Blue Moves

33⅓ Main Series #146

by Matthew Restall

By 1976, Elton John was the best-selling recording artist and the highest-grossing touring act in the world. With seven #1 albums in a row and a reputation as a riveting piano-pounding performer, the former Reggie Dwight had gone with dazzling speed from the London suburbs to the pinnacles of rock stardom, his songs never leaving the charts, his sold-out shows packed with adoring fans. Then he released Blue Moves , and it all came crashing down.

Was the commercially disappointing and poorly reviewed double album to blame? Can one album shoot down a star? No, argues Matthew Restall; Blue Moves is a four-sided masterpiece, as fantastic as Captain Fantastic , as colorful as Goodbye Yellow Brick Road , a showcase for the three elements--piano-playing troubadour, full orchestra, rock band--with which Elton John and his collaborators redirected the evolution of popular music. Instead, both album and career were derailed by a perfect storm of circumstances: Elton's decisions to stop touring and start his own label; the turbulent shiftings of popular culture in the punk era; the minefield of attitudes toward celebrity and sexuality. The closer we get to Blue Moves , the better we understand the world into which it was born--and vice versa. Might that be true of all albums?

Genres: Music, Nonfiction

Kindle Edition

First published May 14, 2020

About the author

Matthew Restall is a historian of Colonial Latin America. He is an ethnohistorian and a scholar of conquest, colonization, and the African diaspora in the Americas. He is currently Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of Latin American History and Anthropology, and Director of Latin American Studies, at the Pennsylvania State University. He is President of the American Society for Ethnohistory, a former editor of Ethnohistory journal, a senior editor of the Hispanic American Historical Review, editor of the book series Latin American Originals, and co-editor of the Cambridge Latin American Studies book series.

Reviews

[Robert · Rating 5 out of 5]

Confession: I've never listened to an Elton John album before. Sure I know the hits but that's it. I'm glad that Blue Moves was my introduction as I liked it quite a bit.

Put into context Blue Moves is the album where Elton John got fed up of being a pop star and wanted to do something different - the result being a 75 minute double record with every style chucked in from ballad to disco and upbeat rockers. At the time John's songwriter Taupin was going through a bad time and the moodier pieces reflect this,

Matthew Restall, does not really analyse the album but rather writes about Blue Moves history and it's impact on Elton John (it was his last great album for a long time) and how it still plays a role in his life.

Blue Moves is a fun and oddly touching book - along with research there's a lot of Restall's own experiences with Blue Moves, which make for great reading.

[Ric · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love Elton John (I named my dog after him), so after seeing there was a 33 1/3 for him I had to read it. Blue Moves isn’t his most well known album by a long shot, but it might be the most underrated. A lot was happening around that time for Elton and Bernie Taupin, so those anecdotes along with a dissection of the album made this a really fun read.

[Laurent · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very enjoyable read that alternates between quirky personal anecdotes and pertinent social and cultural analyses of the impact of the record.

[David Klingenberger · Rating 4 out of 5]

My enjoyment of this book comes not just from loving this album, but from the author’s ability to move from moments in songs to events—contemporary to historic—in society and the music business.

[Stuart · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this 33 1/3 book. The author makes the case that Blue Moves is Elton’s most underrated album and talks about the many reasons it didn’t do as well when Elton was on top of the world 1970-76. He compares “blue” to “yellow”, that other double album from the 70’s “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road” widely considered his masterpiece. Yellow had more hits. Blue only had “Sorry Seems to be the Hardest Word”. But whereas Yellow can be cynical and misogynistic, Blue is a more mature statement.

Other issues were punk breaking right at the same time, Elton burning out on touring, coke and booze and Bernie Taupin’s divorce. I also remember at the time the controversy when Elton came out as bisexual to Rolling Stone.

A lot of 33 1/3 books cover albums that are considered to be classics in the (mostly) Rock cannon. I like that the author champions a lesser known record that deserves to be heard. I’ve read about 20 books in the series and this is up in my top 5.

