One of the best two disc Best Of / Greatest Hits i own, only a few duds , but most Artists have a fair number of duds even with one disc compilations!, i got to know Elton John in the mid Seventies, buying some of his singles [vinyl 45's!], he's very varied, and Artists of course change over the years, a lot of times they change for the worse, they're so famous they can put any old music out and it would sell well enough, and even though Elton has had his commercial moments, he's been pretty consistent, the two discs follow a vague chronological order, songs like 'Goodbye Yellow Brick Road', and 'Candle In The Wind' were Seventies favourites, but then he had great hits a decade later with 'Nikita' and 'Sacrifice', i have to admit he's probably now considered 'easy listening', but his songs of the Seventies / Eighties are timeless Pop / Rock, i played this set just over a year ago [13th August 2011].
Elton John is now 65, he was born in England, this compilation came out in 1990, yes more than 20 years ago!, and yet apart from a few songs, it still represents Elton John's very best stuff nicely, i don't feel that i need to buy some updated package to replace this, the front cover photo [by Greg Gorman], is a great portrait, lovely lighting indeed, all couched in blue, with lighting from above, the jacket literally glows in the dark!.
Well on this listen, the songs that i really enjoyed were tracks 6, 8, 24, 26 & 28, which are the four i mentioned above, plus 'Sad Songs', these five are his great handful, and they were the five i really loved last time i listened to these discs, so i thought i would concentrate on this fifth song, and give my feelings about it,
24 Sad Songs - It's a song that i didn't get to know when it came out in the charts, i stopped listening to the charts in the very late Seventies, probably 1979, and this came out in 1984, not a song i knew until i bought this compilation, and it's slowly worked on me, it has a great rhythm and forward momentum to it, i guess it's keyboard driven, even though the keyboard isn't a piano, the chorus is a nice powerhouse, and Elton sings so strongly, halfway through there's a very special 'sad songs they say' repetition [2:40-2:58], nicely sung in a different key, and right after Elton really explodes 'so turn them on, oh turn them on', with a great emphasis on 'oh' [3:01], and at the outro 'when every little bit of hope is gone' [3:43+] is an extra little bit of bite, the whole thing is really terrific.
24 Sad Songs - It's a song that i didn't get to know when it came out in the charts, i stopped listening to the charts in the very late Seventies, probably 1979, and this came out in 1984, not a song i knew until i bought this compilation, and it's slowly worked on me, it has a great rhythm and forward momentum to it, i guess it's keyboard driven, even though the keyboard isn't a piano, the chorus is a nice powerhouse, and Elton sings so strongly, halfway through there's a very special 'sad songs they say' repetition [2:40-2:58], nicely sung in a different key, and right after Elton really explodes 'so turn them on, oh turn them on', with a great emphasis on 'oh' [3:01], and at the outro 'when every little bit of hope is gone' [3:43+] is an extra little bit of bite, the whole thing is really terrific.
