Descrizione
PREMESSA: LA SUPERIORITA’ DELLA MUSICA SU VINILE E’ ANCOR OGGI SANCITA, NOTORIA ED EVIDENTE. NON TANTO DA UN PUNTO DI VISTA DI RESA, QUALITA’ E PULIZIA DEL SUONO, TANTOMENO DA QUELLO DEL RIMPIANTO RETROSPETTIVO E NOSTALGICO , MA SOPRATTUTTO DA QUELLO PIU’ PALPABILE ED INOPPUGNABILE DELL’ ESSENZA, DELL’ ANIMA E DELLA SUBLIMAZIONE CREATIVA. IL DISCO IN VINILE HA PULSAZIONE ARTISTICA, PASSIONE ARMONICA E SPLENDORE GRAFICO , E’ PIACEVOLE DA OSSERVARE E DA TENERE IN MANO, RISPLENDE, PROFUMA E VIBRA DI VITA, DI EMOZIONE E DI SENSIBILITA’. E’ TUTTO QUELLO CHE NON E’ E NON POTRA’ MAI ESSERE IL CD, CHE AL CONTRARIO E’ SOLO UN OGGETTO MERAMENTE COMMERCIALE, POVERO, ARIDO, CINICO, STERILE ED ORWELLIANO, UNA DEGENERAZIONE INDUSTRIALE SCHIZOFRENICA E NECROFILA, LA DESOLANTE SOLUZIONE FINALE DELL’ AVIDITA’ DEL MERCATO E DELL’ ARROGANZA DEI DISCOGRAFICI .
ELTON JOHN
caribou
Disco LP 33 giri , 1974, DJM – Dick James Music Co. Limited / Ricordi international, SNIR 25053 , Italia, first pressing
ECCELLENTI CONDIZIONI, vinyl ex++/NM , cover ex++/NM, sealed although open
Caribou è il decimo album dell’artista britannico Elton John, pubblicato nel gennaio 1974 dalla MCA Records (negli USA e in Canada) e dalla Dick James Music Records.
L’LP fu registrato ai Caribou Studios (donde il titolo) di James Guercio, in Colorado, subito dopo la pubblicazione del doppio Goodbye Yellow Brick Road (1973). La compagnia di Elton, abituata agli Strawberry Studios dello Chateau d’Hérouville, ebbe non pochi problemi tecnici per adattarsi alle strumentazioni e ai metodi di lavoro dell’ambiente. Sono presenti i Tower of Power ai fiati, mentre Dusty Springfield e i Beach Boys partecipano ai cori (soprattutto, rispettivamente, in The Bitch Is Back e in Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me,
i due unici singoli estratti dall’album). In definitiva, si tratta di
un album ad alti livelli, anche se posto cronologicamente tra due
pietre miliari della storia della musica (Goodbye Yellow Brick Road e Captain Fantastic And The Brown Dirt Cowboy, spesso e volentieri annoverati fra i migliori album di tutti i tempi). I pezzi degni di menzione risultano essere Ticking, capolavoro per piano e voce considerata dalla critica tra i pezzi migliori dell’intera produzione di Elton, Solar Prestige A Gammon (un pezzo davvero inusuale, dal testo nonsense) e la movimentata You’re So Static.
Caribou ebbe un successo planetario: nel Regno Unito
raggiunse il primo posto in classifica, mentre negli U.S.A rimase in
prima posizione per ben quattro settimane (in Italia l’album raggiunse
l’ottavo posto). I due singoli estratti The Bitch Is Back e Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me
diventeranno dei classici di Elton (la prima raggiungerà il
quindicesimo posto nel Regno Unito e il quarto negli Stati Uniti,
mentre la seconda si posizionerà rispettivamente al sedicesimo e al
secondo posto).
- Etichetta: DJM RECORDS / Dischi Ricordi
- Catalogo: SNIR 25053
- Data di pubblicazione: 1974
- Matrici : SNIR – 25053 – 1 / SNIR – 25053 – 2
- Data Matrici : 4/6/74
- Supporto:vinile 33 giri
- Tipo audio: stereo
- Dimensioni: 30 cm.
- Facciate: 2
- Black label, original picture & lyrics inner sleeve
In June Elton John signed what was reported to be
the most lucrative contract ever negotiated by a recording artist. MCA,
the record company involved, commemorated the event with full page ads
in both The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times.
The latter paper followed up with a story headlining Elton as “The $8
Million Man,” eight million being the sum thought to be guaranteed John
as royalties on his next half-dozen albums.
The magnitude of the deal was obviously inspired by the great
success of Elton’s previous albums. Virtually all have sold one million
units, an achievement which would enable him, if he wished, to coast
laxly through the next few years; but there is nothing to indicate that
anyone expects him to be resting on his laurels. On the contrary,
everything about the contract’s announcement suggests that both parties
are looking forward to even greater things from Elton John: the
flowering of his art, as it were.
In effect he and his writing partner, Bernie Taupin, have been given
their heads to follow whatever direction they choose. It is a luxurious
imprimatur on top of the one already accorded by giant sales, and it
must seem to them an ultimate declaration that what they have been
doing has been “right,” that by following their instincts they can do
no wrong.
