Review Summary: Fly away towards the dreams you've left so far behind.
Part I: In Which Youthful Ambition Trumps Good Taste
After growing disenchanted with his career as a session musician and member of the R&B band Bluesology, Reggie Dwight instantiated a writing collaboration with an acquaintance of his from the British music scene, Bernie Taupin. By the end of 1968, the duo had accrued enough songs that a friend of Dwight's, Steve Brown, suggested they have them professionally recorded. Being an engineer at a recording studio in London, Brown was able to book time for Dwight and a loosely assembled backing band consisting of friends/former bandmates. Having adopted the name "Elton John" as an homage of sorts to two of his former Bluesology colleagues, Dwight had the album finished by the spring of '69, to be followed by its limited UK release in June (the US would not see a release until 1975, long after Elton's rise to popularity).
To be blunt,
Empty Sky is not representative of the classic Elton John sound in any way. The record represents a young artist with no clear direction, choosing in lieu of that to layer his songs with guitars, organs and flutes in an attempt to capitalize off the psychedelic trends of the day. These orchestrations don't reek with incompetence by any means, but nor do they serve a particular purpose. Slightly more unique is Elton's usage of a harpsichord on several songs, most notably on the penultimate track "Skyline Pigeon". The one track off the album to have not been completely dismissed by Elton over the years, it remains an early triumph of Taupin's lyrically, with the subject of the song experiencing freedom after being caged (either literally or metaphorically) for an extensive period of time. And while both the original recording and the vastly superior 1972 version treat the lyrics in an uplifting way, the song has some much more melancholic undertones, displayed when Elton famously performed it at the funeral of young AIDS victim Ryan White in 1991.
Apart from that one brilliant bit of songwriting, however,
Empty Sky has many a problem with it. Elton's peculiar vocal affectations and Taupin's focus on vague lyrical imagery rather than substance both showcase the youthful immaturity that still had yet to be overcome on either side. This overdosage of ambition leads to most of the songs falling rather flat, particularly the remarkably repetitive title track, an 8 minute-long gallivant into pseudo-progressive territory that could have lost 5 of those minutes without a single tear being shed. The few songs that manage to hold up are then hurt even more by the shockingly amateur-ish production job. Steve Brown's infatuation with hard-panning makes the sparser tracks a chore to listen to, none more so than, sadly, the aforementioned "Skyline Pigeon", in which the vocals and harpsichord occupy a channel each for the entire first half of the song. (As mentioned before, however, the track was completely re-recorded in 1972 with Gus Dudgeon producing and with piano instead of harpsichord; that version is the definitive version and is one of the most underrated recordings of Elton's career.)
Of course, there is a place for
Empty Sky in the Elton John canon, even if it is a bit of a red herring. It exemplifies Elton's status by the turn of the decade as an artist already exhibiting plenty of ability, but having no vision to go along with it. That vision would come with time, as would a more focused sound via better production and orchestration. For now, however, non-diehard fans can treat
Empty Sky as nothing but an inessential, eccentric oddity in the vast Elton John catalog. Much, much better material was yet to come...and very soon, in fact...
