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13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Best sounding of the reissued Elton John CDs, January 7, 2004
1973-bell bottoms are still all the rage but, hey, if you want to really dress up you can wear your jeans suit. Ziggy make have captured more critical attention and, sadly, The Beatles are dead. The Rolling Stones have ended a string of classic albums and now are producing a stream of vapid junk filled records.Elton John ruled the airwaves in 1973 and although this wasn't my first EJ purchase (Honky Chateau), it came to be one of my favorite albums. Like most 2 record (or CD sets), there is some filler but even the filler is better than 3/4s of the stuff other artists were releasing at the time. Within a couple of years, Elton will also reach a low in his recording career (Part Time Love or A Single Man anyone?). From the stunning opener Funeral For a Friend/Love Lies Bleeding to the last original album track Harmony (supplemented by 3 b-sides recorded/written for the album but rejected plus a stripped down version of Candle in the Wind with just Elton and acoustic guitar), this SACD literally reinvented a great album for me. The only draw back is that the 5.1 mix sounds quite a bit different in some cases than the original stereo mix in terms of dominant instruments, etc. Luckily, the SACD is backwards compatible and can be played on most CD players. Even the stereo version of the album sounds sharper, with greater clarity and better definition. It replaced my Mobile Sound Fidelity version in the CD player. This latest edition restores the single B-Sides released with Goodbye Yellow Brick Road and Saturday Night's Alright For Fighting to their rightful place. Screw You is also where it rightfully belongs although it doesn't quite fit the rest of the album. I've read some complaints about the stripped down version of Candle in the Wind. I actually like it. I wasn't a big fan of the rewrite John and Taupon did for Princess Di nor did I like the live version released as a single about a decade ago. This, though, is like listening to an early run through of the song. Everything is stripped from the original master multitracks except acoustic guitar and Elton's voice. Which makes me wonder; what happened to all those demos made for the album all those years ago? I'd love to hear an early demo of Saturday, Funeral for a Friend/Love Lies Bleeding. That would have truly made this an absolutely essential reissue. Still, it's hard to argue with the sound quality. On a few CD players if you try to fast forward through tracks or during start up you might get an error message. You'll either have to restart the SACD or turn the power off and on again. It's not a problem with all players but I noticed it was a particular issue with my car CD player. Haven't purchased any of the other hybrid discs yet (aside from DVD-Audio which does have the disadvantage of not being able to play it in simple stereo if you've got a 5.1 DVD player)but did get a sampler with Rolling Stone in December. Almost everything on it sounds great, too although I have heard that the SACD of Tommy is murkier and not a huge improvement over the 1996 CD.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Time to upgrade?, December 16, 2003
Like a great many listeners, I have been weighing whether it is time to "upgrade" my system to SACD. If the SACD mix of this album is anything close to the quality of the included stereo version, I may be making the transition very soon.
I have owned "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" in different formats; LP, cassette, the initial CD release, the remastered CD from a few years ago, and the Mobile Fidelity edition. This version is on par with Mobile Fidelity's, if not it's equal. Again, there is a caveat...I do not have a SACD system at this time. This remastered stereo version, however, sparkles with detail and musical dynamics. If you like Elton John, you will want to own his best album, and, consequently, the best sounding version of it. Since Mobile Fidelity's release is out of print (not to mention more expensive), this is the one to buy...especially if you have or are going to upgrade to SACD. An essential work.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Album That Became My World, January 18, 2004
If you entered high school in the early seventies, as I did, you will remember how completely Elton John's music permeated the world at that time. When I was fifteen, Elton's early records were so much a part of my life that I could scarcely imagine the universe without them. Although all the early albums were wonderful, "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road," a massive, two-record set with every song a gem, was the jewel in the crown, the holy grail of every teenaged record collector. It meant to us then, I think, what Sergeant Pepper had meant to kids a few years older than ourselves, in the late sixties. I have owned this album on many different formats during the thirty years since, and heard it literally hundreds of times. Never has it sounded so pristine, so vibrant, and so beautifully defined as it does now. After all this time, I find myself noticing nuances on this reissue that I have never heard before. The thirtieth anniversary edition is a triumph, and a worthy tribute to a timeless classic.
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