Elton John Project: Part 1

In the summer of 2019, inspired by the movie Rocketman, I decided to acquaint myself with the classic 1970s albums of Elton John. The project would involve thoroughly and repeatedly listening to his first 11 studio albums, along with various soundtrack and other non-LP tracks. I had long enjoyed the long stream of Elton's hits from this period—"Philadelphia Freedom," "Rocket Man," "Someone Saved My Life Tonight," "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road," "Crocodile Rock," "Your Song," "Daniel," "Tiny Dancer," "Bennie and the Jets," "Island Girl," "Don't Go Breaking My Heart"—all of them are top-tier 1970s smashes, and make up a big part of "the soundtrack of my life." Of the tunes from this era, "Candle in the Wind" is about the only one I would not include on my list of favorite Elton John songs, even though it is not terrible by any means. The question that I hoped to answer was simple: How many of the songs on Elton's dozen (or so) 1970s albums contain songs as good as the ones I just mentioned? The answer turns out to be as agonizing as it was predictable: not very many.

But first, a quick flashback: A few years ago, I did attempt a different sort of "Elton John deep tracks" project. I asked two friends, Mark and Robert—both major Elton fans—to recommend 10-12 lesser-known songs apiece that they thought were excellent. Unfortunately, most of their picks were songs that I didn't particularly care for, although roughly a third of them were good; a few of those were from his later albums. This year's project would be a far more comprehensive undertaking, leaving me to discover for myself which "deep tracks" were the outstanding ones.

After going through the process I have come to refer to as "drilling," I have learned that all of the truly great songs of Elton were the ones that became hits. Of the roughly 150 non-hits I listened to incessantly over several months, spread across the albums starting with 1969's Empty Sky and ending with 1976's Blue Moves, most were graded 1, 2 or 3 stars out of 5. However, just over 50—about a third—were graded at least 4 stars, with only a handful ("Bitter Fingers," "Skyline Pigeon," "I've Been Loving You," "Love Lies Bleeding" and "Where to Now, St. Peter?") landing the perfect 5-star rating. "Love Lies Bleeding" is unfortunately attached to a separate full-length song, "Funeral for a Friend," that I don't really care for, so some musical surgery was required to attach it for my personal enjoyment. Meanwhile, I would reckon that "Where to Now, St. Peter," "I've Been Loving You" and especially "Bitter Fingers" are the songs that deserved to have been hits. ("I'm sick of tra-la-las and la-de-das" is a lyric that has gotten permanently stuck in my head.)

Going into this project, I was particularly excited to hear the iconic, universally beloved LPs that Elton and lyricist Bernie Taupin made, specifically Don't Shoot Me I’m Only the Piano Player, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, and Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy. I think it was only natural for me to assume that these bestselling records would contain a higher ratio of excellent material. However, this proved not to be true. Practically all of Elton's albums from this period contain at least one hit, some good songs, some mediocre songs, and a couple of clinkers. (Indeed, if you were going to average out all of my ratings, you'd probably discover that I like the Friends soundtrack more than any of the previously mentioned "iconic" records!) Moreover, upon learning that I was initially prepared to stop after 10 albums, Mark implored me to include the experimental double album Blue Moves, as it's one of his favorites. But this, too, was really not any better than his other albums.

After the 1970s, Elton's parade of irresistible singles dried up. Not to say he didn't continue to make the charts, but his best-known songs in the 1980s and beyond—"Can You Feel the Love Tonight," "Blue Eyes," "Sad Songs (Say So Much)," "I Don't Wanna Go on with You Like That," "Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me"—do not measure up to the strength of his '70s masterpieces, and that's a huge understatement. There are a few that I like: "I'm Still Standing" and "Sacrifice" are excellent, especially in comparison to his other charting singles from those years, and "I Guess That's Why They Call It the Blues" is pretty decent. So...do I really need to explore his subsequent 19 albums? Logic would suggest that if I couldn't find a juggernaut of amazing material from the 1970s, then the ratio of great "unknown" songs from the 1980s and beyond will be even smaller.

And yet, I am curious. Clearly there must be some good songs spread across those 19 later albums. But how many? If there is a Part #2 of this project, I will definitely not be including the 1979 Victim of Love album, as he didn't play piano or write any of the album's songs. So that brings it down to 18 albums, which would probably best be split into two groups of nine. Only time will tell if I get to them, but in the meantime, I will be enjoying the 50 very good Elton John songs I have discovered in 2019—plus the five awesome ones.

Here were my grades: