OL' HAIR WEAVE IS BACK
Remember the 70�s? Not much of a decade, you say. Yeah, well. Fella here used to be a mover and a shaker back in the mid-70�s. Real big wheel. Hits? For awhile there, even the holes in his singles charted. Acclaim? In the Village Voice, Robert Christgau himself discussed the cat's �metier.� Like I say, big.
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OL� HAIR WEAVE IS BACK
ELTONJOHN
Jump Up!
(Geffen)
Gene Sculatti
by
Remember the 70�s? Not much of a decade, you say. Yeah, well. Fella here used to be a mover and a shaker back in the mid-70�s. Real big wheel. Hits? For awhile there, even the holes in his singles charted. Acclaim? In the Village Voice, Robert Christgau himself discussed the cat's �metier.� Like I say, big.
When was the last time you listened to an Elton John side by choice? Same here; �74 or �75, when he was dating �Island Girl� and Croc-rockin� around the Kiki Dee, when Goodbye Yellow Bic Banana was wailin� at the wall. Well, here�s today�s riff: if you ever listened to him and stopped, Jump Up! gives you reason to start all over again. Maybe the fact he�s not everywhere on the air anymore it what makes Jump Up! such a great surprise. Then again, it may be that ol� Four Eyes has here put together the best pop album of his career. Like I say, a big move.
One of the reasons is that this is mostly uptempo stuff (and in that department, �Dear John� and �Where Have All The Good Times iGone� equal his best). Also: Eltie�s sharpest when he�s not trying to say something, and despite some Bernie Taupin overreaching and liberal metaphor mixing, Jump Up! doesn�t say a hell of a lot more than I love you, Didn�t we have fun? and Gee, it�s sad we�re splitting. Perfect example: �I Am Your Robot,� an overdue overturning of Human League and all that Soft Smell synthe-pop. Semi-perfect example: �Where Have All The Good Times Gone�—a non-teary-eyed nostalgia move built upon a simpatico musiclyric union hinged on the line �Say that you remember all those good old Four Tops songs.�
And even Bern�s word mangling can�t mar �Empty Garden (Hey Hey Johnny),� the Lennon tribute that�s devastating—as loss conveyance, Superpop architecture, Instahit inevitability—better, in fact, than anything Elt�s cut in seven or eight years and, sad to say, stronger than anything Lennon had done in almost ten. �Ball And Chain� is EJ at his most capricious, imitating, at this late date yet, Fleetwood Mac. �Princess,� despite a borrowed chord or two from the hideous �Your Song,� waltzes in time with prevailing black-pop style and walks away winning, and �Blue Eyes� is a boss ballad that Sinatra oughta cover (it certainly beats the Beatles� �Something,� Frank�s nod to contemporaneity for almost a decade now).
Whether this means Elton�s �back� or on top again, is for someone else to figure .out. It does mean Jump Up�s an exceptional record. In today�s devalued pop economy, that�s not small change.
