I believe it was Elton's longest non-double LP up to that point in time and would remain so right up until the CD era, when album lengths started to expand in general. I think it's haunting and lovely, despite the Casio keyboard rhythm track.Ī Single Man is quite long for a single album. I remember being shocked to discover that "Song For Guy" was a massive hit in the UK it hardly received any airplay in the US. "Madness" is probably my favorite track on the album, although again, I think the ROTW/BM band could have turned this into a far better track than what we have here. As the lead single, "Part-Time Love" was particularly disappointing, with a terrible set of lyrics. The rest are quite forgettable, particularly by Elton's standards up to this point. "It Ain't Gonna Be Easy" is a nice change of pace - it sort of drifts into "Idol" territory, but slightly bluesier - but it overstays its welcome by around 3 minutes. As for the songs that made the album, "Shine On Through", "Georgia", "Madness", and "Song For Guy" are the keepers. Why this was left off of the album in favor of stuff like "I Don't Care", "Big Dipper", and "Shooting Star" is a major mystery. This is a top-tier Elton ballad, with great emotion and an affecting Gary Osborne lyric. My other favorite song that's been released from these sessions is "Strangers", which wouldn't appear until the following year as the b-side to "Victim Of Love". I think it would have worked far better had the ROTW/BM band been used to record it, but even these session musicians couldn't sap the life from it. "Ego" is just fantastic - and it benefits greatly from Bernie's acidic lyrics. I also quite like the b-side "Flinstone Boy" (despite the gibberish lyrics) and find it better than most of the songs on the album proper. "Ego" is my favorite song here and it wasn't even included on the album. Elton's voice was deeper and less buoyant than at any point in his recording career - this was a change that would stick, as Elton never really went back to his 1968-1976 singing style after this - even during the years when he could have done so. The lyrics were mostly pedestrian and lacking in the originality and unexpected turns of phrase that Bernie had always specialized in. There wasn't a single real rock song on it and the guitars were anemic sounding when they did appear. That wasn't really the case with A Single Man. Not only had Elton jettisoned his excellent "big" band for a group of mostly anonymous studio musicians, but Gus Dudgeon was gone, as was Bernie! Also, what had happened to Elton's voice? Although I had found Blue Moves disappointing in comparison to Rock Of The Westies, I still enjoyed it quite a bit and found it a fairly strong album. It's a bit odd that "Levon" was included given that it was passed over for the first GH album.Ī Single Man, on the other hand, was really quite disappointing to me. On the whole, I think it actually hangs together a bit better than the first greatest hits album does.
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It was a good place to get those three non-LP singles, plus the non-EJ album track "Pinball Wizard". It did end up being a strong seller over the years, but I think the world was just a bit tired of Elton by late 1977. Also, it was only three years after his previous greatest hits album. I'm guessing that Greatest Hits Volume II's relatively poor chart performance was mostly down to a lack of promotion.
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