{"id":39720,"date":"2006-04-18T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2006-04-18T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/victim-of-love\/"},"modified":"2006-04-18T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2006-04-18T00:00:00","slug":"victim-of-love","status":"publish","type":"review","link":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/victim-of-love\/","title":{"rendered":"Victim Of Love"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

I knew that I was potentially in for trouble when,
\nafter offering to review Victim Of Love<\/i>, the 1979 disco
\neffort from Elton John, Grand Poobah the 2nd Jason called in a
\npriest to administer last rites to me.<\/p>\n

It would be too easy to sit back and take more
\npotshots at this album than anything Kevin Federline threatens to
\nrelease. It would be too easy to just slap an “F” on this disc,
\nproduct unheard, and declare it to be not only totally
\nunlistenable, but also possibly a violation of the Geneva
\nConvention’s rules of torture for it to have ever seen release as a
\ncompact disc.<\/p>\n

In fact, I’m not gonna do that. Anyone who’s followed
\nthis site knows I’ve never been afraid to tackle the time-bombs
\nencased in vinyl. I’ve survived Tales From Topographic
\nOceans<\/i>. I’ve survived Ringo Starr’s I Wanna Be Santa
\nClaus<\/i>. Getting through just over 35 minutes of disco music
\n(with almost zero segues between the tracks) should be a piece of
\ncake.<\/p>\n

Oh, make no mistake, this album is pretty bad,
\nindeed. But if one tries to place themselves in John’s shoes around
\n1979, they’d see that John was an artist in decline sales-wise. His
\nlast hit, “Sorry Seems To Be The Hardest Word,” had come back in
\n1976 off his Blue Moves<\/i> album. His follow-up release, A
\nSingle Man<\/i>, contained no hit singles. Add to that the fact that
\ndisco was at its commercial peak, and one could almost forgive John
\nfor jumping on the disco bandwagon and trying to regain some of his
\naudience. (Hell, Ethel Merman released a disco album, for God’s
\nsake.)<\/p>\n

In a sense, the attempt was partially successful,
\nwith the title track landing at 31 on the Billboard pop singles
\nchart, and the album in the top 50. But that doesn’t necessarily
\nmean the material is worth your time and effort.<\/p>\n

John himself barely seems to be able to keep any
\ninterest in the material put in front of him. (Does he even play
\nkeyboards on this one? I show no listing in the liner notes of him
\nplaying piano, nor do I remember hearing any piano on this one.)
\nWhoever thought that John was a natural for covering Chuck Berry’s
\n“Johnny B. Goode” deserves to be horse-whipped; while not a total
\nembarrassment, this one is just plain wrong. (In John’s defense,
\nJudas Priest didn’t fare any better.)<\/p>\n

Likewise, tracks such as “Born Bad,” “Warm Love In A
\nCold World” and “Spotlight” aren’t patently bad per se, but there
\njust seems to be a lack of real interest from the parties involved
\n— and if they ain’t into what they’re playin’, there’s no reason
\nyou should be. Interesting that Keith Forsey is credited with drums
\non this disc — I’d have sworn it was a machine providing the
\nsyncopated beats.<\/p>\n

There is only one real failure on Victim Of
\nLove<\/i> — “Street Boogie,” a track that I will admit made me want
\nto claw my eardrums out. Yet John was able to follow up that turkey
\nwith the sole success on this one — namely, the title track.
\nGranted, I still can’t say the disco beat works on this one, but
\nsomething tells me that if it had been removed, this could have
\nbeen a bonafide hit for John. (I haven’t forgotten that it did
\nindeed chart.)<\/p>\n

In fact, one could almost argue that many of these
\nsongs, had they been given the pop touch without the disco blahs
\nand with audible piano work from John, could have made for a
\nstronger album. I almost would like to see what John could do with
\none or two of these songs in this day and age.<\/p>\n

Victim Of Love<\/i> could well be John’s most
\nvilified release of his career, and it is indeed a low point for
\nthe original piano man (all apologies to Billy Joel). It’s more of
\na period piece, albeit a musical period that some would say is best
\nleft forgotten. If taken in the musical scene context that it was
\nrecorded in, one could almost forgive John for making such a
\nradical musical U-turn. Indeed, had this disc been reworked into a
\npop release; while it may not have been a chart-topping
\nsuper-seller, I dare say it would have fared more respectably in
\npeople’s minds.<\/p>\n

That’s not to say I want to listen to it again,
\nthough\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

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