Elton John: Goodbye Yellow Brick Road Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		0.5
Audio		5.0
Extras		0.5
Overall		4.0

Elton John: Goodbye Yellow Brick Road Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman June 22, 2014

Despite their overwhelming success, Elton John and Bernie Taupin are often dismissed as (how to put this politely?) hacks, especially by those who criticize the pair for bowing to the power of the almighty dollar in favor of the perceived more artistic choices of their early career. While it’s probably not all that debatable that Elton has had the tendency to forge a certain cookie cutter mentality with a lot of his latter day oeuvre, his first several albums (I’d personally say arguably up through Rock of the Westies) almost always had quirky melodic and lyrical elements that set them apart from the bulk of late sixties to mid seventies rock and pop. Goodbye Yellow Brick Road was touted as Elton and Bernie’s magnum opus when it was released in 1973, and it is according to some sources still Elton’s best selling studio album. The album sees Elton attempting to stretch beyond the strictures of the 32 bar song format with such entries as “Funeral For a Friend”, but there’s also a kind of unchallenging template that provides a number of enjoyable but hardly groundbreaking tunes (“Saturday Night’s Alright For Fighting”) that some cynics may aver augurs the beginning of a long, steady decline in Elton’s songwriting prowess.

While those same cynics may claim that John and Taupin might have taken a bit more time in writing the album (it's alleged it was done over the course of just a few days), the album does find the pair finding both nice lyrical metaphors ("Candle in the Wind") and engaging songcraft ("Goodbye, Yellow Brick Road"). Elton was at the peak of his vocal powers during this era, and his plaintive but often surprisingly elegant singing brings some emotional depth to the slick production.

Elton John: Goodbye Yellow Brick Road Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Aside from two static menu screens (the initial one for audio, then the track listing), there is no video content on this disc. It's necessary to go to the Top Menu to toggle between the surround mix and the three stereo mixes.

Elton John: Goodbye Yellow Brick Road Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

This is the first time an HFPA Blu-ray that I've reviewed features a surround mix, in this case a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 version (96/24) of the album's 2003 surround mix. As with other HFPA releases, this one features the arguably redundant three stereo mixes (from a 2014 remaster), LCPM, DTS-HD Master Audio and Dolby TrueHD. Also as with previous releases, the LPCM streams at a constant 4.6 Mbps, with the DTS-HD Master Audio track averaging high 3's and the Dolby TrueHD track anchored in the low to mid 3's. The DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track sticks mostly in the upper 9's and low 10's, though it has peaks and valleys as high as over 11 and as low as 7. While the surround mix features some fun immersion (the wind whistling through the side and rear channels in the opening of "Funeral For a Friend", and some of the goofy synth noises on tunes like "Gray Seal"), some may think it's a bit of sonic overkill, a la those ping ponging early stereo efforts of Enoch Light or the similarly hyperbolic Quadraphonic releases by the likes of Hugo Montenegro. The 5.1 mix does offer some wonderful separation and tends to open up the massed backup harmonies quite a bit. As with previous Universal Music Group HFPA releases, I personally preferred the LCPM 2.0 track in terms of the stereo mixes. It has a brightness and crispness that seems just slightly masked in the DTS-HD Master Audio and Dolby TrueHD mixes.

Elton John: Goodbye Yellow Brick Road Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

No supplements are included on this audio Blu-ray. The insert booklet does reproduce the illustrations and lyrics from the original gatefold album.

Elton John: Goodbye Yellow Brick Road Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Goodbye Yellow Brick Road sounds a bit quaint at times, with its kind of dorky synth washes and retro rock 'n' roll homages, but the album is also undeniably enjoyable and colorful. This new HFPA retains the questionable use of several stereo options, but it does at least include a very well done surround track. Recommended.