ALBUM REVIEWS
VARIOUS ARTISTS REVAMP Island Records VARIOUS ARTISTS RESTORATION UMG Nashville
Considering the quality of the songwriting partnership combining Elton John’s music with Bernie Taupin’s lyrics and that the song selection on these two tribute albums is, with exceptions, a collection of fairly clearcut covers of their biggest hits, your level of enjoyment will depend mostly on your like, dislike, tolerance or rejection of the contributors.
Sir Elton curated Revamp, which gathers versions by inhabitants of the rock and pop worlds, from Lady Gaga and Mary J. Blige to Coldplay, Sam Smith and The Killers, and opens with Pink, Logic and a John cameo on Bennie and the Jets.
Highlights include Florence + The Machine’s take on Tiny Dancer, Queen soft he Stone Age surprisingly contained Goodbye Yellow Brick Road and Sam Smith’s Daniel.
Taupin took Restoration under his wings and its versions by country artists is rooted in the fact that more than a handful of his and John’s songs shared a strong kinship with what’s now called Americana. It also results in the more profound album of the two.
Miranda Lambert carries with grace the emotions behind My Father’s Gun, about a Confederate soldier returning to battle after burying his dad, while Lee Ann Womack is an ideal choice for the groovy Honky Cat. Vince Gill and Don Henley polish Sacrifice and Rosanne Cash shares This Train Don’t Stop There Anymore with Emmylou Harris.
KYLIE MINOGUE GOLDEN BMG
Kylie Minogue hasn’t completely ditched her pop-dance roots on Golden, her 14th studio album, but it’s got a distinct twang. Golden emerged following Minogue’s first trip to Nashville last year. Lead single Dancing is positively Dolly Parton-ish, and Minogue goes on to sing about rodeos, drinking-too-much mates and even a muscle car (Shelby ’68).
The lyrics fit a woman who turns 50 this year — regret, bad love, hope and yearning. She hopes she won’t make the same mistakes in Stop Me from Falling and tries to move on in Radio On. There’s a whiff of mortality on Dancing when Minogue, a cancer survivor, sings about “when the final curtain falls” and concludes, “When I go out/ I wanna go dancing.”
Sincerely Yours has more than a hint of Taylor Swift, while fiddles and banjos fill up A Lifetime to Repair — did you ever think you’d hear those instruments on a Kylie Minogue record? Raining Glitter is what happens when fingerpicking and disco collide; there is really no way it should work, but it does.
Really the only time Minogue should have reined it in was when she embellishes the title track with the theme song from The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. We got it — you’re country now.