Sleeping With The Past

[BiteUrLip]

To me, this is the REAL comeback album. RSB wasn't quite that, it included songs from LJ sessions which I believe were the weak ones in the album.

First we've got "Durban Deep". I consider this a sleeper, it's got a reggae groove but pop melody. "Healing Hands" is one of my big favorites from this one - yes I admit, the melody doesn't quite work as well as it could, but as that it's already fantastic! Then we have "Whispers", which isn't that great to me, it is beautiful but something bores me in it. "Club At The End Of The Street" is yet another big favorite - certainly a very positive song, and it doesn't need to be really serious. The title track has a cool mood, but doesn't get me going more. However, "Stone's Throw From Hurtin'" is my least favorite from this album. It sounds very fragile, but that only bores me. "Sacrifice" on the other hand is one of the winners - music can't be much more beautiful than that! "I Never Knew Her Name" is again good, but not more than that. Same with "Amazes Me", it doesn't really amaze me very much. "Blue Avenue", the ending track, is one of the greats, and a second sleeper song for me.

There are also two bonus tracks, "Dancing In The End Zone" is the winner of them, and "Love Is A Cannibal" is the throwaway track. It is actually quite bad, because it irritates so much.

1. Durban Deep *****
2. Healing Hands *****+
3. Whispers *****
4. Club At The End Of The Street *****+
5. Sleeping With The Past *****
6. Stone's Throw From Hurtin' ****
7. Sacrifice *****+
8. I Never Knew Her Name *****
9. Amazes Me *****
10. Blue Avenue *****

Bonus tracks:

11. Dancing In The End Zone *****
12. Love Is A Cannibal **

[latitude]

*****+ My fav. album of the 80's, and one of my favorite albums period. For the bonus tracks, I'd give 'Love is a Cannibal' 5 stars, and 'Dancing....' a 2. The opposite of you, Bite.

[BiteUrLip]

Feb 14, 2018 21:10:49 GMT latitude said:

*****+ My fav. album of the 80's, and one of my favorite albums period. For the bonus tracks, I'd give 'Love is a Cannibal' 5 stars, and 'Dancing....' a 2. The opposite of you, Bite.

Well that's funny! I can understand someone's dislike towards DITEZ, it can surely annoy.

[latitude]

Feb 14, 2018 21:15:10 GMT BiteUrLip said:

Feb 14, 2018 21:10:49 GMT latitude said:

*****+ My fav. album of the 80's, and one of my favorite albums period. For the bonus tracks, I'd give 'Love is a Cannibal' 5 stars, and 'Dancing....' a 2. The opposite of you, Bite.

Well that's funny! I can understand someone's dislike towards DITEZ, it can surely annoy.

For one thing, the drumming is rather overwhelming.     Always enjoyed 'Love Is....' for some reason.

[dougs]

SLEEPING WITH THE PAST:

Wait til Briana gets ahold of this album to review!

This is possibly the best 80s album from Elton & Bernie.  TOO LOW FOR ZERO looked forward a bit more with very contemporary sounding songs like "Crystal" and "Too Low For Zero" but SLEEPING WITH THE PAST may be his most consistent album of the decade.  Elton & Bernie actually connected ahead of time with the goal of encouraging one another to compose an album worthy of their legacy and talents.  It was really as close to a face-to-face collaboration that they had achieved to this point.  The musical ideas were from Elton's early life influences such as soul and R&B and Motown.  The result was a solid and cohesive collection of songs.  The sound and production (once again Chris Thomas) is modern and clean for the most part.  SLEEPING WITH THE PAST saw some significant band changes;  new were Jonathan Moffett on drums and Romeo Williams on bass making this Elton's first African-American rhythm section ever.  Davey was, of course, kept as was Fred Mandel.  Guy Babylon made his debut in the band playing keyboards throughout.  Backing up the vocals were the great trio of Natalie Jackson, Mortonette Jenkins, and Marlena Jeter.  Elton would take this band on the road with tremendous success and keep the ladies on backing vocals through THE ONE tour.  Elton was obviously pleased with the record calling it "the strongest record we have ever made."  It is also the album that he actually dedicated to Bernie.