[Robert · Rating 3 out of 5]

Deals much more with Blue Moves in various contexts (in Elton's career, in pop music at the time, U.S. vs UK, etc.) than it does with detail or in-studio process of individual tracks. I was hoping for more of the latter going in, but the author makes some interesting points on the path he has chosen while still making an argument for Blue Moves' essential trend-blind musicality as its strength.

Interesting angles in passing along the way include the Lennon/Elton and Elton/George Michael relationship and (sadly for the U.S.) a look at the divergent ways the U.S. and UK charts trended for years after the interview where Elton described himself as bisexual.

As someone who had just happened to make a double-album playlist out of Blue Moves and Goodbye Yellow Brick Road tracks, I also enjoyed both the time spent considering the pair of double albums and later his thoughts on how fans (and record companies) tinker with the official product.

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

Man, this one went fast. One plane trip and done.

Blue Moves was actually probably about the first Elton John album I ever owned. I got it on vinyl in the 80s and listened to it quite a bit for a while. I had no idea where it fell in his chronology or what it was about. I just knew that I liked Tonight and Sorry Seems To Be The Hardest Word. (Maybe I got it after the Live In Australia album? I don't know.)

But after that I kind of fell away from the album. To me, it's kind of a slog. But context is everything and this book put it in a new context for me. From similarities to Goodbye Yellow Brick Road to Bernie Taupin's divorce. It made me want to revisit an album that hasn't been on of my favorites by one of my favorite artists.

I guess that's what these little books are really for, and this one succeeded. And it was a quick and interesting read.

[Charles James · Rating 5 out of 5]

Probably not my favourite Elton John album , but it does contain several of my top Elton John songs. This superbly written book examines why this much underrated album sold so poorly compared to his earlier double album Goodbye yellow Brik road . The book examines the content of the album , the position it took in Elton's career , the impact of recent announcements regarding his sexuality and emergence of punk in the period prior to the release of the album .
Probably the best of the 33 and third series I have read .
Would recommend it .
Also led me to lay the album again on MQA and it sounded better than I remembered it .

[Cat · Rating 3 out of 5]

Probably like 3.5? It's not THAT deep an analysis or anything and if you're an Elton fan you probably already know 90+% of this, but I did learn something about the UK music industry in the 70s in comparison to what was going on over here in the US, and there are some interesting personal anecdotes about how we relate to albums over time, how the track sequencing of albums matters and how record companies and consumers fuck with it, the death (?) of the album as a primary artform in the 21st century, etc.

[Nathan · Rating 3 out of 5]

This began really well, diving in with a bit of personal narrative. I enjoyed that aspect, but perhaps it lost steam later on, trying to perhaps balance personal narrative with data driven stories about Elton. It's an easy read, but sometimes felt like Restall was maybe treading water in spots, and kind of circling back over the same idea.

[Simon Sweetman · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the better books in the series about arguably one of the weaker/less classic albums. But I love this record. And I love it even more having read this. Thoughtful and really brilliantly analytical.

[Geir Ertzgaard · Rating 4 out of 5]

Glad i Elton? Glad i musikk? Alt med denne boken er en fryd. Og den handler om mer enn plata, forfatteren er historiker og kan den subtile kunsten å trekke de rette trådene. Anbefales om min favoritt Elton-plate, platen verden overså helt til den slo tilbake.

[B_rodger · Rating 4 out of 5]

I haven’t listened to this album in years, and it’s about time I did. Thanks to the author for the reminder that it exists.

[Jonny Brick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Perfectly good summation of Elton's life and work, with biography and plenty of memoir, rescuing an obscure album (Don't Go Breaking My Heart was left off it) from his mid-seventies imperial period.

[Tom Bolls · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent Writer

I’ve always loved Elton John, and this book gives his second double album the star treatment. A fascinating glimpse into the world of a 70s teenage idol.

[Justin Remer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Restall positions "Blue Moves" as Elton John's most understood and likely best album. Based on his work (and a few listens to the record), I'm convinced. Restall seems to have a little trouble figuring out how to end the book, repeating assertions and facts from earlier, but overall this is a sharp and informative read!