Elton was the Pinball Wizard–advantage Sir Reginald.
Billy Joel wins for me. I like Elton John’s early stuff, but Billy Joel stood the test of time.
I prefer zombie Billy Joel to zombie Elton John.
Elton gets a sheet of paper with words on it from Bernie Taupin. He then decides what kind of song it will be, fast, slow, moderate, etc., and then composes the music, often in 45 minutes or less. He also decides how to spin or vocalize the words, adding meaning to them that Bernie Taupin may never have envisioned. Taupin himself has said that he’s frequently been surprised at the type of song Elton has turned his lyrics into. So yeah, Elton doesn’t come up with the words themselves, but he has consistently over the decades turned those words into hugely popular songs containing a complexity of musicianship that I just don’t see in Billly Joel’s work.
Someone, maybe even in this thread, once observed that Billy Joel’s songs sound like they were written for Broadway shows, and I’ve thought the same thing since whenever I hear a Billy Joel song. Certainly many fine musicians have written music for plays, and that’s not a knock against Joel, but to me Elton’s work is far more unique. I would expect that there are hundreds if not thousands of people who could crank out music similar to Billy Joel’s, but no one who can write music to match Elton’s.
Just my .02. Billy Joel is a fine singer and songwriter, and I like almost everything I’ve heard from him. But to me Elton is in a different stratosphere.
I’ve also not heard much in the way of Elton coming in for criticism or complaint for not writing the words to his songs. The acclaim he’s come in for has pretty much been universal in my experience. I’ve always thought Taupin’s words were often odd and that he’s not really that great of a lyricist, and that he’s one of the luckiest men alive to have teamed up with Elton John, a man who could turn those mediocre lyrics into such popular and beloved songs and make him a rich man. Again just my .02, but in my opinion Elton’s music and success is about 98/99% his own doing and 1 or 2% attributable to Bernie Taupin.
Secondhand information here, but reliable secondhand, and not third or seventeenth: A friend of mine who’s a professional musician ended up hearing Elton John’s warm-up or soundcheck or whatever was happening. He was blown away by the spectacular piano playing, saying there is certainly never anything like it in an actual Elton John concert. I’m guessing he has the skill but knows people didn’t pay to hear piano solos all night.
It’s amusing to me to see people quoting “TheFury” (who changed their handle at some point to Frustrated Wonderer)…
In any event Elton’s early 70’s peak blows Billy’s late 70’s peak completely out of the water. Elton had a longer fall into mediocrity tho.
[Moderating]
wiffer21, I can understand joining a board and bumping a decade-old thread because it’s something that you’re passionate about, but for a wishy-washy post like that? Why? Since we generally only allow old (“zombie”) threads to be revived for substantive new posts, I’m going to close this. If there’s sufficient interest among the membership, someone can start a new thread on the topic.