I bought this album when I was 10 years old, the day it was released. I have listened to it thousands of times since then and never get sick of it. This is Elton at his creative apex, and Bernie's lyrics are magical. There are many underrated gems on this album: "All the Young Girls Love Alice" (this rocks!), "Danny Bailey" (great piano work here) and "Your Sister Can't Rock but she can Rock and Roll."

For everyone born between 1960-1965, this was *the* album of our generation and it's held up beautifully. Elton never was as good as this again and this was his shining, brilliant moment. The sound here goes above and beyond what you've heard on the original vinyl or CD versions. Highly recommended.


A damn fine album   June 1, 2008
finulanu (Here, there, and everywhere)
1 out of 2 found this review helpful

Nothing succeeds like excess, right? That's probably the principle Elton's lived his whole life by, it's even more likely that those exact words were pinned on the studio wall during the recording of Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, the apex of Elton's glam period.. It's a hedonistic, eclectic, hit-filled double-album, and is probably the album to start with if you're looking for a definitive picture of Elton John. The aforementioned hits? Oh, there's plenty, the biggest of them the campy, stuttering, hilarious "Bennie and the Jets", which reached the top of the charts. The Princess Diana tribute "Candle in the Wind" was also a big hit, and it stands as one of Elton's most touching ballads; the title track, with soaring vocal hooks, also was a smash, as was "Saturday Night's All Right (For Fighting)", Elton's loudest, most raucous rocker - it almost reaches Who-level intensity. The progressive epic "Funeral for a Friend/Love Lies Bleeding", "Madman Across the Water" taken to the extreme, also got a lot of radio airplay. So was "All the Young Girls Love Alice", arguably the weakest song on the album - it's immaturely, irrationally homophobic, displaying all the knowledge of lesbian culture that, I don't know, a middle-schooler may have. It's songs like this that make me kind of leery to call this Elton's best album, despite its enduring popularity: Taupin's vile, uncalled-for, painfully sincere chauvinism dominates and henceforth spoils several songs ("Sweet Painted Lady"; "Dirty Little Girl"), as well as some racism ("Jamaica Jerk-Off", an awful take on reggae even without the lyrics). Still, some of these songs have staying power: the incoherent but energetic "Grey Seal", a remake of an older b-side; the oddly arranged "This Song Has No Title"; "I've Seen That Movie Too", Elton's take on jazz; "The Ballad of Danny Bailey" has all the melodramatic pomp of his classic material, and all the melody; "Your Sister Can't Twist (But She Can Rock `n' Roll)" is a ridiculous but nonetheless amusing retro exercise; "Social Disease" is entertaining but slightly obnoxious country; "Harmony" is a wonderful orchestrated ballad. I'd hesitate to call this the best Elton John album, or the place to start, but it's a great buy.