The one singer Elton John said he “loves to death”
There was no such thing as musical borders when it came to Elton John.
He was more than happy to sing in whatever genre he could, and when looking at his record collection, he was far more interested in artists that had something to say rather than worrying about whether it fit under the rock and roll banner. Even if there were dated records in his catalogue, all John needed was a good melody to get his attention, whether that was a seasoned veteran or one of his colleagues.
Because throughout his career, John never stopped being curious about where music was going. He was always an avid fan of collecting music ever since he had first fallen in love with Elvis Presley songs back in the day, and keeping up with the charts was still a daily thing for him whenever he got up in the morning. And considering how long he’s been a part of the conversation, he’s seen the entire musical landscape change a few times.
If you think about it, John is virtually indestructible as a musician, but there are just as many times where he could be on the sidelines watching the greatest acts of his time change. He was there for when the disco craze started to take over the world, he was there for when MTV shattered everyone’s illusions of what rock stars could be, and when grunge came in, he could still appreciate what Kurt Cobain brought to music when Nirvana played.
But some of John’s best friends in the industry were the ones that knew their music inside and out. Not everyone in rock and roll is going to claim to be a musical scholar in every sense of the word, but when you look at John’s music next to Billy Joel’s, for example, both of them knew the proper mechanics of harmony and which notes worked well together whenever they started writing one of their tunes.
There needed to be a bit more energy behind it than a typical classical composition, but John was looking at a true renaissance man when watching Sting perform. Although The Police were proud of their punk rock credentials whenever they played, they also weren’t afraid to wear their musical knowledge on their sleeves, either, especially when they were making some of their more intricate songs later on Synchronicity.
Although Sting did eventually graduate to the easy listening format when he started making his more mellow albums later, John still considered him to be on par with the legends like Tony Bennett when talking about his favourite male vocalists, saying in 2002, “I mean, Sting is one of my great buddies and I love him to death. You know, I love — there’s so much good music. I mean, there’s Tony — from Tony Bennett down to Sting.”
Outside of hitting everything on the money, there’s also a certain tone to Sting’s voice that no one was going to hear anywhere else. That smokiness in his voice is what made him so intriguing towards the end of The Police’s run, and while no one was expecting him to reach for those massive high notes on songs like ‘So Lonely’ for the rest of his life, tunes like ‘Fields of Gold’ and ‘Fragile’ hit just as hard without the massive vocal leaps.
So even though John is far from the same style of songwriter that Sting is, it’s better for each of them to recognise where the other is coming from half the time. The only way to keep growing as a songwriter is to keep your ears open, and if John had closed himself off, perhaps he would have never heard what Sting was able to do once he got into the back half of his career.
