Elton John Album: “Rock of the Westies [Remaster]”

I still have my original MCA vinyl of this baby and while the remastering job is quite nice, there is one audible goof. ISLAND GIRL slows down in the final chorus. If you listen carefully you can hear the pitch slowly change while the CD plays. Don't believe me? Play the last few measures of the song which are exactly like the beginngin ones and you will notice the change in pitch. There is no key change in this song. My LP does not exhibit this problem. Otherwise this Polygram release is wonderful!!

This album is sweet. It is Elton's hardest rocking, loose and fun album to date(as if there will be another one that comes even close to this). No, it's not poetry, and maybe it's not as profound, or classy as some of his other earlier albums, but I'm sorry, Yell Help, Wednesday and Ugly is pure genius..Tell me Meatloaf(Jim Steinman) didn't copy that music pattern for Paradise By The Dashboard Light..The whole album just rocks..I love Elton's voice, and the guitar in Dan Dare, Grow Some Funk Of Your Own is catcy as hell too, and I Feel Like A Bullet is a cool slow one. I know this album had a rough time because it followed Captain Fantastic, but I would rather listen to this album all the way through, than CF..

With "Rock of the Westies" (a pun on "West of the Rockies"), Elton was starting to come down off his Seventies' high. After the "Captain Fantastic..." album, he had fired bassist Dee Murray and drummer Nigel Olsson, hired another guitar player (Caleb Quaye) to complement Davey Johnstone, hired old friend Roger Pope as the new drummer, as well as hiring a new bassist, Kenny Paserelli. The results of the new unit were middling. The beginning "Medley" has a muddy sound, the "Yell Help" part of the suite is just plain annoying; "Ugly" admonishes all men who wouldn't have sex with an ugly woman if it was all they could get. Not exactly "Candle in the Wind, Part II." "Dan Dare" is an interesting story about an intrepid space traveller, but is done in so campy a style as to be considered an afterthought, or at least an in-joke. "Island Girl" and "Grow Some Funk of Your Own" redeem the off parts quite a bit. "Funk" is just a darn good rocker and "Island Girl" was a number-one hit (the last for Elton in many a year). "I Feel Like a Bullet(in the Gun of Robert Ford)" is a nice ballad, with a great understated Johnstone solo. The rockers on Side Two display the harder edge that EJ no doubt wished to convey with his new band; unfortunately, bad production and monotonous music,partially at least, did him in. "Street Kids" is good, but overly long. "Hard Luck Story" is a litany of the rigamarole life that lyricist Bernie Taupin was dreading; alternately, his marriage was falling on hard times. "Feed Me" is my favorite song on the album; it has a great hook and conveys the message of insanity better than anything Taupin had written since "Madman Across the Water" (on the album of the same title). "Billy Bones and the White Bird" showed promise, but the mantra-like phrase "Check it out!" just goes on endlessly. The bonus tracks, "Planes" and "Sugar on the Floor", are just O.K. and don't last long in the memory. Though this album sold well initially (probably on the strength of "Island Girl") it wasn't well-received by the critics, and with some justification. The re-issued CD is far superior sonically to the original MCA release, but it STILL sounds muddy in places to me. I give it three stars, because half of it was pretty good. But it is easy to see why EJ would soon lose the sway he held for so long in the pop-music industry. This one remains a hit-or-miss affair.

A lot of people are gonna tell you this is awful, or at the very least that it's not one of Elton's better recordings. Well, it isn't one of his better recordings, but in no way is it awful. Some of it is for sure: "Island Girl" was a big hit, which is interesting because it's also offensive faux-reggae and #1,234,567,890 in a long line of Bad Elton John Songs about Hookers; "Dan Dare" is a space-funk flop; "Hard Luck Story" is a rote Elton rocker. The other single, "Grow Some Funk of Your Own", is much better, a lighthearted funk stomp with a funny chorus; the band rocks out on the "Saturday Night"-like "Street Kids"; "Feed Me" is a nice little subdued melodrama with a screaming guitar part; the Bo Diddley/heavy metal fusion "Billy Bones and the White Bird" is so weird you have to hear it at least once. Not overly brilliant, but pretty good.

This is a 3 to 4 star album in my view. This album contains "Island Girl", "Grow Some Funk of your own", "Feel Like A Bullet (In the Gun of Robert Ford)", "Billy Bones and the White Bird (Check it out)", and "Dan Dare". These are all excellent Elton. The rest of the album is good. Don't believe music critics who give this album one or two stars. This album has 5 really excellent songs with some good material surrounding them.