Good Morning To The Night

[BiteUrLip]

This is probably Elton's VOL of the 21st century - but it's not as bad as the real thing, because the music originates from Elton's compositions and that's a very important thing when you compare this album with VOL.

I think there are a few great songs on the album, but a couple really weak ones too. Here comes my review:

The opening track, the title track, tells pretty much what the album offers - there are brilliant snapshots of Elton's classic 70's favorites on the songs, but already on this first track something just isn't quite working, for example the low note at the end of the chorus ("night"). Same happens sometimes elsewhere, but not too often. "Sad" is working better, and it's one of the highlights here. "Black Icy Stare" is a mediocre song though, the clips on it aren't from great songs and that is the reason for it. It is also the another reason why this album isn't that great - because they didn't choose enough good clips from Elton's songs! "Foreign Fields" is another song suffering from reason #1, the whole song just doesn't work enough well. "Telegraph To The Afterlife" used to be my least favorite here - now it's better, but still the 2nd weakest track for me. "Phoenix" is however the best song for me from this album - the clip from "Grey Seal" original version is great, and they created a great instrumental chorus for the song! But "Karmatron" is the weakest for me. It slightly irritates me. "Sixty" has a great mood, but it isn't a proper song - it sounds like it could be from a soundtrack.

Anyway, it's much better than VOL but on the bottom 5 of Elton's albums. Next, to the individual track reviews:

1. Good Morning To The Night ****½
2. Sad *****
3. Black Icy Stare ****
4. Foreign Fields ****½
5. Telegraph To The Afterlife ****
6. Phoenix *****
7. Karmatron ***½
8. Sixty *****

[dougs]

GOOD MORNING TO THE NIGHT by Elton vs. Pnau:

This was an energetic and interesting album where Pnau took between 3 and 9 of Elton's early career songs and sampled & mixed them into new songs.  The album was Elton's last #1 album reaching the top spot in the summer of 2012 in the UK.

Pnau created a somewhat trippy song called "Telegraph to the Afterlife" by sampling 7 of EJ's more mellow tunes like "Funeral For A Friend" and "Harmony" and "Love Song" and "We All Fall in Love Sometimes" and "Sweet Painted Lady" and "I've Seen That Movie Too" and "Indian Sunset."  In contrast, the song called "Karmatron" is a powerful rhythmic number using song samples including "One Horse Town" and "Madman Across the Water" and "Screw You" plus 4 others.  The real highlight, to me, is the instrumental on the album called "Sixty" which used the great piano work from "Sixty Years On" from the live 11-17-70 album plus the original studio version on ELTON JOHN and also the LIVE IN AUSTRALIA.  The song also sampled "Indian Sunset."  A beautiful job by Pnau.

A fun and worthwhile album with electronic overtones.  Too bad a 2nd volume never followed.

Rating:  4 stars

Doug

[latitude]

I like this album quite well, and I will also give it 4 stars. I *love* 'Good Morning to the Night', and 'Sixty' especially. Other favorites are 'Sad', 'Phoenix', and 'Karmatron'. The others don't thrill me that much. I actually play this album quite often.

[dougs]

latitude:

I, too, play GOOD MORNING TO THE NIGHT especially in the summer.  It just has a nice upbeat summer feel to it.

It was amazing how well this album did in the UK (#1) but didn't even chart in the USA.  Electronically-flavoured music is more widely accepted in Europe than in the USA; check Moby and Kraftwerk chart positions UK vs. US to see this.  EJ received lots of varied promotion for this album in the UK and it paid off.  France  saw it reach #9 on their charts.  EJ did play a few gigs with Pnau in Australia but, other than that, has understandably not played any of it live anywhere else ever since.  I would have really enjoyed another album like this.

Doug

[rocketman]

2.5 stars...While I like the way they integrated several Elton John songs, the electronic music, on its own, irritates me - which electronic music often does, so it's not the fault of Pnau specifically. Nice effort, just not my cup of tea.

[rocketman]

I have recently "re-discovered" this album via my YouTube Music playlist. I must upgrade my initial score to a solid 4. This album is quite imaginative in its use of Elton's lyrics, and the songs, especially the title song and Foreign Fields are quite intriguing.