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Goodbye Yellow Brick Road by Elton John (Vinyl record album review)

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Record basics

  • Album name: Goodbye Yellow Brick Road
  • Artist name: Elton John
  • Year: 1973
  • Number of discs: two
  • Label: MCA Records
  • Collection: Selman
  • Distinguishing characteristics:
    • Something crossed out in black magic marker at the top center of the front of the album
    • “1.99” sticker at the top right of the front of the album
  • Buy it on Amazon: $30.99

Goodbye Yellow Brick Road by Elton John

My review

Level of familiarity before listening

I’ve never listened to this record before, but I recognize a few of the songs on it by name, and guess this is supposed to be a big and important record in Elton John’s career.

Previous Elton John records that I’ve reviewed:

What I expected

I want to believe that, because I’ve heard some of these songs, I’ll enjoy hearing them again, but if I’m being realistic, just the thought of Candle in the Wind makes me dread this.

What it was actually like

Weirdly, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road opened like a Moody Blues record and I thought I might have put the wrong thing on, but no, this was definitely Elton John, and I didn’t like it, but parts of it were definitely all right.

Your Sister Can’t Twist (But She Can Rock ‘n Roll), for example, was probably the closest to being a good song. I thought it just needed a little work to be at Sha Na Na level. Social disease was also all right.

Overall, I was impressed at the level of rock-style electric guitar throughout the record, such as on Saturday Night’s Alright for Fighting – one doesn’t usually think of Elton John songs as being particularly guitar-heavy – but distressed at the amount of piano. I really think Elton John could have created much better music by focusing on a rock style and minimizing non-rock instrumentation.

Probably the strangest song was Jamaica Jerk-Off, which was very reggae, almost to an embarrassing degree (and I actually love reggae). I wish he had done it more like how Led Zeppelin did D’yer Mak’er.

Grade

3/5: interesting, but not for me

Mad Love by Linda Ronstadt (Vinyl record album review)

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Record basics

  • Album name: Mad Love
  • Artist name: Linda Ronstadt
  • Year: 1980
  • Number of discs: one
  • Label: Asylum Records
  • Collection: Selman
  • Buy it on Amazon: $18.00

Mad Love by Linda Ronstadt

My review

Level of familiarity before listening

I’ve never heard of this record, but this will be my fifth Linda Ronstadt record in the past few months. The others were:

What I expected

Linda Ronstadt seems to focus just on singing, making records that consist entirely of other people’s songs. I’m a little worried about this one because it’s from 1980, which was not exactly a good year for the kind of music I associate with her other work, and the cover art appears to be a very explicit attempt to rebrand her as “punk,” which she’s emphatically not, or as “new wave,” which doesn’t have any clear meaning.

What it was actually like

I like punk music, but I’m not punk. There’s nothing wrong at all with not being punk. Nothing about Linda Ronstadt is punk, and she should embrace that instead of trying to be something she’s not.

On the other hand, experimentation is good.

So I guess this was a “new wave” record, though I’m reluctant to put that in writing without having any definite understanding of what “new wave” was actually supposed to include or exclude.

Much of the record anticipated what people in the late 1990s called “pop punk,” such as Girls Talk and How Do I Make You, which was kind of a running-in-place (but not skanking) song.

While all the other Linda Ronstadt records were totally about Linda Ronstadt’s singing, Mad Love was as much about short, simple radio-friendly tracks with prominent electric guitar and drum parts, particularly songs like Party Girl and Justine.

It wasn’t terrible at all and was very 1980, so I think that if I were a “new wave” or pop punk fan, I would probably have loved Mad Love, but it’s no accident that the Linda Ronstadt record I’ve enjoyed the most so far, Different Drum, was the first to be recorded.

Grade

3/5: interesting, but not for me

Feats Don’t Fail Me Now by Little Feat (Vinyl record album review)

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Record basics

  • Album name: Feats Don’t Fail Me Now
  • Group name: Little Feat
  • Year: 1974
  • Number of discs: one
  • Label: Warner Bros.
  • Collection: Selman
  • Buy it on Amazon: $57.95

Feats Don't Fail Me Now by Little Feat

My review

Level of familiarity before listening

I listened to Sailin’ Shoes by Little Feat back in May, but I had never heard of Little Feat before that point, and wasn’t really impressed by their music.

What I expected

I guess more blues rock?

What it was actually like

This was such a weird record that sounded almost as if it had been made by two bands, one a funk / jazz band and the other a blues rock / southern rock band.

Jazz and funk:

  • Rock & Roll Doctor
  • Skin it Back
  • Spanish Moon

Blues rock and southern rock:

  • Oh Atlanta
  • Down the Road
  • Medley: Cold Cold Cold/Tripe Face Boogie

Hybrid of both styles:

  • Feats Don’t Fail Me Now
  • The Fan was a sort of jazz-rock jam

I didn’t really like any of it, though.

