I respect your love and joy for vinyl. Still, to say you "make these points respectively" right after saying "listening to digitally sourced music is like wearing a condom over your ears" is insulting to those of us who practice safe and protective music listening habits.
I agree. Buckmaster's early arrangements were a bit much (his "horror film" score on 60 Years On, as he refers to it) - but he found his groove on Madman, where I feel the strings really helped drive the tracks, and honestly made them very distinctive (think of that run right after the chorus in Levon). Later, Buckmaster did become more complementary with his scores - Made in England is a great example, and so is Songs from the West Coast. I think JNH on Blue Moves is closer to Buckmaster on MIE and West Coast - adding to but not overpowering the tracks.
picked this up from Rough Trade today, can't wait to give it a spin.. not least because my old DJM LP is a bit beaten up and of the however many different CDs I've picked up over the years (Nimbus DJM CD, W.Germany DJM CD, MCA U.S. CD, Gus' remaster, etc.. I'm not sure I have any that are really that great sounding!?)
Interesting, all you guys in the UK get download codes. We haven't gotten them for any of the albums in the series. (including the 17/11/70+ Record Store Day album)
You should be careful how much information you volunteer Mazzy. A competent mathematician could calculate your exact age from that statement!
Yeah the downloads are kind of not fair! Are they new Ludwig masters too? or recycled from years past....
I guess I am in the minority here in the states where I'm not all that bothered that we're not getting download cards. Now if they offered the downloads in a hi-res format then sure I'd feel left out but as it is I don't feel we're really missing out.
I think it's only a matter of time before they announce the reissues of The One, Made In England, and Peachtree Road in addition to Greatest Hits. Why have a reissue campaign only to stop at Sleeping With The Past which comes out in October?
Hope you are right on more reissues. I will continue to purchase whatever titles they issue. Also the download codes are not that big a deal to me either. I would only be upset if they were brand new well done Ludwig masters in Hi Res which I would be interested in having for free with the purchase of the vinyl.
Certainly not doubting you read this somewhere but the way I understood it was Elton didn't have to win and MCA had no choice. This was Elton's first album on his own Rocket Records so MCA ended up being the more on the distribution side (American only) with this specific album. I am sure I am wrong but that's the way I always understood it. In regards to strings. I have always been a fan of Your Song, Danny Baily, Sixty Years On, Have Mercy, Indian Sunset, Tonight.etc etc .the more darker, softer side of things. Somehow, the strings blend incredibly. But as soon as I hear things like Take Me To The Pilot, One Horse Town, Bite Your Lip, Tell Me When The Whistle Blows.....I don't know...I sometimes cringe. now, I am more of a piano/keyboard guy but I do love guitar and heavy stuff. But when you mix strings/orchestra together with electric guitars???? I just don't get it at all and I just despise it. Maybe it's a musician/keyboard/guitar thing. It's like the first time I heard that GOD AWFUL ending to Take Me To The Pilot on the Live In Australia album.....OMG you think Mazzy wants to stab people when he hears Blue Moves?? Just don't ever put that Live in Australia on...or I will truly dig people up from the dead, kill them and bury them with that record. Ok, maybe not to that degree but boy do I hate that and let's not even get into A Single Man. Whew.....I can breathe now.
Gotta think that if MCA demanded a double album that would be a first in record label history. I would think they would have wanted him to release it as two singles months apart. Still think Shoulder Holster is a great song.
I am flattered that you mentioned me in your critique. I agree with most of what you say but I will tell you that I LOVE Take Me To the Pilot and the strings on that one. It is stunning to me. Everything else I'm right with you on . The string arrangements on the others are blecchh.....
Well, I don't mind it on the S/T album but I guess I am used to it...and it's ok but OMG when hear that idiotic ending him and JNH did on that Australia album?? ...there are no words.
I think the MOV copy of Closer to Home sounds great (comparing it to original pressing, Capitol dark green re-issue in the 80's + the Pastmasters CD and remasters). Have not heard the 24/96 download. Thanks
Can I ask you guys something?? It's non-related EJ wise but I feel it's a legit question here because EJ/Queen shared the same management team back in the day but here goes. I am a true defender...actually lover of all these Elton reissues and to me..and I cannot speak for the original DJM owners and I trust their hearing BUT?? To ALL of you..... Queen have just now announced their 40th anniversary box set of News of The World. Within that boxset contains "now" a "analog cut" of the LP. Within my total defence and argument of the whole analog vs digital cut is it fair to say now that this is the start of "newer" (if that's a word) campaigns? New analog cuts of Queen, Beatles Stereo, LZ, Rush, Gabriel, Floyd etc etc? Because in my ears...how much better are you going to get with these presses. It seems to me Mr Fremer is actually softening to the idea that cutting from a digital file still sounds just as great but are we seeing "yet another" campaign to re-re-re-re-reissue all these amazing albums again? Try and keep it EJ related for the sake of the post if you can.