The sales and chart positions were interesting.  SLEEPING WITH THE PAST generally did well in Europe upon release in the late summer of 1989.  The incredible thing was that a radio DJ by the name of Steve Wright picked up on Sacrifice in the spring of 1990 and gave it substantial airplay.  The song had a re-birth.  The song was re-released as a double A side with "Healing Hands" which had already come and gone in the charts.  The result was a MONSTER hit single hitting #1 in the UK (incredibly, Elton's first solo #1 hit there) and across Europe.  "Sacrifice" was the #3 song of 1990 in the UK.  It brought SLEEPING WITH THE PAST to the top of the UK charts as well.  In fact, SLEEPING WITH THE PAST went #1 not only in the UK but also in Switzerland, France, New Zealand and went #2 in Australia.  The sales were huge;  3X platinum in the UK and #9 album of the year plus 4X platinum in Australia and #8 album of the year.  It also sold 4X platinum in Italy.  Oddly and interestingly and most likely infuriatingly to EJ (we know his temper and relationship problems with record companies) SLEEPING WITH THE PAST only went #23 in the USA and in Canada.  "Healing Hands" went #8 in Canada and #13 in the USA but "Sacrifice" only scored #19 in Canada and #18 in the USA.  Upon release "Sacrifice" only reached #55 in the UK before being re-released.  Canada accepted "Club at the End of the Street" where it peaked at #12 but only #28 in the USA and #33 in the UK.

The album seems to have stood the test of time in quality despite borrowing heavily from 60s music genres.  "Durban Deep" sees EJ tap into an electronic and slight reggae influence.  Cool tune.  "Blue Avenue" is one of the best ballads from Elton in the entire 80s decade.  "Whispers" is a stunningly beautiful song with lots of instrumentation.  Apparently "Whispers" was the first song written for the project.  "Stones Throw From Hurtin" has a bit of a "Philadelphia Freedom" feel to it plus an amazing vocal from EJ.  The title track became popular in concert as did "Healing Hands" and "Sacrifice" which was done solo.  Had "Sacrifice" & "Healing Hands" not been re-released in 1990 triggering a massive response, SLEEPING WITH THE PAST might have slipped away without a great deal of notice.

Elton may not have pushed the envelop a lot on SLEEPING WITH THE PAST but he and Bernie did create a solid collection of songs to be proud of.  There really isn't a weak song in the collection.  Apparently Elton wrote 18 songs in 4 days but they took their time crafting the songs into good soul and R&B flavoured tunes.   In the world of new Nirvana and Nine Inch Nails, EJ's music was friendly and safe.  Regardless, SLEEPING WITH THE PAST is a decent album. Unfortunately Elton stopped playing songs from the album in concert in North America in the autumn of 1989 because he felt that MCA Records ignored the album in terms of promotion.  More importantly, Elton was experiencing more and more problems with drug and alcohol and eating disorders at the time.  There were serious personal issues to deal with and EJ would slide off the rails in 1990.  SLEEPING WITH THE PAST has sadly and maybe understandably never been revisited by Elton live except for some regional playing of "Sacrifice" and a superb rendition (excellent accompaniment by John Jorgenson) of "Club at the End of the Street" for the ONE NIGHT ONLY concerts.  Nonetheless, a very good record.

Doug

[kissybissy]

5 stars. A masterpiece.

[latitude]

Even though Elton was having such a rough time at times on this tour, somehow a lot of those shows ended up fantastic! The setlist, his vocals, the music. Wow! I play those shows a *lot*. One of my favorites tours. I'm sure there were some bad shows, but those aren't the ones I have, luckily.

I also am disappointed that he never did those SWTP songs again, except that one time with 'Club...'. When I heard that on the recording *I* thought it should be a law that he must play that at every show. LOL. But he never did again.   

