{"id":568981,"date":"2026-08-14T16:50:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-14T16:50:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/568981\/"},"modified":"2026-08-14T16:50:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-14T16:50:09","slug":"50-years-ago-today-elton-john-is-called-wallpaper-music-in-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/568981\/","title":{"rendered":"50 Years Ago Today: Elton John Is Called ‘Wallpaper Music’ in Review"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tA few days before Elton John<\/a> kicked off his record-setting, seven-night stand at Madison Square Garden in August 1976, he told New York Times writer Henry Edwards<\/a> that he was ready to ready slightly ease up on the bombastic elements of his live show. \u201cThe last time I played New York, I made an entrance perched on the shoulders of Mr. Universe,\u201d he said. \u201cMy sense of the ridiculousness had gone about as far as it could go. That\u2019s why I\u2019ve decided not to look like Mae West on this tour. Still, the show will be humorous, have its tongue in its cheek, and be in thoroughly bad taste.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWhen the residency began on Aug. 10, Elton kept to his word. He didn\u2019t come out on Mr. Universe\u2019s shoulders, and he wasn\u2019t dressed like Mae West or any starlets from the Golden Age of Hollywood. He instead emerged from the wings alongside his nine-piece band in an elaborate Statue of Liberty costume, complete with a silver sequined cape. But he soon shedded all that in favor of \u201ca more restrained outfit,\u201d to quote the New York Daily News, that included a \u201cjacket trimmed in gold sequins with a portrait of Carmen Miranda on the back and a sequined banana around his neck.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThat was a far cry from the bare stage he played at the 500-seat Troubadour during his U.S. debut just six years earlier, where he was joined only by drummer Nigel Olsson and bassist Dee Murray. But during that relatively brief window of time, he\u2019d enjoyed an incredible, uninterrupted run of hits with few precedents in music history outside of the Beatles.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThat\u2019s why he was able to travel the world on a customized private jet known as the Starship, spend his downtime hobnobbing with Elizabeth Taylor and John Lennon, and book seven nights at MSG, breaking the record that the Rolling Stones set when they played six the previous year. (It\u2019s never been proven that Elton booked one more just to top them, but it seems entirely possible.)<\/p>\n

\t\tEditor\u2019s picks<\/p>\n

\n\tIt\u2019s difficult to pinpoint the precise moment that Elton-mania peaked, but August 1976 is a prime candidate considering the fact that \u201cDon\u2019t Go Breaking My Heart\u201d was Number One the entire month, and it coincided with the MSG run.<\/p>\n

\n\tNew York Daily News writer Michael Pousner captured the madness in an Aug. 5, 1976, article that was entirely about his efforts to land an interview with Elton. \u201cSorry, maybe he\u2019ll talk to you when he releases his next album,\u201d he was initially told by a publicist. \u201cMight want some publicity then. By the way, we have another artist, Cliff Richard, who could use some publicity now. Want to talk to him?\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tPousner had no interest in Cliff Richard, and wound up backstage at the Spectrum in Philadelphia, without any commitment for an actual interview. But he did find himself just inches away from the Jackson Five. \u201cElton,\u201d Pousner heard an \u201cagent-type\u201d say, \u201cyou wouldn\u2019t mind if Michael Jackson came onstage for a moment, would you?\u201d Michael himself witnessed this entire exchange up close as he \u201ceyed Elton anxiously,\u201d and was surely crushed by the response. \u201cSorry, lad,\u201d Elton said. \u201cMaybe next time.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThe sort of hypersonic fame that gives you the power to disappoint Michael Jackson with a curt \u201csorry, lad\u201d doesn\u2019t come without a backlash. And many rock critics, especially the kind enthralled by David Bowie, Kraftwerk, and all the young punk bands, weren\u2019t exactly feeling the guy who recently issued \u201cDon\u2019t Go Breaking My Heart,\u201d \u201cGrow Some Funk of Your Own,\u201d and \u201cIsland Girl.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI\u2019m the person rock critics tend to hate the most,\u201d John told the New York Times on Aug. 8. \u201cAnd I quite revel in it. You see, there is currently a trend among rock critics: Only if you are genuinely bad will they love you.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\tRelated Content<\/p>\n

