Elton John Album: “Love Songs [2005]”

I saw Elton John live at the time Leather Jackets was about to be released. He played Paris live that night. He was truly proud of Paris and I thought it was going to be the first single. There is so much B-side material from this time. Billy and the Kids, Lord Of The Flies, Highlander and a completely different mix of Heartache All Over The World. I'd love to see a re-issue with the B-sides.

Although Leather Jackets is generaly considered one of the weakest albuns made by Elton John, as well as Victim Of Love (1979), I really enjoy this work, and use to hear it very often. Effectively, there's some really nice tracks on it. E.g., I like to mention "Hoop Of Fire" e "Gipsy Heart", two ballads with great lyrics and very well sung by Elton. There're either other strong songs, like the music-title and "Heartache All Over The World", the only "hit" of the album. You find in this work also the great duet "Slow Rivers", sung with Cliff Richard, and "i Fall Apart", which Elton performs very well, you can fell the pain in his voice singing this Taupin lyrics. It's an album that you'll probably need to hear more than one time to get involved, but when it happens, you'll see that the judgement usually made about this 1986's album (the only album pre-1992 that didn't get remastered on the 'Classic Years' Series) is unfair.

I'm amazed at the reviewers below who state that Leather Jackets is not one of Elton's best, but nevertheless give it 5 stars anyway. The purpose of writing these reviews, after all, is to help potential buyers make choices; this is not an Elton John fan forum.

That said, to anyone who might be contemplating buying this album, I have two words of advice: Stay Away! Take it from an EJ fan who's familiar (and objective) with all of his work. This one's a real stinker. Even the borderline-hit Heartache Over the World is mediocre; it only sounds decent because the songs surrounding it are sub-par. The only winner on this album, in my opinion, is Hoop of Fire, a really lovely R&B ballad. The rest of this record, though, is mechanical, synthesizer-driven, boredom. The picture of Elton looking tough as a motorcycle gang member is awful funny, but it ain't worth the price of the CD.

You'd expect after three big albums in a row before this one,both containing at least one huge hit songs each that Elton John's 80's comeback would sustain itself through the middle of the decade. In the end that proved not to be the case. This proved to be for the 80's what

was for him in the 70's;a recording that got burried after it was released and (in the case of this particular album) has become a relatively rare item in his catalog. That's interesting because this was Elton John's first all digital recording. So if you were able to get your hands on the original 1986 CD of this album the way I did the sound is beyond top notch,especially the mixed quality of these early "DDD" recordings. For more on that look at my review for Stevie Wonder's

released a year later. Interestingly enough none of this spells out any major change in direction musically for Elton from his two previous albums before this one and neither does it mean that this album is lacking in strong songs,even if Elton John's always been artistically measured more by his hits than his albums. The title track of the this is for all intents and purposes his "Philledelphia Freedom" of the 80's with the same kind of danceable rock n soul sound,only instrumentally updated for the period. You might expect an album of this vintage to be highly electronic and synth drenched but Elton and Bernie maintain their strenghs here,focusing more on strong songwriting and lyrics as opposed to new technology. "Don't Trust That Woman",co-written by Cher again follows up with a potent rock n soul flavor to it and along with the title song one of the stronger fast tunes on the album. While "Go It Alone","Heartache All Over The World" and "Angeline" are decent fast songs too,their rockier orientation is somewhat burried by the slicker production. That style is better suited to the ballads "Hoops Of Fire","Paris","Gypsy Heart" and "I Fall Apart",all in the John/Taupin writing style and all of which are sure fire should've-been hits. Despite some of Elton's personel problems during this time period his singing and writing ability is still very much intact and despite it all,upon hearing this I still cannot fathom why this album was one of Elton's few commercial failures. Even so artistically this album still cannot be beat and is worth searching for if your a strong Elton John fan or enjoy high quality pop from the mid 80's

This album which came out before Live in Australia,does have many gems.One of them is PARIS.Why wasn't it the first single?.Instead the mediocre HEARTACHE...made the charts.The beautiful duet with Cliff Richard SLOW RIVERS and MEMORY OF LOVE(where Queen members played)stand out as great tunes.Not a classic but worth listening to.