By the way, thanks, Doug, for great info on these albums.

[dougs]

Latitude:

You are most welcome for the review.  They are fun to do.

I, too, liked the shows from 1989.  I was able to see Elton at Saratoga Springs (great show) in the summer before the album came out and then in the autumn in Toronto.  The cool thing about Saratoga Springs was hearing those 4 songs live for the first time before release;  he played the title track and "Healing Hands" and "Stones Throw From Hurtin'" and "Sacrifice."  Nobody had yet heard them but they all went over well especially the title track and "Healing Hands."  The Toronto show was fine but it was played in then what was the new Sky Dome stadium which had horrid acoustics and EJ was stewing over the sound and he let the audience know when he came back for encores.  He used colourful language to let us know what he felt about the acoustics.  He promised whenever he came back that he would make it up to us.  He kept his word and when he returned in 1992 all tickets were kept to only $25 which was quite cheap in those days, especially for a big-name act like Elton. On that Toronto night in 1989, however, EJ "redecorated" the dressing room during one of his more animated post-concert moments! 

Doug

[rocketman]

1. Durban Deep 4.5
2. Healing Hands 4.25
3. Whispers 4
4. Club At The End Of The Street 4.25
5. Sleeping With The Past 5
6. Stone's Throw From Hurtin' 4.25
7. Sacrifice 4
8. I Never Knew Her Name 4.25
9. Amazes Me 4.25
10. Blue Avenue 5

Bonus tracks:

11. Dancing In The End Zone 4
12. Love Is A Cannibal 4.25

This is Elton's most consistent, and arguably his best, effort of the 1980's. It completes the 'comeback' started by Reg. and offers a more cohesive collection of songs than Reg, with better ballads, usually strength on an Elton John album but seriously lacking through much of the decade. With songs like Blue Avenue, Whispers, and Sacrifice, Elton was writing compelling ballads again.

The title song is my personal 'sleeper' on this album, and of course a play on words too as 'Sleeping' becomes the sleeper. In fact, this album offers up two 5-star songs and others that easily hit that solidly-good 4 score and exceed it. 'Durban' is among the more intriguing opening songs sonically, with its reverb as Elton and Bernie capture the predicament of the danger and drudgery of mining work. 'Stones Throw' also employs some reverb and makes Elton's vocal unique and almost difficult to recognize immediately as being Elton - a relative of mine was perplexed when I played the song, not realizing it was Elton.

In terms of production, this is perhaps Chris Thomas's best, with a fairly open and clean sound, and not up-front vocally as some of his productions such as Reg and Breaking Hearts. The sounds of the horns in the songs are artificially created but sound quite good if not actually realistic. The "trumpet" solo on Blue Avenue, for example, is nicely rendered, and Davey's acoustic guitar is outstanding as it seems to float beyond the sound stage.

The bonus material, especially 'Cannibal" is almost up to the quality of the rest of the record, and both feature an exciting, pounding beat that is often uncharacteristic of Elton's sound but is a welcome diversion.

Overall, Elton was clearly back on track, even though still not quite up to his 1970's level of competence. Despite still fighting sobriety issues, he was making quality albums again, and that trend would continue through to the present day. In the last 20 years, while occasionally reaching the level of greatness he achieved in the 70's, Elton has recorded some of the most consistently GOOD music of his career.

[dougs]

rocketman:

Yeah, isn't Davey's acoustic guitar sound on "Blue Avenue" superb!  A truly underrated Elton song.

Doug

[nix]

Album Rating: ****1/2
One of his best.


1. Durban Deep ***1/2
2. Healing Hands *****
3. Whispers ****
4. Club At The End Of The Street ****1/2
5. Sleeping With The Past ****
6. Stone's Throw From Hurtin' ****
7. Sacrifice *****
8. I Never Knew Her Name ***1/2
9. Amazes Me *****
10. Blue Avenue *****

Bonus tracks:

11. Dancing In The End Zone ***
12. Love Is A Cannibal ***1/2