Elton John - Goodbye Yellow Brick Road (1973)

(This is a special record review, in recognition of the fiftieth anniversary of this album's release this month.)

With all due respect to the Rolling Stones and Exile on Main St., Elton John's Goodbye Yellow Brick Road is the signature double album of the seventies.

Goodbye Yellow Brick Road presents everything that was good and even a few things that were embarrassing in the decade that Elton John defined with his music.  You get the flash, the glitter, the professionalism, and even a bit of the cheesiness of some of 1970s pop's more regrettable moments.  It also brings together all of the various forms of pop of the time; art rock, heavy rock, singer-songwriter pop, glam, and soul.  The music is immaculately played by Elton himself and his band of guitarist Davey Johnstone, bassist Dee Murray and drummer Nigel Olsson, given the right amount of tinsel and polish by producer Gus Dudgeon. 

Lyricist Bernie Taupin describes Goodbye Yellow Brick Road as a cinematic album, and he and Elton constructed it in a sweeping, epic manner.  The LP kicks off with the astonishing eleven-minute suite "Funeral For a Friend / Love Lies Bleeding," which begins with the sound of wind and funeral bells and a morose organ, settling into a somber piano piece before slowly building up energy and explosively segueing into a rocking song.  Other songs throughout the album are presented as scenes from a movie, from the glam-rock concert vibes of "Bennie and the Jets" (released as a single in America when it started getting airplay on soul stations)  to the gangster lore of "The Ballad of Danny Bailey (1909-34)." There are also moments of  nostalgia like the Marilyn Monroe tribute "Candle in the Wind" (not one of my favorite Elton John songs, but as a power ballad, it works in the context of the rest of the album) and the ballad ""Roy Rogers," a song with a corny big-time Nashville "countrypolitan" about a bored father and husband who escapes watching reruns of Roy Rogers' old TV show.    

There are plenty of memorable rockers on Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, made even more so by Johnstone's spirited, forceful guitar solos and Olsson's punchy drums, along with Murray's solid but subtle bass lines.  Elton is still the star of the show; he works up a frenzied vocal line on "Your Sister Can't Twist" (but She Can Rock 'n' Roll)" carried to a ridiculous tempo by a swirling organ, and his piano on "Saturday Night's Alright For Fighting" is just as heavy as Johnstone's crunchy riffs.  He's just as able to deliver some of Bernie's more seamy lyrics, such as a tender ballad about a prostitute ("Sweet Painted Lady") and a jokey reggae sex romp "(Jamaica Jerk-Off")  And Elton really gets it on with "All the Girls Love Alice," a tale of a lesbian who "pleasures" bored housewives set to a nasty and dirty rock beat.

The title song is a perfect centerpiece for the album, with its poignant yearning to return to one's roots even after living the high life, and despite Elton's sympathetic delivery, you know a part of this songwriting team is ready to escape to the fantasy world of the denizens of Oz.  (The LP's cover, depicting Elton walking into the imagined world of L. Frank Baum's stories, underscores the irony.)  "Harmony," an uplifting ballad of reconciliation, closes the album with a great deal of satisfaction for the 76-minute journey, a positive vibe you don't get from other great double albums, and that includes the Beatles' White Album ("Good Night" is too melancholy) or Bob Dylan's Blonde on Blonde ("Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands" is just so darn long!).  If you want to know what Elton John is all about - and what the 1970s were all about - this is the album for you.