Customer Reviews

Leather Jackets

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(12)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

Everyone knows this ain't one of the best Elton albums-- he regularly disowns it during interviews-- but it does have some great material on it. Why is 'Victim Of Love' remastered and not 'Leather Jackets'? It's about as good as 'Ice On Fire' and 'Breaking Hearts'. Songs like 'Paris', 'Slow Rivers' and 'Angeline' deserve better treatment, along with those missing b-sides. Rocket has done a fine job with all those discs missed by the so-called Classic Years. Get onto it, Rocket!

In many countries around the world this album sold very well at the time it was released.It is not a bad album.It does take a number of listens before it grows on you.Many of elton johns albums years later are appreciated and this means that in my opinion he is always years ahead of the music of the year he releases his albums.During the 80s it was only in america elton did not have a top ten album.In many countries around the world he had many top ten albums.A good example of this is Australia.In australia during the 80s these albums made top ten:
Jump Up,Too Low For Zero,Breaking Hearts,Ice On Fire,Leather Jackets,Live In Australia,Reg Strikes Back,Sleeping With The Past And a year later in 1990 Sleeping With The Past Made Number One.

I saw Elton John live at the time Leather Jackets was about to be released. He played Paris live that night. He was truly proud of Paris and I thought it was going to be the first single. There is so much B-side material from this time. Billy and the Kids, Lord Of The Flies, Highlander and a completely different mix of Heartache All Over The World. I'd love to see a re-issue with the B-sides.

When I originally listened to Jackets in 1987 I thought it was not ever going to be played again. Then Stevie Winwoods song "I'm the Same Boy I used to Be" came out and it had a similar organ to the title song "Leather Jackets". In fact I thought it was "Leather Jackets". So I gave the album another play and got hooked to the title song's catchy rhythm.

Then "Hoop of Fire" came on, and after a few plays, it became known to me as a great song. As a matter of fact, most great Elton Songs take a few plays to really enjoy, but they have such holding power. I've been listening to Elton for almost 20 years repeatedly.

Other really great songs are Slow Rivers, Paris and Gypsy Heart.

If you're an 80's elton fan, this is one of his best of that decade, although it's a sleeper at first. Give it a few spins and you'll see it's a fun album. Of course his 80's music is no comparison to his early 70's music, but it's still quite good.

For the 80's collection I recommend Jump Up, Too Low for Zero, Leather Jackets, and Sleeping With the Past.

For the 70's, all up before Rock of the Westies, Gr.Hits Vol 2, Part-Time Love on "A Single Man", "Ego" and the Thom Bell Sessions.

Although Leather Jackets is generaly considered one of the weakest albuns made by Elton John, as well as Victim Of Love (1979), I really enjoy this work, and use to hear it very often. Effectively, there's some really nice tracks on it. E.g., I like to mention "Hoop Of Fire" e "Gipsy Heart", two ballads with great lyrics and very well sung by Elton. There're either other strong songs, like the music-title and "Heartache All Over The World", the only "hit" of the album. You find in this work also the great duet "Slow Rivers", sung with Cliff Richard, and "i Fall Apart", which Elton performs very well, you can fell the pain in his voice singing this Taupin lyrics. It's an album that you'll probably need to hear more than one time to get involved, but when it happens, you'll see that the judgement usually made about this 1986's album (the only album pre-1992 that didn't get remastered on the 'Classic Years' Series) is unfair.

Not a good effort,this is as far as elton got from a quality album,but ther are some brief,i mean breif,shining moments.Hoop of fire,Heartache....,I Fall Apart and Slow Rivers is the shining moments.But this is just my opinion,others may be defferent.

