Almost Human just won my heart

[amedia]

We've been recording Almost Human for a while and just got around to watching it. Just saw the third episode, the one with the hostage crisis. THERE'S A SHOUTOUT TO ELTON JOHN THAT MADE ME SQUEE UNCONTROLLABLY!!!!! *dances happily and throws confetti madly*

Comments

[chorale.livejournal.com]

I hope my local (and utterly wonderful) video rental store decides to carry it. *anticipates*

[amedia.livejournal.com]

I hope so too! Hey, did you see--another EJ fan posted just below! *points down*

[amedia.livejournal.com]

I'm tickled that you're watching Almost Human because of me!

And tickled even more to find a fellow enjoyer of Elton John! chorale turned me on to him when we were both in junior high, and it stuck. I love love love Tumbleweed Connection--I'm not sure I can point to an individual song that's my favorite, it's more the whole gestalt.

[chorale.livejournal.com]

I'm happy to meet a fellow listener. My very favorite period from Elton's music is from his first American album, Elton John, through Captain Fantastic and The Brown Dirt Cowboy. My very least favorite period encompasses all of those albums that came out during the lowest depths of his drug and alcohol addiction (from the mid-80s through the mid-90s). He was really floundering then, and I detest Tim Rice's facile, shallow lyrics, so there's several albums from that period I won't listen to. I do like Elton and Bernie's current work, though, very much. The samples I have heard from The Diving Board take me back to the early Elton I loved, and I can't wait until I can buy that album.

[chorale.livejournal.com]

The last new EJ album I bought was Sleeping with The Past, which came out in 1989, until I bought the sequel to Capt. Fantastic, Peachtree Road which came out in 2000, IIRC. I did skip a lot of the 80s albums and only bought one of the 90s ones, due to a combination of feeling embarrassed at myself for the crush I had had on him when I was a young teen, and because I was feeling like he was busy doing the safe and commercial thing—badly—during that period. I won't listen to The Lion King, nor The Road to El Dorado because of their banality.

After Peachtree Road, I bought the next album, The Captain and the Kid, and liked that a lot too. I want to buy both The Union, Elton's collaboration with Leon Russell (who is himself a fabulous pianist, btw, too), and The Diving Board in the new year. But I don't think Bernie Taupin and Elton are as angry as they were as younger men, for there isn't anything with quite the same bite as "Madman Across the Water," or "Burn Down the Mission" on these late albums.

I like the version of "Madman" that's on Tumbleweed Connection, too. Elton's lead guitarist for those sessions, Caleb Quaye, gave Elton's arrangements a harder edge than Davey Johnstone, Quaye's successor, did. "Talking Old Soldiers" got added emotional meaning for me when I realized that it could apply to the HIV/AIDS crisis as well, and "Son of Your Father" has a lot of sassiness. Do you recall "Bitter Fingers" from Capt. Fantastic? If Johnstone's guitar lead were a little harder, it would be great. It's got an edge, lyrically, that I really like.

Please forgive my rattling on like this. I've just completed a tiring project, and I'm still giddy with relief.

[chorale.livejournal.com]

The Captain and the Kid is the album that's the sequel to Capt. Fantastic. Peachtree Road was the album before that. (How embarrassing to have blown my chronology! ;) )

[chorale.livejournal.com]

I am so glad you love Tumbleweed Connection! For me, that's one of Elton and Bernie's albums that has held up very well over the decades.

When I can pick up EJ's latest, The Diving Board, I will. See my comment to Notebix below for my reaction to what I have heard therein.

[chorale.livejournal.com]

If it's a good show on Fox, they'll probably cancel it. Their treatment of Firefly and Dollhouse left me feeling burned.

[chorale.livejournal.com]

*makes a note of it*

Yep, I'm a Whedonite. :D