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The challenge in conducting a Fame Audit on Elton John is in deciding which Elton to audit. Do we assess the career of the man who sang "Pinball Wizard" in Tommy and serenaded the late Marilyn Monroe with "Candle in the Wind"? Or do we take an unblinking look at the purveyor of "El Dorado! El Dorado! El Doraa-aa-aaa-aa-do!" who eulogized Princess Di with "Candle in the Wind 1997"? Because while we're not entirely sure exactly when it happened, there's no denying that it did happen; Elton John, who was so cool in the '70s and early '80s -- and who is, by any measure, one of the most prolific and proficient pop-music craftsman of the past thirty years -- lost it. Maybe it was the hair implants.
Yet, even in light of the schlock hits of the past five years or so -- let's call them the Lion King years -- you'd be hard-pressed to find a man, woman, or child in North America who doesn't have a soft spot for Elton John. Even if you don't own any of the albums he co-wrote with lyricist Bernie Taupin, his songs are hard-wired in your DNA. You've danced to "Crocodile Rock" at high-school dances. You've crooned "A Word in Spanish" to an intended. You've considered international relations pre-Perestroika through the lens of "Nikita." Perhaps we're overstating it just a little. But the man has produced a genuinely impressive body of work, and you probably have a working familiarity with more of it than you think.
Like the very few male divas that came before him -- say, Tom Jones and, god rest his soul, Elvis Presley -- Elton John has become a very nearly unassailable pop culture icon. He's got something for everyone, from the Disney-loving kids to the sentimental grandmas to the demanding and vocal gay audience. Mind you, that is not to say that Elton John doesn't ever require a piss-take; just as Tom Jones will never live down the whole middle-aged-ladies-throwing-their-panties-at-him thing, nor will Elvis ever live down the insanely-extravagant-lifestyle- leading-to-massive-weight-gain-and- subsequent-speed-addiction-ultimately- leading-to-death-on-the-shitter thing, Elton John has more than a few skeletons in the closet he no longer occupies -- the platform shoes, the Mozart costume, several very campy mid-'80s videos, and the fact that the best known showbiz figure to be knighted by Queen Elizabeth in recent memory, other than himself, is Sean "Smack My Bitch Up" Connery. What makes an icon unassailable is not a reputation for appropriate and careful public behaviour (since, as Kathie Lee Gifford could tell you, more often than not that'll just blow up in your face) -- it's the ability to assail yourself first, to own and mock your own failings without really giving a shit about them. Tom Jones not only played himself in Mars Attacks! but also performed "It's Not Unusual" to the accompaniment of various woodland creatures. Elton John's tour documentary was entitled Tantrums and Tiaras -- and his boyfriend directed it. (Perhaps Elvis never knowingly sent up his own image, but come on -- Roustabout? Clambake? No one who takes himself too seriously would appear in movies like that.)
Elton John is not a Courtney Love, whining about press attention one minute and mugging at a bank of cameras the next. Elton John is not a Mick Jagger, prancing around his videos as if he, and not his children, were twenty-two. Elton John is not a Peter Gabriel who, observing that his most creative working years are behind him, affects an even more dour image as he publicizes "world music," and ends up at the Oscars™ after everyone's forgotten him -- singing a song not from a movie about a talking pig, but from the sequel to a movie about a talking pig -- forcing the world to ask, "Why is Rod Steiger singing at the Oscars™ in that Dr. Evil suit?"
Rather, Elton John has gracefully accepted his position as one of pop music's elder statesmen, pumping out tunes that, while they aren't as clever and memorable as those of his youth, are just fine for cartoons, and he is still just as sassy and charismatic as ever. He is not a hypocrite, nor a prude, nor a presence grating in his ubiquity. He gives great interview, and he knows when to shut up and leave us alone.
We feel we get just about as much Elton John as we need -- neither more nor less. And hence we must conclude that, recent musical disappointments aside, Elton John is exactly as famous as he should be.
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