Elton John - Rare Masters
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Free Music Notes for Rare Masters
Free Music Review: An Entertaining Album
Hit: 4 Stars
You will like this album. I have been a big Elton fan since 1970, and, though it sounds strange, this album has an outtake from the Tumbleweed Connection (my favorite album of all time)album that is now one of my top five EJ cuts: it is "Into The Old Man's Shoes". Other than time considerations, how could this possibly not have made it onto the original? You will recognize the old-West style immediately. This album also encompasses the Friends soundtrack, which I also consider a tremendous piece of work (I'm sure I'm in the minority on this one). Unfortunately, they shorted one track from the original LP, but it does have my single favorite Elton cut ever, "Michelle's Song". This is a beautiful song that never saw the light on day as far as radio airplay went. It's made all the better if you've seen the movie (which I also loved -- see "minority" remark above).
Free Music Review: Friends Soundtrack by Elton John
Hit: 4 Stars
I wanted the soundtrack to the movie "Friends". The music was done by Elton John and includes some great songs. The original album is hard to find and because it is a bit of a collectors' item can be expensive. Rare Masters provides the entire Friends soundtrack and includes much more of his early music. I am very pleased with my purchase.Free Music Review: Nice Collection Of Rarities
Hit: 4 Stars
This Cd has many rare recordings by Elton. The Friends soundtrack is included and contains two of the best songs by E.J., Friends and Michelles Song. Alternate versions of Grey Seal, Bad Side Of the Moon, and a duet by Elton and John Lennon singing I Saw Her Standing There. A nice find for Elton fans.Free Music Review: The real reason to get this is the "Friends" album tracks
Hit: 3 Stars
Almost all of the b-sides and various singles included here on this collection are now available on the expanded reissues of Elton's albums. The real reason to get this is that its (as of this writing)the only place to get the "Friends" soundtrack. No, not the soundtrack to that TV show but to an obscure early 70's movie. Elton and Bernie wrote four new songs that were used in the film (although Bernie supposedly didn't read the script he only skimmed through it to get a feel for the movie). The rest of the album is filled with Paul Buckmaster's soundtrack which adapts various themes from these four songs plus a reprise of the title track. Is it worthwhile buying this just for the "Friends" soundtrack? Yes, if you're a hardcore Elton John fan because his is the only place to get the album now.
If you enjoy Buckmaster's orchestrations on the early Elton John albums, then you'll enjoy every aspect of this album. If you're looking just for the songs that John and Taupin wrote, you'll still enjoy the four full performances and song reprise. Just about any of these songs musically would have fit in well on "Elton John", "Tumbleweed Connection" or "Madman Across the Water" with "Honey Roll" and "Can I Put Yon On" two great lost Elton John rockers. They would have made a fine single if they had been released separately from this album (which I believe one of them was if memory serves).
We also get the singles/b-sides that were added to each Elton John album through "Tumbleweed Connection". "I've Been Loving You"/"Here's To the Next Time", "Lady Samantha"/"All Across the Havens", "It's Me That You Need", "Just Like Strange Rain", "Bad Side of the Moon", Rock & Roll Madonna", "Grey Seal" (an early version of the song from "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road")all demonstrate Elton and Bernie's developing songcraft even if they aren't always the best songs by the duo.
The second disc features an outtake from "Madman Across the Water" (included on "Tumbleweed Connection"), "Into the Old Man's Shoes", "Rock me When He's Gone", "Slave" all of which appear on "Tumbleweed" or "Honkey Chateau". "Skyline Pidgeon" is a piano/vocal re-recording that appeared as a b-side from 1973 and appears along with "Jack Rabbit", "Whenever You're Ready (We'll Go Steady)" from "Don't Shoot Me I'm Only the Piano Player" (although the latter two were also on the deluxe reissue of "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road"). "Screw You". "Sick City", "Step Into Christmas" and "Ho! Ho Ho" all appear on "Carbiou" as bonus tracks. "One Day At A Time" and "I Saw Her Standing There" appeared as b-sides and on "Captain Fantastic". "House of Cards", "Planes" and "Sugar on the Floor" all appear on "Rock of the Westies". Only "Let Me Be Your Car" doesn't appear anywhere else as it was written/performed as a demo for Rod Stewart who recorded it for one of his albums.
The two CD set includes an oversized booklet with comments from Bernie about the genesis of each song. The mastering is pretty good overall and is done by Joseph Palmaccio before engineers started applying too much compression to make the music sound "louder" and more contemporary (and squeezing the dynamic range to death hurting the quality of the sounds you hear). I'd get it if you are an Elton John fan before it goes out of print as almost everything here is somewhere else, it's possible this is on the chopping block. So I'd give 4 stars to the best songs here from "Friends" and the stronger tracks from disc 2 with 2-3 stars for the other b-sides on the first disc and the remainder on disc 2 with an overall rating of 3 stars.
Free Music Review: Worthwhile!
Hit: 3 Stars
This collection of EJ rarities is for the die-hard rather than the casual or curious. I'd prefer to give Rare Masters 2 1/2 stars, but that's not an option on Amazon. The effort to present Elton's hard-to-find B-sides, demos, and other marginalia is noble, I guess. But just like EJ's studio release, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, Rare Masters would've made a heck of a single record if the fat had been trimmed off. Biggest mistake, without a doubt, was the inclusion of the ENTIRE Friends Soundtrack. Yeah, I know that Friends is out of print. But there's a reason it's out-of-print: because it's almost unlistenable. Friends contains a handful of Elton John cuts (second-rate cuts, at that) and a whole lot of sappy, stringy schlock that wasn't even written by Elton (so why is it included on Rare Masters) but by orchestral arranger Paul Buckmaster. I do have to agree with one of the reviewers below that "Into the Old Man's Shoes" is wonderful, and I have no idea why Elton didn't include it on the dull Tumbleweed Connection.