What John and Taupin have excelled at is the assembling of
commercial sounds. Their recorded creations have been carefully
constructed pop artifacts, the end product of controlled experiments in
which element is added to element, a process more akin to making
objects than to making music. Whatever’s trendy is sure to catch their
attention and find its way into their mix. They take pride in being on
top of things, in writing the first astronaut single, in fashioning the
definitive nostalgia hook, in marketing the timely eulogy to Marilyn.
Elton John makes records in the same manner as he puts together his
wardrobe and choreographs his concerts. Often what he mistakes for
style is simply next month’s bad taste, but discrimination does not
really concern him. It needn’t matter if something’s grotesque; what’s
important is that it’s new. Elton is an impresario of stance, a maestro
who has presented a series of attractive aural surfaces. The trouble
with surface is that it wears thin.
Caribou is not wearying in the same way as would be an album whose makers were bored with their work. Caribou
is dispiriting because it “logically” extends Elton’s weak strengths
and strong weaknesses, the superficial powers that have taken him so
far. The thin roots that kept him in touch with an organically
nourishing topsoil have been sundered and at last he’s on his own,
fulfilling his weird hybrid nature in a self-designed hothouse where
nothing but lurid display is valued.
Nearly every song on Caribou suffers from a blithe lack of
focus, an almost arrogant disregard of the need to establish context or
purpose. It’s as if Elton and his band are so convinced of their own
inherent inspiration they no longer feel the need to establish coherent
moods. Shifting from sentimental to heavy to mocking, they not only
fail to touch all bases but undercut what credence they might possibly
have achieved.
From the first track the album displays a strange overkill which
simultaneously introduces many production elements and then buries them
under one another. The opener, “The Bitch Is Back,” is the slickest and
strongest cut on Caribou, but it lacks real punch. The combined
forces of Clydie & Sherlie & Jessie & Dusty and the Tower
Of Power horn section fail to get this putdown-celebration of a certain
sort of social pariah-piranha off the ground. And from there, it’s all
downhill.
“Pinky” is a love song set to a jerky syncopated melody, an ungainly tune that easily wins its battle against the words.
“Grimsby,” with tripping tempo and ricky-tik riffs, may or may not be a comic song, but the overall feel is flaccid.
“Dixie Lily,” a tribute to a riverboat sung by a citizen of the
swamps, achieves a level of cultural assimilation comparable to that
reached by “Bobbies on bicycles two by two.”
“Solar Prestige a Gammon,” an Italianate nonsense song, demonstrates the stiffness which plagues Elton even in his humor.
“You’re So Static,” a sort of revamped “Honky Tonk Women,” wanders between facetiousness and heavy metal.
“I’ve Seen the Saucers,” someone’s wistful wish to be taken away from mundanity deus ex machina, is made irrelevant by last-minute, out-of-context science fiction sounds meant to be taken seriously.
The overlong “Stinker” convincingly proves Elton John is not a soul singer.
The centerpiece fiasco, however, is the melodramatic
seven-and-a-half-minute finale, “Ticking,” which fails not through
musical ambiguity but from an appalling combination of
simplemindedness, over-reaching and opportunism in the material itself.
All alone at the piano (with a synthesizer adding tension), Elton
“simply” unfolds this maudlin tale of a young man from a repressive
background who goes berserk in a New York bar and shoots 14 people.
Victim of society and a Catholic upbringing, he is a reluctant
psychopath (“Promising to hurt no one, providing they were still”) and
when at last the fellow snaps and starts shooting, it is “with
tear-filled eyes.” The killings are dispensed with in half a phrase,
their only apparent significance to set into motion the vindictive
forces which for some reason are determined to exterminate this
peculiar hero. In the presence of “the media machine” the understood
murderer is cut down while surrendering, and he poetically expires in
one-stanza slow-motion “on the vengeance of the law.” Only in America.
Queens, no less.
This selection ends, as do nearly half of the album’s ten tracks, in
an extended and pretentious synthesized drone. Each use of this device
underscores not the intended emotion but, instead, the aridity of what
has been, for one reason or another, a startlingly empty experience.
success of Elton’s previous albums. Virtually all have sold one million
units, an achievement which would enable him, if he wished, to coast
laxly through the next few years; but there is nothing to indicate that
anyone expects him to be resting on his laurels. On the contrary,
everything about the contract’s announcement suggests that both parties
are looking forward to even greater things from Elton John: the
flowering of his art, as it were.
their heads to follow whatever direction they choose. It is a luxurious
imprimatur on top of the one already accorded by giant sales, and it
must seem to them an ultimate declaration that what they have been
doing has been “right,” that by following their instincts they can do
no wrong.
commercial sounds. Their recorded creations have been carefully
constructed pop artifacts, the end product of controlled experiments in
which element is added to element, a process more akin to making
objects than to making music. Whatever’s trendy is sure to catch their
attention and find its way into their mix. They take pride in being on
top of things, in writing the first astronaut single, in fashioning the
definitive nostalgia hook, in marketing the timely eulogy to Marilyn.
