Too Low For Zero - Elton John (1983)

Nobody would blame you if you couldn’t name an Elton John album or single released between 1976 and 1983. His status as an ultra-hard-working wunderkind had turned into the same pressure for new material and more concerts that drain a lot of artists. He was working without a number of musicians who’d been part of his sound, and mostly without co-writer Bernie Taupin.

Just an aside: if you want to see what I’m talking about when I mention artists completely selling out to the younger generation and sounding ridiculous, please reference John’s outrageously hackneyed disco cover of Johnny B Goode.

So the return to big pop hits on this album could have been the narrative even if you didn’t pay attention to the sonic details.

John plays synthesizers and electric pianos along with his regular piano work. The band is rendered in all its individually-tracked glory, separated by different amounts of studio processing on each instrument.

It might sound like I’m taking a dim view of 80s recording techniques, making it seem like an assembly line process. But it’s part of the charm: a skilled studio crew could get the best performance from each instrument (in addition to adding extras) and fit them into the mix in a way that builds the track rather than the earlier method of just seeing what emerged.

You could argue about whether Elton John was better off in this context of the designed sound space vs just belting out Take Me To The Pilot as the band whaled away behind him, but he certainly would find a lot of success from this point forward.