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Elton John can be a master of the sleight of hand. The arrangements make it seem like there are substantial melodies underneath the tracks - but almost nothing demands repeated listenings. Similarly, he always sounds like he's singing up a storm, but his voice glosses over the material, reducing most things to an uninteresting sameness.

Jon Landau

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Jon Landau
Age: 77
Born: 1947
Born: May 14
Composer
Journalist
Music Critic
Record Producer
Talent Manager
the United States of America
Seems
Singing
John
Tracks
Sleight
Nothing
Listening
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Underneath
Elton
Make
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Master
Repeated
Uninteresting
Always
Hand
Track
Reducing
Gloss
Things
Almost
Material
Arrangements
Sameness
Like
Sound
Materials
Melody
Similarly
Voice
Masters
Demands
Melodies
Hands
Demand
Storm
Substantial
Glosses

More quotes by Jon Landau

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Carole King's second album, 'Tapestry,' has fulfilled the promise of her first and confirmed the fact that she is one of the most creative figures in all of pop music. It is an album of surpassing personal-intimacy and musical accomplishment and a work infused with a sense of artistic purpose. It is also easy to listen to and easy to enjoy.
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The Rolling Stones are violence. Their music penetrates the raw nerve endings of their listeners and finds its way into the groove marked 'release of frustration.'
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When the Beatles cut old rock n' roll, they were recording music still in their performing repertoire, and besides, they never thought of the music as old.
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It didn't matter that Charlie Chaplin may not have been a great director or a great anything else. He made great movies.
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What makes the Stones' arrogance so divine is that we all believe that long ago and far away they weren't rich and famous but poor and struggling, just like us.
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'Sing It Again Rod' touches all the solo bases since Stewart's departure from the Jeff Beck Band, wherein he cut his teeth on American audiences for $75 a week plus expenses, and wisely ignores his generally inferior work with the Faces.
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There is something complete about Stevie Wonder, and one senses that he is not only exceptionally important today, but will continue to be for as long as he chooses.
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The Beatles never sounded intimidated by their idols. They never interpreted old rock they simply played it as well and as joyfully as they knew how. On 'Rock 'n' Roll,' John Lennon does nothing but interpret old rock.
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In the end, the sign of Aretha Franklin's artistry is that she always leaves her mark - first, on the music, then on us.
Jon Landau
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Often, equipment can as easily function as a security blanket for musicians unwilling or unable to risk anything personal in the studio. Whether one catches the feeling on a record is a subjective matter. How can you be sure? The machinery can hold out the promise of at least mechanical perfection.
Jon Landau
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It is by now beyond question that Elton John is a competent and classy entertainer. Few people who have achieved his popularity have succeeded in maintaining his standards for performance and professionalism.
Jon Landau
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Atlantic's Jerry Wexler believes first-rate records are made by first-rate voices. He certainly has worked with enough of them: Clyde McPhatter, Joe Turner, La Vern Baker, Ray Charles, Otis Redding, Solomon Burke, Wilson Pickett and Aretha Franklin.
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Bob Dylan was the source of pop music's unpredictability in the Sixties. Never as big a record-seller as commonly imagined, his importance was first aesthetic and social, and then as an influence.
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The Rolling Stones are constantly changing, but beneath the changes they remain the most formal of rock bands. Their successive releases have been continuous extensions of their approach, not radical redefinitions, as has so often been the case with the Beatles.
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Elton John himself never seems pretentious but Bernie Taupin's lyrics often do - sometimes pretentious in a clever sort of way, but pretentious nonetheless. There is a conflict between Elton's and Bernie's personal styles, no doubt about it.
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The Rolling Stones have been the best of all possible worlds: they have the lack of pretension and sentimentality associated with the blues, the rawness and toughness of hard rock, and the depth which always makes you feel that they are in the midst of saying something. They have never impressed me as being kitsch.
Jon Landau
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Everyone eventually winds up writing about themselves - the problem is finding the best way to go about it. To write about oneself literally, in the first person, presumes a more interesting personal life and philosophy than most rock lyricists possess. John Lennon was good for one great album based on musical direct address, 'Plastic Ono Band.
Jon Landau
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The only criticism heard with any frequency of Elton John's first American album, 'Elton John,' was that the production was too grandiose. The melodies were superb, and lyrics frequently very good, and the performances flawless.
Jon Landau
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On first listening, Joni Mitchell's 'Court And Spark,' the first truly great pop album of 1974, sounds surprisingly light by the third or fourth listening, it reveals its underlying tensions.
Jon Landau
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I saw my rock'n'roll past flash before my eyes. And I saw something else: I saw rock and roll future and its name is Bruce Springsteen. And on a night when I needed to feel young, he made me feel like I was hearing music for the very first time.
Jon Landau