Elton John makes records in the same manner as he puts together his
wardrobe and choreographs his concerts. Often what he mistakes for
style is simply next month’s bad taste, but discrimination does not
really concern him. It needn’t matter if something’s grotesque; what’s
important is that it’s new. Elton is an impresario of stance, a maestro
who has presented a series of attractive aural surfaces. The trouble
with surface is that it wears thin.
is dispiriting because it “logically” extends Elton’s weak strengths
and strong weaknesses, the superficial powers that have taken him so
far. The thin roots that kept him in touch with an organically
nourishing topsoil have been sundered and at last he’s on his own,
fulfilling his weird hybrid nature in a self-designed hothouse where
nothing but lurid display is valued.
focus, an almost arrogant disregard of the need to establish context or
purpose. It’s as if Elton and his band are so convinced of their own
inherent inspiration they no longer feel the need to establish coherent
moods. Shifting from sentimental to heavy to mocking, they not only
fail to touch all bases but undercut what credence they might possibly
have achieved.
simultaneously introduces many production elements and then buries them
under one another. The opener, “The Bitch Is Back,” is the slickest and
strongest cut on Caribou, but it lacks real punch. The combined
forces of Clydie & Sherlie & Jessie & Dusty and the Tower
Of Power horn section fail to get this putdown-celebration of a certain
sort of social pariah-piranha off the ground. And from there, it’s all
downhill.
swamps, achieves a level of cultural assimilation comparable to that
reached by “Bobbies on bicycles two by two.”
seven-and-a-half-minute finale, “Ticking,” which fails not through
musical ambiguity but from an appalling combination of
simplemindedness, over-reaching and opportunism in the material itself.
All alone at the piano (with a synthesizer adding tension), Elton
“simply” unfolds this maudlin tale of a young man from a repressive
background who goes berserk in a New York bar and shoots 14 people.
Victim of society and a Catholic upbringing, he is a reluctant
psychopath (“Promising to hurt no one, providing they were still”) and
when at last the fellow snaps and starts shooting, it is “with
tear-filled eyes.” The killings are dispensed with in half a phrase,
their only apparent significance to set into motion the vindictive
forces which for some reason are determined to exterminate this
peculiar hero. In the presence of “the media machine” the understood
murderer is cut down while surrendering, and he poetically expires in
one-stanza slow-motion “on the vengeance of the law.” Only in America.
Queens, no less.
an extended and pretentious synthesized drone. Each use of this device
underscores not the intended emotion but, instead, the aridity of what
has been, for one reason or another, a startlingly empty experience.
Tracce
All songs by Elton John and Bernie Taupin, except where noted.
Side One
- “The Bitch is Back” – 3:44
- “Pinky” – 3:54
- “Grimsby” – 3:47
- “Dixie Lily” – 2:54
- “Solar Prestige a Gammon” – 2:52
- “You’re So Static” – 4:52
Side Two
- “I’ve Seen the Saucers” – 4:48
- “Stinker” – 5:20
- “Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me” – 5:36
- “Ticking” – 7:28
Personnel
- Elton John – piano, keyboard, vocals
- Greg Adams – trumpet
- Emilio Castillo – tenor saxophone
- Ray Cooper – percussion, castanets, conga, drums, gong, tambourine, background vocals, human whistle, bells, snare drums, vibraphone, water gong
- Gus Dudgeon – tambourine
- Mic Gillette – trombone, trumpet
- David Hentschel – synthesizer, keyboard, mellotron
- Billy Hinsche – vocals, background vocals
- Bruce Johnston – vocals, background vocals
- Davey Johnstone – acoustic guitar, guitar, mandolin, electric guitar, vocals, background vocals
- Clydie King – vocals, background vocals
- Stephen “Doc” Kupka – baritone saxophone
- Sherlie Matthews – vocals, background vocals
- Dee Murray – bass, background vocals
- Nigel Olsson – drums, background vocals
- Lenny Pickett – clarinet, soprano saxophone, tenor saxophone
- Jessica Smith – vocals, background vocals
- Jessie Mae Smith – background vocals
- Dusty Springfield – vocals, background vocals (in particular, on “The Bitch is Back”)
- Toni Tennille – vocals, background vocals
- Chester Thompson – organ, keyboard
- Tower of Power – horns
- Carl Wilson – vocals, background vocals
Biography | |
In The son of a former Royal Air Force trumpeter, John was born Reginald John and Taupin were hired by Dick James to become staff songwriters at his fledgling DJM in 1968. The pair collaborated at a rapid rate, with Taupin For his second album, John and Taupin hired producer Gus Dudgeon and arranger Paul Buckmaster, who contributed grandiose string charts to Elton John. Released in the summer of 1970, Elton John Between 1972 and 1976, John and Taupin‘s Throughout the mid-’70s, John’s concerts were enormously popular, as John reunited with Taupin for 1980’s 21 at 33, Following a record-breaking five-date stint at Madison Square Garden in In 1992, John returned to active recording with The One. Peaking at number eight on the U.S. charts and going double platinum, the album became his most successful record since Blue Moves and sparked a career renaissance for John. He and Taupin With the profits earmarked for Diana’s favorite charities, and with a |