Songs From the West Coast - John, Elton (CD 2001)

Sir Elton John is like Coca-Cola. In 1985 (the year I was born), Coke altered their original formula and created New Coke to help combat their formidable opponent Pepsi. But American consumers didn't want a replacement for the classic Coca-Cola. In their view, classic Coke was an American legend. Production of New Coke ended the same week it began.

On the other side of the Atlantic during the eighties, Elton John was messing with his popular formula for music that spawned hits like Daniel and Your Song. He abandoned his classic piano ballads, honky-tonk, and rock songs for bland pop and Disney songs. But while Coke realized their eighties blunder, Elton didn't. He soldiered on with his, well, bad music.

Until now. With Songs From The West Coast, Elton returns to his seventies splendor. This twelve-song album fits right in with Elton s other famous CDs like Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, Honky Chateau, and Captain Fantastic. This album is a modern classic I bought it weeks ago and it hasn t left my stereo since I brought it home.

The songs are a good mix of styles that made Elton such a success in the seventies. 'The Emperor s New Clothes' is reminiscent of his album Honky Chateau. His classic piano ballads are there in 'Mansfield', 'Ballad Of The Boy In The Red Shoes', and 'I Want Love', the first track to be released. He starts piano-pounding on 'The Wasteland', one of my favorites.

The miraculous thing is that all of the songs are in such a familiar style yet distinguish themselves from one another. Every song is good nothing is on the album just to take up space.

This album may attract new listeners to Elton s music--the video 'I Want Love' even plays on MTV. Most of all though, it will please those who were fans of Elton in his earlier, flamboyant days.