Word: elton
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...memory of Elton's power to evoke a mellowness or an up-beat rowdiness, his power to make people buy his records and keep them on the radio, makes Elton John's Greatest Hits Volume II a sad record. It contains little of the spark to be found in his first collection of hits. If Elton's music changed in the first half of this decade from quiet piano-and-voice cuts to glitter-and-guitar tunes, it still had an original fire in it that shows in his first collection, released in 1974. The collection traced Elton's history...
...HEAR AS MUCH in Elton John's music from the small, overamplified speakers of the radio in a rusted-out '69 Dodge as you can from an expensive living-room stereo. That is a major source of his success and his importance. His songs made it big from the dashboards of beat-up, second-hand cars, old bomds parents let their kids take out on Saturday nights, souped-up monsters that squealed out of high school parking lots, cars with steamed-up windows parked in dark woods outside town...
...Elton John always had a song on the radio in the first half of this decade. He reached adolescents sitting at home with transistor radios and he reached their older siblings on wheels. Although it is fashionable now to sneer at the musician-turned-glitter star, his influence on popular music was once very real. His popularity did not arise in the beginning out of pure hype. Simple songs of affection like "Your Song" and "Daniel" can still move those who are disposed to be moved. If less memorable, cheerful piano boogie numbers like "Honky Cat" and "Crocodile Rock...
Sometime after the first collection came out Elton's music lost much of its power, and was left with only the loudness and outrageousness, and his name. He had pumped out too many records too fast. There is a limit to how much original music one man can produce; after a while he starts covering the same ground over and over. He has nothing more to say. Elton's songs started sounding tired. They stayed on top of the charts only because they came from Elton John...
...slide did not begin until around the time "The Bitch is Back" rode up the charts in 1974. The bitch was back, alright, but the bitching sounded a bit contrived. Significantly, "The Bitch is Back" is the first cut on Elton's latest set of "greatest hits," and the song is one of the better cuts on the album. Of the ten songs included, two have something to say, two are fun in a simple, unelaborate way, one is drawn from the early part of Elton's career, and the other five are plainly boring...