ELTON JOHN - The Captain And The Kid Review

Anyone heralding a new Elton John album as a return to form faces credibility issues. (You may recall the ''Elton's back!'' scare around 2001's Songs From the West Coast.) But it's not crying wolf to warn you that Captain & the Kid is EJ's best since the Carter years. It's an autobiographical song cycle largely about the 1970s, which gives Elton a thematic excuse to answer fans' prayers, drop the adult contemporary slop, and deliver a piano-dominated, live-band effort consciously aping his earliest, most idiosyncratic breakthroughs....full text He may be approaching 60 but Elton John was never going to grow old gracefully, as his collaborations with Scissor Sisters and pop twerps Blue have confirmed. Thankfully, since 2001's Songs From The West Coast, he's also realised that when it comes to simple, impassioned piano-based balladry, there are few to better him....full text The Captain and the Kid is the third album in a career-resurrecting run that began in 2001, when Elton John took the novel approach of sitting down at a piano and writing songs that sound a lot like Elton John....full text