The 2000s singer Elton John immediately fell in love with: “Cut from exactly the same cloth”
Elton John was never meant to be the typical diva of rock and roll.
I know that sounds crazy to say about one of rock and roll’s great monarchs, but when you look at his track record, he was a fan of music above everything else, and that wasn’t going to change due to a few gold and platinum records on his shelf. He was always looking for the next big thing that would strike his fancy, and while he could appreciate a great song, it was all in the presentation that really struck a nerve with John.
At the same time, John wasn’t going to settle for a sideshow every single time he listened to some of his competition. The greatest artists that he ever worked with were usually more content to make a spectacle onstage and worry about what the songs sounded like afterwards, and that’s half the reason why John wanted to go the extra mile when performing any of his tunes live. He needed to have a bit more power behind him, and that meant putting people like Madonna to shame when they lip-synced.
Many of John’s shows were about showing people his musicianship, and even if he had to take his voice down a few keys over the years, he wasn’t afraid to make music that suited where he was at the moment. It wasn’t always easy for him to hit the same notes that he did when he was in his 20s, but when listening to ‘Goodbye Yellow Brick Road’ now, you can hear someone who is looking back on their life at the top half the time.
And looking at the new school, it’s not like John’s musical offspring have forgotten that sentiment, either. His contemporaries in glam rock always relied on their ability to kill onstage, and when the 2000s were ending, Lady Gaga seemed to take everything that made people like John and Madonna work and dialled it up to 11. She genuinely looked like she was from another planet, and John was all in as soon as he heard her.
Compared to the other proteges that John has had over the years, he felt that Gaga knew what he was going for a lot better than anyone, saying, “Of all the young stars that I’ve ever collaborated with, I had a special bond with Gaga. I loved her from the moment I locked eyes on her. The music she made, the outrageous clothes, the sense of theatre and spectacle. We were very different people. She was a young woman from New York in her 20s, but it was clear when we met that we were cut from exactly the same cloth. I called her the bastard daughter of Elton John.”
Given the kind of outrageous moves that Gaga has made over the years, though, it’s not like John was that far off the mark. She was making the kind of weird left turns that no one could have imagined, and whenever she put on a show, there were more than a few times where she could even put John to shame, like when she duetted with him at the Grammys for a performance of ‘Your Song’.
It also helps that Gaga is one of the few artists who knows every single piece of what she’s doing whenever she writes a song. You have to remember that she got her start going to Juilliard first, and while a lot of her songs don’t need to be the most complex musical symphony anyone has ever heard, all of her melodies are incredibly well-structured, the same way you’d expect one of John’s tunes to be.
So while a lot of the biggest stars tend to feel a lot more manufactured these days, John can at least appreciate someone like Gaga carrying the torch for artists of his nature. It was never easy for anyone to break into the industry, but both John and Gaga were proof that someone could be totally authentic to themselves and still manage to become one of the most popular artists in the world.
