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Rating: After the disaster of "Ice On Fire," there were three possibilities for the year 1986: 1-draw a clear line over synth pop and completely change style, but with an Elton John severely impacted by cocaine and depression, this was practically impossible. 2-stay away from the recording studio and detox, the wiser option that would only be taken a few years later. 3-record a new album in the vein of the previous one. Unfortunately, it was this last possibility that came to pass, with absolutely disastrous and catastrophic results: "Leather Jackets" in Elton John's career is Ground Zero, the Caporetto, the Nadir, the deepest abyss from which fortunately there is nowhere to go but up.
"Leather Jackets" is a very difficult album to review for the simple fact that it is also a very difficult album to listen to, which in 45 minutes manages to concentrate all the worst of "Ice On Fire" by sublimating it with nonexistent melodies and arrangements, meaningless lyrics and an Elton John never so weak and listless even vocally and so, between monotonous and sprawling slow tracks that paradoxically turn out to be the "best" episodes of the album like "Gypsy Heart," "Memory Of Love," "Slow Rivers" or "Hoops Of Fire" and songs that seem straight out of the worst tacky '80s revival nightmare like "Go It Alone" and the horrendous title track "Leather Jackets," which opens the album in the worst possible way, the final act of the decline of the one who composed "Tumbleweed Connection" and "Madman Across The Water" unfolds. Special mention for the collaborations with Cher ("Don't Trust That Woman") and Queen's Sound Volcano ("Angeline"): it's truly difficult to determine which of the two is more grotesque and unlistenable.
Justly snubbed by the general public and fiercely mocked by critics, "Leather Jackets" remains the worst album of the pianist from Pinner's multi-decade career (by his own admission), far more than the much-maligned "Victim Of Love," which may have been an image blunder but certainly does not transmit to the listener the feeling of being stranded, cosmic emptiness, and narcolepsy that this unfortunate album from 1986 is steeped in, which if nothing else helps to debunk the cliché that drugs help increase musicians' creativity. Other merits, in this album, there are none at all.
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
01 Leather Jackets (04:14)
Do you pray to someone new
When you're locked up in the rock
Is the golden age dead and gone
Are the hands stuck on the clock
Can you talk to Buddy's bones
When you spin a forty five
The king ain't dead, he's just asleep
Somewhere in the after life
And look at them boys in leather jackets
Second skin, not fade away
Danger girls love leather jackets
Play back to back, and that'll be the day
Leather jackets, that'll be the day
We all need to smell the heat
You know that things go better with chrome
Is Memphis real or just a song
Three thousand miles from home
Be a cool jerk, don't work
When fashion makes you change
Keep the faith, don't waste
Another nickel on another name
And idolise twisted cars
Like taxi cabs and spiders
Eternity's just down the road
They're looking for more riders
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