\n\tThis is more than a little unfair since the critics were praising a lot of genuinely groundbreaking music of the time, and Elton\u2019s newest LP, Rock of the Westies, was underwhelming, especially considering everything that came before it.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cBut beside the fact that Elton John is a great live entertainer, his records, while commercially essential to his career strategy, have come to seem more and more artistically inconsequential,\u201d Rolling Stone\u2018s Stephen Holden wrote in a very mixed review.<\/a> \u201cAs for the album\u2019s new songs, they barely accomplish their objective of providing the latest in synthetic boogie. Though this stuff may be great live, it doesn\u2019t hold up on record.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Rock of the Westies songs might indeed have been great live, but we\u2019ll never know since he dropped most of them from his concert repertoire almost immediately. By the MSG run, only \u201cIsland Girl\u201d and \u201cGrow Some Funk of Your Own\u201d remained. (He hasn\u2019t played a single note of music from Rock of the Westies besides \u201cIsland Girl\u201d in a live setting since 1979. And even \u201cIsland Girl\u201d forever returned to her island after 1990. When you read the lyrics,<\/a> you realize that\u2019s for the best.)<\/p>\n

\n\tThe rest of the set was mostly focused on big hits (\u201cBennie and Jets,\u201d \u201cRocket Man,\u201d \u201cGoodbye Yellow Brick Road,\u201d \u201cYour Song\u201d), but he did veer into some deeper cuts almost never heard today, including \u201cHercules,\u201d \u201cEmpty Sky,\u201d \u201cLove Song,\u201d \u201cWe All Fall in Love Sometimes\/Curtains,\u201d and \u201cTell Me When the Whistle Blows.\u201d And midway through, Kiki Dee came out for \u201cDon\u2019t Go Breaking My Heart\u201d and her own song, \u201cI\u2019ve Got the Music in Me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThis looks like a dream set for most fans, but John Rockwell of the New York Times was not impressed. \u201cListening to this music provides a sudden insight into what it must be like for parents confronted by their children\u2019s dubious musical taste,\u201d he wrote. \u201cMr. John\u2019s music provokes an indifference in this listener so complete as to preclude any trace of hostility\u2026The problem with Elton John, one might timidly suggest, is that his music is too facile. There is precious little passion beyond the passion of the fan. The songs with all their catchy hooks, sound too much alike. Bernie Taupin (who writes the words) doesn\u2019t really engage on any level below the obvious and Mr. John\u2019s music flows along in a watery way \u2014 fast and faceless. It\u2019s wallpaper music of the most banal sort.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tA few months later, when Elton came out as bisexual in the pages of Rolling Stone,<\/a> the review was still fresh in his mind. \u201cI doubt if John Rockwell was even at the concert,\u201d he said. \u201cIt was the most piss elegant review I\u2019ve ever seen: \u2018Performers come and go but we rock critics who have to deal with them\u2026\u2018 I thought, \u2018Who the fuck is John Rockwell!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tVery few major musical artists were courageous enough to come out of the closet in the Seventies. It\u2019s tough to say how much the backlash impacted Elton\u2019s career since it coincided with a series of underwhelming, cocaine-fueled albums. But what\u2019s clear is the MSG residency was not only the end of Elton\u2019s 1976 world tour, but the end of an entire era of his life. In the months that followed, he parted ways with his touring band, and announced an extended break from the road that lasted until 1979. The MTV-era comeback fueled by \u201cI\u2019m Still Standing\u201d was several years away.<\/p>\n

\n\tBilly Joel had just dropped Turnstiles when Elton hit MSG in 1976. It was such a colossal dud, peaking at No. 122, that Columbia considered dropping him from their roster. Few people would have predicted he was on a trajectory<\/a> toward making a seven-night run at MSG look like amateur hour.<\/p>\n

\t\tTrending Stories<\/p>\n

\n\tAll these years later, Billy is on an indefinite hiatus from touring as he recovers from the neurological condition normal pressure hydrocephalus,<\/a> and Elton has lost the\u00a0majority of his vision due to an eye infection.<\/p>\n

\n\tBut that hasn\u2019t stopped him from playing the occasional concert, even though he wrapped up his 330-date Farewell Yellow Brick Road tour in 2023. He\u2019s set for two nights at Mexico City\u2019s Estadio Banorte in early October, and Rock in Rio the following month. If you\u2019re heading to any of those shows, don\u2019t expect to hear \u201cIsland Girl\u201d or any other Rock of the Westies songs. You\u2019ve got a far better shot of Kiki Dee coming back for an encore of \u201cI\u2019ve Got the Music in Me.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A few days before Elton John kicked off his record-setting, seven-night stand at Madison Square Garden in August…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":568982,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[272505,430,22524,156,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-568981","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-50-years-ago","tag-celebrities","tag-elton-john","tag-entertainment","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/568981","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=568981"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/568981\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/568982"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=568981"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=568981"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=568981"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}