All of these reviews are contradictory, and also not:
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By Don Ignacio
Elton John Rock Of The Westies (1975)
As you probably could have gathered from the title, Rock of the Westies is full of rock songs, and if you read further into the title, you can gather that they apparently came from a place called “Westies.”
That’s right; you won’t find many ballads here. There is only one of them, as a matter of fact, and it’s called “I Feel Like a Bullet (In the Gun of Robert Ford).” It’s a strapping fine song with a nice melody and solid instrumentation, but you’ll probably notice immediately that it isn’t nearly as engaging as his other ballads. But we can forgive that (Right?) because the primary purpose of this album is to rock.
And ROCK, it does just fine. The nice thing about rock ‘n’ roll Elton John is that he’s pretty much always fun at it. Even in the 1980s when his career became stale, his rock ‘n’ roll songs were still enjoyable. They might not have been memorable, but he had a naturally good vocal chops and he generally attracted good musicians to keep them sounding punchy. The exact same thing can be said for Rock of the Westies.
That’s not a good thing, though. Comparing anything to Elton John’s 1980s career is not a compliment! In the 1980s, Elton John existed merely as a zombified shell of his old self where he lost his uncanny sense of melody and harmony, and making it worse, he didn’t seem nearly as keyed-up as he used to. By a large account Rock of the Westies was where that cancerous process had started. You can really begin to suspect something was up by the end of the album when the dull rocker “Hard Luck Story” and the 1970s elevator muzak “Feed Me” comes in. Man, those are flat and lifeless songs.
In fact, you could probably sense that in the other songs, but those were kept alive by a raucous vocal performance, great back-up musicians, and/or unusual “gimmicks.” “Dan Dare (Pilot of the Future)” has a nice tune, but what ends up holding my attention the most are those cartoony guitar and synthesizer tones. So, it makes a good listen, but even then, it isn’t as captivating in that Elton-John-y kind of way. You know what I’m talking about! “Grow Some Funk on Your Own” and “Street Kids” both have cool, gruffy guitar tones, a solid driving beat, and an energetic vocal performance. Songs as spirited as those are impossible to hate — you might even start to love them after awhile — but it’s difficult to deny that they lacks the inspired, infectious quality of his classic stuff.
Even the album’s big hit, “Island Girl,” is a surefire sign that he was declining. Commercially he was doing just fine, though; it hit the No. 1 spot in the charts. I feel great and happy when I’m listening to it, but there really isn’t anything that special about it. Of all his hits, that’s among his least. (I’m saying this even though I gave it an A- … well, it’s still a good song!) Also a good song is the medley that opens the album. It has a fun beat and a nice melody.
But what pushed that over the edge is how he layered the “Yell Help” and “Wednesday Night” sections together toward the end. You wouldn’t think they would go well together, but they did! Nice touch! And the end where the band plays a funky beat as fast as they could is nutty, and that’s another point in its favor. I also enjoyed the ending track “Billy Bones and the White Bird” with that thundering drum beat and that unexpected and beautiful chorus section he worked in. That was the best ending I could have hoped for.
Even though I said constantly that this album was the beginning of the end for Elton John, it was a gradual process for him. There’s still enough about Rock of the Westies that is good and holy, and it would be a good album to possess if you really like his earlier stuff. Just make sure and don’t listen to the bonus tracks. They are the worst bonus tracks of all time! One of them is something similar to the title track from Captain Fantastic except it’s stale and entirely forgettable. The second one is a piano ballad ………….. and it’s by far the worst, most tedious piano ballad I ever heard him do.
This all points to Blue Moves, the tedious double-album monster. link
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By Michael A Little:
Graded on a Curve:
Elton John,
Rock of the Westies
St back, kids, and I’ll tell you about the baddest punk of them all. No, I’m not talking about Johnny Rotten or Richard Hell or Sid Vicious even. No, I’m talking about Captain Fantastic, The Big E—that’s right, Elton John his tough mofo self. Sure, he’s better known for such anthemic softballs as “Your Song,” “Somebody Saved My Life Tonight,” and that awful piece of treacle “Candle in the Wind.” But John is the same rock’n’roll badass who gave us “The Bitch Is Back,” “Saturday Night’s Alright for Fighting,” “Your Sister Can’t Twist (But She Can Rock’n’Roll),” “Midnight Creeper,” and “Street Kids,” the last of which is off Sir Surly’s punkest LP of them all, 1975’s Rock of the Westies.
In a deliberate effort to be misunderstood, because every good punk wants to be misunderstood, John larded his earlier LPs with love songs, broken heart songs and the like. He threw in lots of oddball tunes as well; the great “Solar Prestige a Gammon” is made up of nonsense words, “Social Disease” is a hillbilly ode to living life as a form of human syphilis, and “Teacher I Need You” is “Hot for Teacher” years in advance. As for the great “Bennie and the Jets,” who else could have conceived of such a thing? And who but Elton John would have thought to write a song called “I Think I’m Going to Kill Myself” and fit it up with a bona fide tap dance solo? That right there is a real punk move for sure.
But on Rock of the Westies Elton John is feeling scurvy and ready to put the boot in. “No more Mr. Tender Genitals,” I can hear him thinking. “I’m the bitch who gets high every evening sniffing pots of glue.” And so he went and he co-wrote a bunch of evil-ass tunes and he went and he set Davey Johnstone’s guitar on stun and then he went to business, kicking out the motherfucking jams.
