Record basics

Album name: Elton John
Artist name: Elton John
Year: 1970
Number of discs: one
Label: Uni Records
Collection: Selman
Buy it on Amazon: $23.99

My review

Level of familiarity before listening

I’m not familiar with this Elton John record, but it will be the seventh of his records that I review. The previous six were:

Tumbleweed Connection (1970): 2/5
11-17-70 (1971): 3/5
Madman Across the Water (1971): 2/5
Goodbye Yellow Brick Road (1973): 3/5
Caribou (1974): 1/5
Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy (1975): 2/5

And also:

Elton John Rock Hits Played By Kings Road (1975): 3/5

What I expected

I mostly have not enjoyed Elton John’s music, but this was recorded pretty early in his career, so maybe it will be better than the rest.

What it was actually like

A lot of these songs were pretty typical of Elton John’s style, which I do not find enjoyable, such as Your Song and Border Song.

Besides those, several had an annoying orchestral backing sound that I found pretty boring, such as The King Must Die, First Episode at Hienton and The Greatest Discovery.

I Need You to Turn To had the most interesting sound on the record, because for that song, John ditched his normal piano and played a harpsichord instead (but not in a baroque style).

The song that I enjoyed the most was Take Me to the Pilot, which had a soul sound, and the R&B parts of The Cage were also good, but the parts that sounded like the Moody Blues were not.

Parts of Sixty Years On weirdly reminded me of a Led Zeppelin song, and No Shoe Strings on Louise was blues rock, but not well done.

Grade

2/5: bad, but I was able to listen to the whole thing

Elton John (1970) (Vinyl record album review)