Various Artists: Rocketman (Music from the film) – Revision of the album



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Records are the constant in Elton John's life. Records gave refuge to young Reginald Dwight during an unhappy childhood, records that led him to fame, records that earned him indulgence at the pinnacle of his celebrity in the years 1970 – Tower Records on the Sunset Strip used to close so that Elton could ransack the lockers privately – and records were his food during his recovery from his myriad of outbuildings, paving the way for him. a stable, sustainable life and career in middle age.

That's why it's strange that Rocketman (Music of the film)In many ways, Elton John's life story – at least his life as depicted in Dexter Fletcher's fantasy film about the rock star's journey – is so scalded. Fletcher and producer Matthew Vaughn, who decided that music had to be sculpted to fit the contours of the big screen, could be largely blamed, reworking and recreating John's original hits to match the emotional content of the film. Stylized story. to be said. To this end, the production team hired the appropriate musical supervisor: Giles Martin.

Known now as the man who oversees the re-release of the Beatles' main jewelery, Martin made his mark by bringing the Fab Four to Vegas, creating the mashups that fueled the extravagance of Cirque Du Soleil. Love. Rocketman does not take nearly as much risk as Love"The soundtrack is not unanimous," but Martin does not quite treat the original recordings as a sacred gospel. Sometimes Martin sneaks a familiar tune to feel a little to the left of the center: "Saturday Night's Alright (For Fighting)" begins with a guitar explosion before embarking on both pseudo-reggae and diluted psychedelia. But most often, he favors productions that cautiously deal with nostalgic memories without succumbing to replicas by heart. "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" conveys a melancholy majesty against glitz and "Take Me to the Pilot" plunges Paul Buckmaster's beautiful strings into aggressive R & B beats. The changes are not as much reimagination as games on our collective subconscious.

Martin's new arrangements are designed for the big screen, so every move is oversized and meant for cheap seats. It's a subtle but noticeable difference from John's original discs, evident in the thick layers of choirs and strings, but also to the studio band, which sounds much stiffer on the first noisy rockers ("Rock & Roll Madonna "," Hercules "," Honky Cat ") that Elton's original loose crew. This is a problem Rocketman: Professional players can hit the markers, but not with the same confidence as the musicians who created the recordings.

Such congestion may have been unavoidable. In the 1970s, Elton John led a rock'n'roll band – it was a band, not a collection of session musicians; He has kept bassist Dee Murray, drummer Nigel Olsson and guitarist Davey Johnstone with him over the years, the latter two still playing with Elton to this day. His original recordings have a certain raw soul under the flexible productions of Gus Dudgeon. Here, the music is intentionally clogged, intended to evoke memories instead of creating them.

For that, this precision is preferable for the actors who compose the casting of Rocketman, but their voices are the ultimate suppression of the soundtrack. Where the queen biopic Bohemian Rhapsody is based on the original voice of Freddie Mercury, Rocketman Taron Egerton, a veteran of the Matthew Vaughn Group Kingsman franchise-like film Elton John, with occasional contributions from co-stars Jamie Bell, Connor Kit and Bryce Dallas Howard. Egerton has a vocal sounding that is reasonably similar to Elton John's, and he is a fairly experienced singer, but he sings like an actor: he intends to play a role instead of inhabiting a song. Although this approach may be suitable for a film, when its performance is strictly understood as a recording, its leanness as a singer becomes obvious. Egerton never undertakes the meaning of the words. Certainly, the obtuse words of Bernie Taupin have been recognized to sow confusion among the best singers. Amoreena "and keeps the tame wildest moments.

The gap between Egerton and Elton is quite relieved by the triumphant number that closes the film and the soundtrack. A seemingly effortless evocation of John's active peak in the mid-1970s, "(I will do) love me again" is as autobiographical as Fantastic Captain and the Brown Cowboy-He prefers to make myth to soul-but revelation is how the duo finds John dominating Egerton. Elton John, older but still so keen, draws attention to this new issue, a track that works because it's both a record and a song: the vibrant colors, the bouncing rhythm, the horns punctuate each hook and the interaction between the singer and actor feels like an act of intentional domination. And, in this sense, "(I'm going to love myself) again" illustrates once again that records are Elton John's salvation, since erasing this single eclipses the mediocrity of Rocketman (Music of the film), proving that even if someone else plays Elton John, the role still belongs to Reginald Dwight.

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