You'd expect after three big albums in a row before this one,both containing at least one huge hit songs each that Elton John's 80's comeback would sustain itself through the middle of the decade. In the end that proved not to be the case. This proved to be for the 80's whatA Single Man was for him in the 70's;a recording that got burried after it was released and (in the case of this particular album) has become a relatively rare item in his catalog. That's interesting because this was Elton John's first all digital recording. So if you were able to get your hands on the original 1986 CD of this album the way I did the sound is beyond top notch,especially the mixed quality of these early "DDD" recordings. For more on that look at my review for Stevie Wonder's Characters released a year later. Interestingly enough none of this spells out any major change in direction musically for Elton from his two previous albums before this one and neither does it mean that this album is lacking in strong songs,even if Elton John's always been artistically measured more by his hits than his albums. The title track of the this is for all intents and purposes his "Philledelphia Freedom" of the 80's with the same kind of danceable rock n soul sound,only instrumentally updated for the period. You might expect an album of this vintage to be highly electronic and synth drenched but Elton and Bernie maintain their strenghs here,focusing more on strong songwriting and lyrics as opposed to new technology. "Don't Trust That Woman",co-written by Cher again follows up with a potent rock n soul flavor to it and along with the title song one of the stronger fast tunes on the album. While "Go It Alone","Heartache All Over The World" and "Angeline" are decent fast songs too,their rockier orientation is somewhat burried by the slicker production. That style is better suited to the ballads "Hoops Of Fire","Paris","Gypsy Heart" and "I Fall Apart",all in the John/Taupin writing style and all of which are sure fire should've-been hits. Despite some of Elton's personel problems during this time period his singing and writing ability is still very much intact and despite it all,upon hearing this I still cannot fathom why this album was one of Elton's few commercial failures. Even so artistically this album still cannot be beat and is worth searching for if your a strong Elton John fan or enjoy high quality pop from the mid 80's

In 1985, Elton reunited with Gus Dudgeon, the producer who had helmed Elton's classic 70's period, from the "Elton John" album up through "Blue Moves". However, the "Ice on Fire" album was hardly a return to EJ's classic piano based sound. Rather, Dudgeon tried to update the sound by smothering the songs in synthesizers, sequencers and drum machines that a lot of people were using then. The result was pretty cheesey, despite a couple of hits. Just as importantly, Elton and Bernie Taupin's songwriting had hit the pits, coming up with some of the worst songs they ever wrote.

This followup album continues in the same direction, with some equally dire results, despite better lyrics from Taupin. There are more lame attempts at dance tracks with "Don't Trust That Woman" (bad lyrics by Cher, of all people) and "Go It Alone" (a clone of the last album's "Act of War"). Over half of the album consists of ballads. The overdone synths make songs like "Memory of Love" (lyrics by late 70's/early 80's collaborator Gary Osborne), "Gypsy Heart", and the pleasant but unmemorable trifle "Paris" (one of the few songs here that were performed live) sound really tacky.

Unlike most people (including Elton himself), I do think there are a few decent songs here that are undermined by Dudgeon's work. The title track and the non-hit single "Heartache All Over the World" are upbeat, catchy numbers, with some really good harmony vocals in the latter. It would have been better to hear Elton pounding on the piano instead of a Yamaha synth, however.

When Elton turns the synths way down in a couple of cases, it also improves things. "Slow Rivers" is the best ballad here, with a good duet vocal with Cliff Richard, real strings from another old buddy, James Newton-Howard, and actual audible Elton acoustic piano. Finally, "Angeline" is a bluesy number that has Elton playing a lone synth while Queen's bassist and drummer play a lock-step rhythm. Another very fun number, despite some appallingly sexist lyrics from Taupin and backing vocalist Alan Carvell.

This album came at the end of Elton's deteriorated relationship with Geffen Records. Geffen wasn't inclined to promote it, it bombed, and Elton has said he should have never released it. Even so, I don't think it's nearly as bad as the last one or his excursions into black music ("The Thom Bell Sessions", "Duets" or the catastrophic "Victim of Love").
Still, this is definitely a low priority for Elton fans. Unless you want every single song ever recorded by the man, download "Leather Jackets", "Heartache..", "Angeline" and "Slow Rivers", and forget about the rest.

This album which came out before Live in Australia,does have many gems.One of them is PARIS.Why wasn't it the first single?.Instead the mediocre HEARTACHE...made the charts.The beautiful duet with Cliff Richard SLOW RIVERS and MEMORY OF LOVE(where Queen members played)stand out as great tunes.Not a classic but worth listening to.

John by this point was probably so tired, and sick that he just probably released this to fufill his contract, and move on. He did have some successes at Geffen, but this sounds like the relationship had soured as there is no traditional piano on this as it sounds like all keyboards and machines. It really zapped out the beauty of what these songs could've been. I don't feel that anyone could in his right mind release such material as this. Mind you I found 1986 to be a rather off year for music anyway as alot of the songs seemed to be taken over by machines. Fortunately John got out, and went back to his roots.