 Elton John One of Elton's more workmanlike outings, Jump Up! is a solid album that finds him poised for the renewal that would rejuvenate his career over the few albums that followed. 1978-1982 seems to have been a bit of a dodgy area for virtually everyone in the music industry, and while Elton never really stumbled (he was "still standing" after all—although Victim of Love is an outright tumble down a huge flight of stairs), one is not really drawn toward the likes of 21 at 33 or The Fox like, say, Captain Fantastic and Honky Chateau. The notion that Elton was uninspired after like 1976 is inflated, and while these albums are certainly not on the same level as the earlier classics, they're still a lot more fun and interesting than a lot of supposed "classics" from the late-'70s/early-'80s—look at Paul McCartney's catalog to see what I mean. I'd put on Jump Up! over Tug of War any day of the week, although admittedly I'd put on The Rumproller by Lee Morgan over either. Part of the problem with these albums is the singles are very strong, but the album tracks are far less memorable. This album features "Empty Garden (Hey Hey Johnny)," Elton's tribute to John Lennon, and it's one of my favorite "forgotten" Elton singles—although sometimes I get so fed up with the Lennon mythos I would prefer "I'm Still Standing" to have been his response to Lennon's death, with gloating lines like "I'm still standing/On your bloody grave." But "Empty Garden" is a fantastic song, and I should really stop picking on Lennon. Maybe then he'd stop haunting me. I wake up at like 3:30 every morning to the sound of his ghost drunkenly stumbling through the intro to "Imagine" on the Casio SK-1 in my room, along with bad orchestra hits and pitch-shifted vocals saying "Imagine I'm in heaven." Of course it was creepy at first, but now it's just annoying. The other single was "Blue Eyes," another underrated Elton single, and both singles are featured on Greatest Hits 1976-1986. So is the rest of it worth getting? I'd say don't bother with the CD unless they reissue it in some improbable "Elton's Cocaine Classics" series, but it's easily obtainable on vinyl dirt cheap (I found it for $1.99, but I bet if I had really looked I could have found it for a quarter). The album tracks are all pretty solid—"Dear John" almost could have been a single (it's in the "Gotta Get a Meal Ticket"/"Who Wears These Shoes" tier of Elton songs); the country flavored "Ball & Chain" is very tuneful. The album mixes collaborations with Bernie Taupin, Gary Osborne, and Tim Rice, and the overall feel is a bit angry. I think this was around the time Elton was going through his divorce, and the lyrics of several tracks reflect that (in fact the first four tracks of side 1 all relate to the bitterness of divorce, culminating in the Tim Rice collaboration "Legal Boys," which is about lawyers, not 18-year-old houseboys, as I'd hoped). "Where Have all the Good Times Gone?" is an uptempo bit of nostalgia that prefigures the superior "Club at the End of the Street," and "All Quiet on the Western Front" is halfway between the glorious balladry of "We All Fall in Love Sometimes" and the punch-the-clock craftsmanship of "Circle of Life." The only seriously stupid track is "I Am Your Robot," as it goes without saying that it's nearly impossible to use the word "robot" in a song unless you're trying to be funny. Of course, if they remastered it and added bonus tracks, I'd line up to buy it. Elton John seems to make either "great albums" or "solid efforts," with only the occasional total misfire. This one's about what you'd expect, and if I made a list of the Top 50 Elton John albums, it'd be approximately right in the middle of the list. Maybe everyone was wayward in the early 80s, but it could be worse, it could be Pipes of Peace.
Review by Pippin Scabula |