Not every song on Rock of the Westies is a bitch slap. But John, who was evidently in a nasty and drunken funk at the time, only offers up two of his much-renowned slow dancers. “Feed Me” is a throwaway and makes me think Elton was listening to lots of Steely Dan at the time, while the wonderful “I Feel Like a Bullet (In the Gun of Robert Ford)” is a breakup anthem for the ages, and provides solid forensic evidence that while Bernie Taupin is no John Keats (or even Rod Stewart), he has his moments.
On a tougher note, “Dan Dare (Pilot of the Future)” is some brazen honky tonkin’ music, while both “Island Girl” (she’s six foot three and black as coal!) and “Grow Some Funk of Your Own” (which features some switchblade guitar and one great piano) will rock you all the way to Jamaica, thanks to Ray Cooper of the castanets, conga, maracas, vibraphone and I could go on but won’t. Meanwhile, “Street Kids” is as feral a cut as any John has ever written, while “Billy Bones and the White Bird” is all drum crash and tough talk, with some funky synthesizer work by James Newton-Howard tossed in.
“Hard Luck Story” is mean and lean and benefits, as did “Grow Some Funk of Your Own,” from the frantic percussion work of Cooper. A great chorus, one funky bass, and great backing vocals also help. As for “Medley (Yell Help/Wednesday Night/Ugly)” it comes at you like one of Marc Bolan’s funkier contributions to Western Culture before morphing into a glittering glam confection, and from there growing as ugly and mean as its title. John practically snarls his way back to the song’s beginning, from whence the tune takes off into hyperspace with Cooper earning double pay on the congas and LaBelle providing some glorious vocals.
So forget John Lydon. Were he and Elton John Elton to meet face to face, the latter would merely laugh before pushing Lydon into the closest gutter, tearing the safety-pin from his shirt in the process. Because Elton John is the nastiest piece of work you’ll ever run across. Don’t let the outrageous eyeglasses or that “I was best friendsies with Lady Di” bullshit fool you. Reginald Dwight is a regular droog and always up for a bit of ultraviolence. And if you’re smart, you’ll stay out of his way.
GRADED ON A CURVE:
A
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from Johh Visconti:
Revisiting Elton John’s “Rock of the Westies”
For Elton John, 1975 was a peak year in his ascension into the rock and roll stratosphere. His most recent disc, the autobiographical Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy, debuted at number one on the Billboard charts upon release, the first time an artist had ever accomplished that feat. The success of Captain Fantastic rounded out an impressive run of albums and singles released by Elton throughout the last several years. But when he arrived at Colorado’s Caribou Ranch studio to begin work on his tenth album, there were changes afoot, in both the band’s lineup and Elton’s signature sound.
Long-time bassist Dee Murray and drummer Nigel Olsson were replaced by Kenny Passarelli and Roger Pope, respectively. Keyboard player James Newton Howard and guitarist Caleb Quaye also joined the group. Both Pope and Quaye had played with Elton on earlier albums, and these additions to the group joined guitarist Davey Johnstone and percussionist Ray Cooper at the recording sessions, which took place during the summer of 1975, with long-time producer Gus Dudgeon behind the boards. The album’s title, Rock of the Westies, was a bit of a pun on the location of the studio, which was “west of the Rockies.”
Rock of the Westies is something of a transitional record in Elton’s oeuvre. He appeared to be trying for a loose, funkier sound, less dependent on the majestic sweep of songs like “Indian Sunset” and albums like Madman Across The Water, with a vibe more akin to tracks like “Amy” from Honky Chateau. “Medley: Yell Help-Wednesday Night-Ugly,” is an amalgam of rock and soul, featuring vocals from Labelle, and “Dan Dare (Pilot of the Future),” is a percussive tune based on a popular British comic book character. “Street Kids” is a hard-rocking number featuring excellent backing work from the band.
The album’s biggest hit was “Island Girl,” a tale about a Jamaican lady of the night, which notched the number one spot in the US. “Feed Me” a tune about giving in to your excesses, has something of a jazzy feel, reminiscent of Steely Dan. “Hard Luck Story” was originally written for Kiki Dee (who provides backing vocals on the album) by Elton and longtime songwriting partner Bernie Taupin. Guitar maestro Davey Johnstone is credited as a co-writer on the rollicking “Grow Some Funk of Your Own” which features Elton and the band rocking out and creating some deep grooves.
While the album is filled with crunchy tunes like “Billy Bones and the White Bird” there’s a nod to the classic Elton ballads of the past. One of the best tracks on Rock of the Westies is “I Feel Like A Bullet (in the Gun of Robert Ford)” which uses Old West imagery to illustrate the bitter end of a relationship, recalling John/Taupin compositions from albums like Tumbleweed Connection. The song, featuring a wonderful vocal performance by Elton, was released as a double A-side single with “Grow Some Funk of Your Own,” and traveled up to number 14 on the charts.
Rock of the Westies was issued in October 1975, just five months after Captain Fantastic, and like that disc, it entered the charts at number one. Reviews in the music press were mixed, though some critics, like Robert Christgau, praised the record. A number of fans cite the album as a favorite, while others consider it one of Elton’s weaker efforts. I was a little disappointed by the record when it first came out, as I didn’t think it represented Elton and Bernie’s strongest work, though it’s grown on me over the years. Rock of the Westies, which celebrates its 50th anniversary this year, is notable in Elton’s discography for leading to further musical explorations on records like Blue Moves and A Single Man. It also signaled the end of his classic period, and his overall domination of the charts in the 1970s, though there would be more hits, and more terrific albums, to come in the future.
See also:
Rock Of The Westies’: Yet Another Peak In Elton John’s Stunning Career
Continuing Elton John’s unbeatable run in
the 70s, the ’Rock Of The Westies’ album found him scaling
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