Elton could claim. Still, Elton's singing during his initial run is one of my favorite things.

"Grey Seal" instead of "Candle in the Wind" we hope

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by the early 90s, joel couldn't hit the high notes in "an innocent man" and he wasn't even trying. he had a female backup singer take 'em.

ha!

Billy definitely seems to have less bite in his backing band, i will say that. if he'd had Elton's guys he might've rocked a little more convincingly.

which made "I Go To Extremes" so hilarious.

I Go To Extremes was mostly a victim of its own 1989'ness.

fantasizing right now about elton's band doing "a matter of trust."

maybe Joel meant he hangs out with Nuno and Gary

Re: Billy's Band, some of this may be Phil Ramone and the general sweet evening sheen of his peak-era records (which btw directly overlap Elton's evaporation, perhaps explaining why so many people and people's parents were fans of both). I love that LA gloss but it's a different thing than the crunchy texture of Elton's pop-rock albums. Joel's band sounds pretty great live on ''Songs In The Attic.''

Great poll, btw, really sorry to have been 12 hours out of sync with the discussion. Thanks JF.

(Would still give it to the EJ band btw - they're more fun and wayy more adventurous - just saying there may be other factors in play.)

Davey Johnstone has awful hair though. Always.

lol

but nigel olsson had fantastic hair.

so anyway when is the billy joel poll???

:D

Just checked my ballot, I think the only picks not to make it were ''Curtains,'' ''Lucy in the Sky,'' ''Hercules,'' and ''Grow Some Funk Of Your Own'' (noxious lyric and all - this shit just gets stuck in my head CONSTANTLY). I didn't have much hope for any of those, but ''Curtains'' was my #6 so I thought that might boost it into the lower rankings if it had a few other fans. Oh well. Couldn't be more pleased with the top of the charts... 1-3 were my list too, though I had ''Rocket Man'' at #1 for sheer craft. I don't disagree that ''Someone'' deserves it.

1 Rocket Man (I Think It's Going To Be A Long Long Time)
2 Someone Saved My Life Tonight
3 Funeral For A Friend/Love Lies Bleeding
4 Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy
5 Goodbye Yellow Brick Road
6 Curtains
7 Daniel
8 High Flying Bird
9 Levon
10 Saturday Night's Alright (For Fighting)
11 Hercules
12 Holiday Inn
13 Philadelphia Freedom
14 Elderberry Wine
15 Honky Cat
16 The Bitch Is Back
17 Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds
18 Grow Some Funk Of Your Own
19 I Feel Like A Bullet (In The Gun of Robert Ford)
20 I'm Still Standing