Elton John

Blue Moves

Disc 1:
1.Your Starter For...
2.Tonight
3.One Horse Town
4.Chameleon
5.Boogie Pilgrim
6.Cage the Songbird
7.Crazy Water
8.Shoulder Holster

Disc 2:
1.Sorry Seems to be the Hardest Word
2.Out of the Blue
3.Between Seventeen and Twenty
4.The Wide-Eyed and Laughing
5.Someone's Final Song
6.Where's the Shoorah?
7.If There's a God in Heaven
8.Idol
9.Theme From a Non-Existant TV Series
10.Bite Your Lip (Get Up andDance!)

The second double album to be released by Elton is unfortunately nowhere near as good as the first. As mentioned in the Rock of the Westies review, Elton still seems to be suffering from the burden of success and although there's some great inspiration behind this work, the tiredness again shows its face.

The big change on this release is the incorporation of outside musical enhancements which are flooded onto the songs. Again, we have seven musicians to clutter up the works and in addition there are choirs, orchestras, horn arrangements and bizarre instruments abound. All in all, it probably would have made a much better single album. Many songs are quite good. Sorry Seems To Be The Hardest Word is one of his best ballads ever. Chameleon and Idol aren't bad either. Perhaps the biggest treat is the eight minute Tonight. This song can stand on its own without lyrics and has a beautiful orchestral piece that doesn't incorporate singing until several minutes into the song. Elton proves he hasn't forgotten how to rock either on One Horse Town and Bite Your Lip (Get up and Dance!), the latter being somewhat of a disco number, it is still catchy although the last four minutes are repeated over and over. Also worth mentioning are the sobering Where's The Shoorah? and Someone's Final Song a depressing number, but pretty good overall.

Unfortunately there's a lot to forget on this album as well. We have three instrumentals that are nothing less than exercises in self indulgence. The entire side 2 of the original album isn't really worth mentioning either. All in all, it was very non commercial and seemed to be the end of phase one of a great career.

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