The band Elton John called “a great event in the history of music”
Half of what Elton John did before becoming a musician was already centred around being a music nerd.
While he was more than happy to play shows for anyone within earshot when he first wrote songs, he was happy to get his own music in the same charts that he had been studying ever since the days when Elvis Presley was one of the biggest names in music. But even for all of the great artists that come and go on the charts now and again, John understood when he was listening to a musical tour de force from the first moment that they came out of the speakers.
And it’s not like John was ever one to jump on a bandwagon, either. There are plenty of modern artists who have still garnered his respect, but a lot of what he admires in musicians is that one magic factor that makes them feel like they’re going to be around for a long time. Sometimes it’s songwriters like Brandi Carlile and other times it’s working with bands like Gorillaz, but either way, John is always more than happy to champion someone that he thinks has the potential to wow him.
Because if you think about it, there’s something in everyone’s artistic soul that dies when they stop seeking out new music. It’s one thing to rely on the classics and not listen to whatever else is on the charts for as long as you live, but it makes no sense to think that whatever new artist is topping the charts is terrible on principle. They have those devoted fans for a reason, and John didn’t bother hiding his love for some artists that most musicians of his generation would have turned their noses up at.
It wasn’t a mistake that he eventually got together with Eminem at the Grammys to sing ‘Stan’, but that kind of eclectic taste is something that was instilled in him from an early age. The charts that John listened to never catered strictly to rock and roll, and it wasn’t out of the question for him to hear some of the greatest singer-songwriters one minute, the best Motown hits the next, or whatever was coming out of the country sphere.
All of those sounds are present in his music at one point or another, but the influence of girl groups couldn’t really be denied when the 1960s got underway. There were already legends getting born throughout the late 1950s, but when bands like The Supremes and the Shirelles started topping the charts, they were just as important in fans’ minds as the solo artists. And when John heard the Shangri-Las, he was practically in heaven whenever he worked out their tunes.
Compared to every other band on the charts at the time, John felt like he was watching a piece of pop history being made in front of his eyes, saying, “Music fascinates me, the history of records. There are so many good pop records. The Shangri-Las are a great event in the history of music. Their records are incredible.” And it’s not like you can’t hear bits and pieces of that music history through John’s work.
Not all of his hits are necessarily time capsules from their time, but even if he was more than happy to wear his influences on his sleeve, the girl group influence on a song like ‘Crocodile Rock’ was either going to be genius or garbage depending on what you were looking for. John was still happy to go down that road, but when it comes to those stellar backing vocals on the girl group songs, there’s no other rock and roller that could manage to capture that sense of innocence. Just ask Twisted Sister when they decided to cover ‘Leader of the Pack’.
The girl group craze might have seemed a little bit juvenile coming out of the era of Presley and Chuck Berry, but John wasn’t about to try and match what they had done. He was his own unique entity, and there was nothing standing in his way from being a mixture of all his favourite pop bands.
