Listen Hits | Just hits!

Elton John was a lot of things — sideman, session man and flop, with a long tail of failed solo releases, including the 1969 LP Empty Sky — before 1970’s Elton John made him an overnight star. He wasn’t afraid to admit it. John packed a bonus scrapbook in the original lavish packaging of 1975’s Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy with bad-hair photos, comic music-press ads (”You’ve been warned! Elton John is 1968’s great new talent”) and other ample proof of his time, with lifelong lyricist Bernie Taupin, in Sixties-pop boot camp. That book is miniaturized for this reissue. Everything else here has ballooned; each album now has a second CD of demos, stray singles and, in the case of Captain Fantastic, a Read the rest of this entry »

History teaches us not to dismiss kiddie pop. Stevie Wonder was once Little Stevie Wonder, just as Lil Wayne was once little Lil Wayne, child gangsta rapper. And let’s not forget ex-Mouseketeers Britney and Justin. Purists disdain teenybopper music as cynical pap, foisted on the young by Svengalis who lurk in the shadows, counting money. But bubblegum can be a great farm system, honing skills that pay dividends in later life.Lately, Disney’s kiddie pop has been plenty profitable, with High School Musical and Hannah Montana seemingly the only bulwarks against the collapse of the record business. Unlike Britney and her cohorts in the Nineties teen-pop boom, Disney’s current stars are G-rated, Read the rest of this entry »