Grade

3/5: interesting, but not for me

Living in the USA by Linda Ronstadt (Vinyl record album review)

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Record basics

  • Album name: Living in the USA
  • Artist name: Linda Ronstadt
  • Year: 1978
  • Number of discs: one
  • Label: Asylum Records
  • Collection: Selman
  • Buy it on Amazon: $89.98

Living in the USA by Linda Ronstadt

My review

Level of familiarity before listening

I have no familiarity with this record, but it is the fourth Linda Ronstadt record I’ll have reviewed in the past few months (the others being Different Drum in June, Simple Dreams in July and Prisoner In Disguise in August).

What I expected

My opinion of the previous three Linda Ronstadt records was mixed to somewhat negative, and I want to be optimistic about Living in the USA, but it’s difficult with the extremely art deco / Miami Vice style design.

What it was actually like

Like previous Linda Ronstadt records, Living in the USA was a collection of covers, and I didn’t want to get my hopes up that Back In The U.S.A. would be a nicely done cover of one of my favorite Chuck Berry songs, but wow – she absolutely crushed it (and here is the MC5 version, which should not be missed)! This was the best song on the record by a country mile.

I thought Ronstadt’s version of Doris Troy’s Just One Look was passable, but very much in the way that the bread makes the sandwich, the backing track on her version was all late 1970s syncopated pseudo-rhythm with no character, and that really detracted from her very fine vocals.

Similarly, though I’m not a fan of Elvis Costello’s Alison, I didn’t think that Ronstadt’s version of the song did Costello’s justice, even though Ronstadt’s vocals on it were fine. The use of saxophone was definitely a negative. As I may have mentioned in the past:

I want to stress that rock musicians really need to avoid using saxophone in their music. If you’re Charlie Parker, I want to hear your saxophone part, but in rock I just don’t think there’s a lot of use for it.

The saxophone reappeared in Ooo Baby Baby, which under normal circumstances is a solid song, but I could not stand her version of it, which was way too slow and soft. White Rhythm was shockingly boring, so bad that the police should blast it when dispersing rioters.

I was eager to hear how Ronstadt would tackle Elvis Presley’s Love Me Tender because I think it’s a song that really lends itself to interpretation, but unfortunately hers, while basically being true to Elvis’s original, was pretty flat and didn’t really do much.

Grade

3/5: interesting, but not for me

The Bitter End Years by Various Artists (Vinyl record album review)

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Record basics

  • Album name: The Bitter End Years
  • Group name: Various Artists
  • Year: 1974
  • Number of discs: three
  • Label: Roxbury Records
  • Collection: Selman
  • Buy it on Amazon: $9.99

The Bitter End Years

My review

Level of familiarity before listening

I’m familiar with the Bitter End and have even been there, but didn’t know that this compilation existed.

What I expected

It looks like The Bitter End Years, a three LP set, is divided into three sub-compilations, one on each LP: “early years” of folk music, such as Judy Collins, the Everly Brothers, Phil Ochs and Pete Seeger; “comedy years” including Woody Allen, George Carlin and Joan Rivers; and “rock years” including John Denver, Arlo Guthrie, Curtis Mayfield, Melanie, Bette Midler, Van Morrison and James Taylor. So folk, standup comedy and late 1960s / early 1970s pop music.

What it was actually like

Early years

I really liked the Limelighters’ version of If I Had A Hammer. Tom Rush’s Who Do You Love was also pretty good, though definitely more electric and more of a rock song than folk. Hearing Dodi Li was pretty surprising and it was faithful to the original[1], though with the addition of some Spanish-style guitar.

I think the worst song from the “early years” has to have been Pete Seeger’s version of Where Have All The Flowers Gone, which has always been one of my least favorites.

Comedy years

There was nothing particularly funny about any of this “comedy.” Low points included the joke that Richard Nixon’s face looked like a foot, as well as the extended Godfather parody that would be right at home on “Saturday Night Live” of the early 2000s. I guess the William F. Buckley, Jr. impression was the funniest part.

Rock years

This collection of songs was so weird. There were twelve songs on this LP and, with one glaring exception, I was unfamiliar with all of them. Why would they have chosen second-rate and somewhat unknown songs for this compilation? Some kind of licensing issue?

The exception, of course, was Van Morrison’s Brown Eyed Girl, a childhood favorite of mine and the best song on the record by far.

Curtis Mayfield’s Gypsy Woman and the Isley Brothers’ Pop That Thang were the worst and didn’t qualify as rock at all… though I guess it only says “rock years” and doesn’t explicitly say anywhere that there wouldn’t have been funk songs from the rock years. But yeah, that was strange.

Another thing that was odd, and this is true of both the “early years” and the “rock years” LPs, is that none of the songs were live recordings, let alone live recordings from the Bitter End. Instead, they were all studio versions. I kind of assumed that, this being a celebration of a specific club, the songs on it would have had something specific to do with that club.

Grade

3/5: interesting, but not for me

References

References
↑1 Well, maybe not to the original original, but to the XX century original.