For what it's worth I think the string arrangements on Madman are incredibly good and inventive. Especially the title track; it's just awesome, IMO. To my mind, that one also has an effective combination of orchestra and electric rhythm guitar. Big fan of Buckmaster here.
Wondering if anyone has an opinion on the Australian GBYR on blue vinyl from 1978. There's one on ebay right now. I though I had seen a mention of it on here somewhere but for the life of me I can't find the thread.
My source is Bernardin and Stanton's book. Philip Norman's book, on the other hand (I just checked it), claims the idea was Elton's. But neither work cites its sources for their claims. Elizabeth's Rosenthal's book, which is very well-documented, claims that Elton had begun Blue Moves with the possibility of another double-album in mind. But Rosenthal's source for that specific claim is a radio interview EJ did in Barbados in 1975, and her endnote doesn't provide an exact quotation. And given the interview's date, whatever EJ said to the interviewer was likely a vague, off-the-cuff response to the usual question of whether he'd ever do another album like Goodbye Yellow Brick Road again. So, who knows. I suppose both versions could be true: Even if Elton had envisioned a double-album at the beginning of the project, he may have reconsidered it. Blue Moves may have been his first album on Rocket, but his contractual obligations to MCA continued long after 1976. And something he'd always resented about his contracts with DJM and MCA was that both labels had always counted double-LPs as one album. I can't imagine he'd wanted to give MCA the satisfaction of two albums for the "contractual price" of one, so to speak. Moreover, by the end of 1976 Elton was longing for a break. A double-album would've required a massive tour to support, which he ended up doing but very reluctantly. True, record labels typically don't like supporting double-albums. But that's usually when artists of lesser commercial stature want to release them. When the artist is Elton John, who was still a record sales monster, even in 1976, you can't assume that MCA would necessarily have been against a double-album. "Don't Go Breaking My Heart" was one of the best-selling singles of the year in the USA. MCA had no reason to believe Blue Moves wouldn't achieve strong sales (and they weren't wrong; it went platinum). But they also knew Elton desperately wanted a break from both recording and touring, and since getting on his own label in the UK he now had the freedom to take one. They may have considered two single-LPs at some point, but they knew very well that EJ would not have toured in 1977 to support a second single-LP. But this all really just guesswork. Perhaps you're correct, Darrin. Maybe Elton had wanted a double-album so he could go out with a bang. He knew his career has going to change after 1976.
And like I said before, I prefer James Newton-Howard's arrangements to Buckmaster's. But that's not just because I happen to prefer his writing style; I also prefer the sound of a larger orchestra. In the early years, i.e. when Buckmaster was doing pretty much all of Elton John's string arrangements, EJ albums did not have budgets for large orchestras. A larger orchestra meant more time spent writing the arrangements, more people required to play them, and thus larger, pricier studios for recording them. All of PB's arrangements for the early EJ albums were for orchestras no larger than 20 pieces, including percussion. But by the time JNH began arranging for EJ, budgets for Elton John albums were much larger. And those orchestras on Blue Moves and The Fox were unquestionably larger than 20 pieces. This might explain why, as someone in this thread pointed out a couple of weeks ago, even PB's arrangements on Blue Moves sounded different than his earlier ones. Not only was JNH working with a much, much larger ensemble on Blue Moves, so was Buckmaster. That's probably also why even PB's earlier arrangements sound so different on Live in Australia. For, as EJ himself explained to the audience (in a speech eventually cut from the final album), JNH not only had to write one brand new arrangement for the show (i.e., Saturday Night) he also had to translate all of PB's 20-piece arrangements into arrangements for an 88-piece ensemble.
And by the way, Darrin (and my apologies for not saying this earlier, but I only noticed it now) ... Greetings from another Ontarian! I live way down in the American south now, but I was raised in Peterborough and am mighty proud of it. And despite what my friends used to say about Hamilton, I love the town. The Daniel Lanois connection is cool enough, but even before I knew about that I'd always liked Hamilton. I even saw Elton at the Copps Coliseum back in 1999.
Sorry for the late reply Solly..... God Bless you for getting a key to get out of Hamilton...LOL My cousins landed in Peterborough, as we all grew up and were brought up in Hamilton (just don't hold that against that us) and I found them on many of visits....I Mother Earth??...maybe you have heard of them. We ALL grew up on Elton and we ALL reference his albums in terms of songs/sound...even "they" do. They just went 'VanHalen/Rushy and I went Genesisy but we do talk about it from very rare time to time about how these old Elton John albums influenced us ALL Hope all is well and you weren't affected too much by the recent hurricanes.
Interesting - in the summer of '79, on break from his solo tour, Elton recorded 3 albums worth of material. In concert that fall, he mentioned he'd be releasing a double album, of which Elton's Song was performed from as a preview. As we all know that didn't happen, and the material wound up getting released as single albums in the early 80s. Labels typically balk at the increased price a double album requires, so it is odd that they'd demand a double album.
