Elton John is good value for money because he’s an outspoken old bitch. Over the years, he’s glammed up his work with a variety of outlandish outfits and even more unbelievable wigs. And now, he’s making ridiculous claims about pop music.
This is despite the fact he did a duet with insipid boy-bland, Blue.
In his attack on the music industry, he said that today's songwriters were ?awful? and warned that television talent shows failed to produce any genuine stars. Weird he should say that when The X Factor is primarily a television show as opposed to a breeding ground for musical talent. It’s a bit like slagging someone off for buying, say, Watford FC and moaning about the fact they don’t produce decent footballers.
Sir Elton has claims that singers expect instant fame and are not able to deal with the demands of the industry. God forbid anyone should enter the shark pit of the music business and go a bit mental, like, for instance, spending ?1.5million per month on piss-all, hoovering up huge amounts of cocaine in a private jet and going on a 2 year bender with John Lennon and Harry Nilsson.
Of course, Elton John wants to point out that he had a hard paper round before he hit big, pointing out that artists need to experience ?hard graft? if they were to make it in the long term.
Sir Elton also slated musicians for not writing their own material.
?It's important they write their own songs, so they're not at the mercy of anyone. Songwriters today are pretty awful, which is why everything sounds the same. Contemporary pop isn't very inspiring.?
That’s coming from a man who has all his lyrics written for him by Bernie Taupin and has done covers of songs by The Beatles and The Who.
Of course, this imagined terrible state of pop music is thanks to the music industry?s reliance on shows like The X Factor and Britain?s Got Talent.
?I'm not a fan of talent shows. I probably wouldn't have lasted if I'd gone on one. It's become boring .?.?. brain crippling. I like Simon Cowell but what he does is TV entertainment.
?There have been some good acts but the only way to sustain a career is to pay your dues in small clubs. I was in a band at 17, became a songwriter with Bernie Taupin and wasn?t successful until we?d had six years of hard graft and disappointment, as well as great times.?
Elton added:
?TV vaults you to superstardom and then you have to back it up, which is hard. Leona Lewis and Alexandra Burke are at the mercy of the next song they can get.?
Yeah. We all long for a golden period of pop again. Like the ’60s perhaps, when 99% of the acts on Motown didn’t write their own songs and provided us with some of the most fun records in the history of everything, ever. Or maybe we could all hark back to that stretch from 1964 to 1976 when every single band was basing their music on 12 bar blues in an appalling state of formula.
We miss those good ol’ days, right?
Of course, no-one could ever accuse Elton John of being formulaic. Listen to tracks like ‘Tiny Dancer’, ‘Rocket Man’, ‘Levon’, ‘Candle In The Wind’ and that bollocks he did for The Lion King, and there’s not much between them. If we were to use the same broad brush-strokes as Elton, then we could simply dismiss his back catalogue as ‘a bunch of ballads played on the piano’.
Elton John (real name Ricardo Montalban) does like to pick on pop music though and he’s got previous with The X Factor.
A couple of years ago he described it as a ?cruise ship show? as well as saying that he’d rather be attacked by an alsatian than tune in. That’s not to say he didn’t enjoy the increase in sales when acts on the show performed his songs, which he personally gave the green light to.
We’re in the middle of a period where rock music is utterly devoid of life and pop music is just about the only genre that’s working at the moment. Give us Lady GaGa, Beyonce, Katy Perry and Girls Aloud over the dubious, hamfisted talents of an ageing piano player without a decent tune to his name since the ’70s.
THANKS.
Bobby says
He’s right.
Le Wass @le_wass says
He likes LADY GAGA DOESN’T HE??
coca says
Elton John is totally on the mark.
When Rage Against the Machine won the Christmas #1 it was a day to awaken people.
Music is from the SOUL not from Simon Cowell silly shows. Time for the youth to RISE up again and take back their generation from an aging billionaire who couldn’t care less about the real world. Justin Bieber and Gaga are the new idols of the poor brainwashed kids and they have no clue. Even 50 year old woman have been caught loving that type of music! We need another Nirvana type of kids to break through this illusion. A metallica? A JOHN LENNON? Can you people out there in sleep land believe GAGA has been compared to John Lennon! One of the most musical genius of a dream lost. WORLD PEACE! A political solider who had more talent in his little finger than lady (come on…lady?) gaga has meat suits and stupid shoes. I’m from the Grunge Generation X. I feel so sorry for these kids and when they turn EMO, omg! It is abnormal but a reaction to what they are pushing on the children. However Emo is better than GAGA or Bieber any day. They just want to die and who can blame them? No truth in the music and then they find My Chemical Romance. omg! Where are the Jim Morrisons, Led Zeppelins, John Lennons, Kurt Cobains, Elton Johns, Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrixs, RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINES!!!
Come on kids, you can do it! Play clubs and work hard. We are waiting for the new ROCK MESSIAHS!!
Real music, with real lyrics that teach kids something, anything except how to scream like that soon to hopefully grow up and go away little kid Justin who sings aspartame poison bubble gum pop that is a zillion times worse than when the Beatles sung the famous ” I Want to Hold Your Hand”. John Lennon was a genius and the Beatles were almost biblical. they were heroes! Then they sung about peace, helped the kids rise up against their peers being sent away to be killed in Nam. Now the children are under the illusion that war is better some how since most deaths are their peers from another land. A cruise ship show that we all need to sink like the Titanic but without any remorse.
Come on UK!!!~ Send the world a new honey bubble gum pop. Fresh and real!
Help!!!!
Those who control the media control the mind! – Jim Morrison
mary says
Kudos to you Sir Elton, for speaking the truth.
Don’t know what you’re listening
but, yea,….all newer music does sound the same.
Change the words around to any rap song, it will fit
the same so called ‘musical’ background.
‘Artists’, and that’s really be said loosely,
burst on the scene at 18 and are given millions……
very sad, especially when you look at all the good
musicians, bluesman, jazz artists, and others
who are and were truly talented.
mburn says
This is one of the few times I agree with him.
Today’s music & singers (sorry they’re definitely not musicians) are absolute crap.
How many of these talentless morons can actually play an instrument let alone write a decent song with some sort of intellect in the lyrics.
Lady goo goo ga ga, Kylie (dumbo)Minogue, Justin bimbo Bieber to name a few.
Will we ever have another musician who’s at least even inspired by someone like Jimi Hendrix.
Don’t think so!!!