Elton John
Rock of the Westies

THE REVIEW

May 23, 1975: "Captain Fantastic And The Brown Dirt Cowboy" is released; October 4, 1975: "Rock Of The Westies" is released. Few months separate these two dates, but it's as if entire years have passed, such is the artistic and stylistic distance separating these two Elton John albums, both recorded at the Caribou Ranch: "Rock Of The Westies" is the work of an artist who, after churning out masterpieces continuously for five years, begins to feel the first signs of fatigue and especially indecision about the musical path to follow, an aspect that would further accentuate in the chaotic "Blue Moves" of 1976.

"Rock Of The Westies," recorded without Dee Murray on bass and Nigel Olsson on drums, replaced by Kenny Passarelli and Roger Pope, is an album that one may or may not like, but it is certainly a unique case in EJ’s discography, which neither before nor after will propose such a decidedly rock-oriented sound, a rock paced by funk influences and especially psychedelic with a very personal touch, and the experiment also yields excellent results, such as in "Medley (Yell Help/Wednesday Night/Ugly)", which despite its name is a single musical discourse supported by the relentless riffs of Davey Johnstone's guitar, which slows down towards the end, taking on psychedelic tones before closing in a bizarre crescendo dominated by the Labelle trio's choirs: strangely never played live, this is definitely the most substantial performance of "Rock Of The Westies", a catchy and engaging song, although anything but radio-friendly, showing an Elton John decidedly in top form, entering the rock world while preserving his originality.

After the pleasant surprise of the opener, the album maintains an excellent level with the eccentric "Dan Dare (Pilot Of The Future)", which resumes the vaguely lysergic sounds of "Medley", characterized by EJ's rough and rasping interpretation, completely different from his more traditional singing, while "Grow Some Funk Of Your Own" is a nice heavy glam rock that belongs to the same vein as "Saturday Night's Already For Fighting" and "The Bitch Is Back", completing the best tracks of the album along with the carefree and poppy "Island Girl", with its exotic aftertaste, and "I Feel Like A Bullet (In The Gun Of Robert Ford)", the only ballad of "Rock Of The Westies", a great song cloaked in dreamy melancholy, and despite its great value, little known and considered.

It’s a pity that, besides the five songs I mentioned, which still earn "Rock Of The Westies" a deserved positive score, the remaining four are quite anonymous and lack interesting cues: EJ insists on wanting to be a rock singer tout court, despite not having the inclination, and the final result is an album that is distinctly divided into two with an excellent first part and a purely filler second part that unfortunately affects the final outcome of Elton John’s first "cocaine" album which, despite its originality and its underrated gems, remains undoubtedly the least substantial album of a decade that saw EJ reach much higher and unreachable peaks.