Elton John: Jump Up! (Geffen)
Gene Sculatti, Creem, August 1982

REMEMBER THE 70's? Not much of a decade, you say. Yeah, well. Fella here used to be a mover and a shaker back in the mid-70's. Real big wheel. Hits? For awhile there, even the holes in his singles charted. Acclaim? In the Village Voice, Robert Christgau himself discussed the cat's ‘metier.’ Like I say, big.

When was the last time you listened to an Elton John side by choice? Same here; '74 or '75, when he was dating ‘Island Girl’ and Croc-rockin' around the Kiki Dee, when Goodbye Yellow Bic Banana was wailin' at the wall. Well, here's today's riff: if you ever listened to him and stopped, Jump Up! gives you reason to start all over again. Maybe the fact he's not everywhere on the air anymore it what makes Jump Up! such a great surprise. Then again, it may be that ol' Four Eyes has here put together the best pop album of his career. Like! say, a big move.

One of the reasons is that this is mostly uptempo stuff (and in that department, ‘Dear John’ and ‘Where Have All The Good Times Gone’ equal his best). Also: Eltie's sharpest when he's not trying to say something, and despite some Bernie Taupin overreaching and liberal metaphor mixing, Jump Up! Doesn't say a hell of a lot more than I love you, Didn't we have fun? and Gee, it's sad we're splitting. Perfect example: ‘I Am Your Robot’, an overdue overturning of Human League and all that Soft Smell synthe-pop. Semi-perfect example: ‘Where Have All The Good Times Gone’ – a non-teary-eyed nostalgia move built upon a simpatico music-lyric union hinged on the line "Say that you remember all those good old Four Tops songs."

And even Bern's word mangling can't mar ‘Empty Garden (Hey Hey Johnny)’, the Lennon tribute that's devastating – as loss conveyance, Superpop architecture, Instahit inevitability – better, in fact, than anything Elt's cut in seven or eight years and, sad to say, stronger than anything Lennon had done in almost ten. ‘Ball And Chain’ is EJ at his most capricious, imitating, at this late date yet, Fleetwood Mac. ‘Princess’, despite a borrowed chord or two from the hideous ‘Your Song’, waltzes in time with prevailing black-pop style and walks away winning, and ‘Blue Eyes’ is a boss ballad that Sinatra oughta cover (it certainly beats the Beatles' ‘Something’, Frank's nod to contemporaneity for almost a decade now).

Whether this means Elton's "back" or on top again, is for someone else to figure out. It does mean Jump Up's an exceptional record. In today's devalued pop economy, that's not small change.