Go to your respective rooms, you rabblerousing Elton John covers!!!

So, this is how it goes sometimes. In the thread for last weekend's Tina Turner post reader Thames brought up Two Rooms, the tribute record to the songwriting team of Elton John and Bernie Taupin, via Tina Turner's excellent cover of "The Bitch Is Back". Which in turn led to us discussing Two Rooms as one of the best various artists tribute albums, with nothing to throw or skip. I realized also that it had probably been years that I last listened to it. 

I discussed Tina's AOR years a bit last weekend, revealing my childhood-memory-related knack for AOR radio. Well, am I covered with Two Rooms or what? Bryan Adams is missing, but otherwise all the usual suspects I would hear on the radio are here: Tina, Phil, Rod, Joe Cocker, Sting, et al. Not a hipster-approved assembly of musicians, for sure, but the star power here is undeniable. Throw in The Who for one of their one-off reunions, the Beach Boys still riding high on the memory of "Kokomo", Kate Bush, plus three recent female sensations. Shinead O'Connor had just broken through the year before with "Nothing Compares To You 2 U", Wilson Phillips had become a success out of nowhere with "Hold On" and "Release Me" both topping the charts, and Oleta Adams had toiled away in semi-obscurity until Tears For Fears found her in a Kansas City nightclub and featured her on 1989's The Seeds Of Love, including her amazing co-lead vocals on top hit "Woman In Chains". 

It's a strictly personal thing, but there are a couple of numbers here that I prefer to John's originals. O'Connor's deeply emotional take on "Sacrifice" completely dusts John's slightly too MOR version. Something about Elton's falsetto 'na-na-na-na's' in "Crocodile Rock" has always deeply grated me to the point where I would skip the song or change the station when it came on, but The Beach Boys cut a great version of it.  Even as extremely diminished as this version of the Boys was, they could still record quality cuts from time to time, and this one, with its retro rock'n'roll feel and doo-wop vocals stylings was an open lay-up that the Boys didn't miss. Thames and I agree on Tina's "The Bitch Is Back" (which, say, Allmusic singled out for criticism) being great and its lyrical content arguably more fitting for Tina's persona, and The Who's version of "Saturday Night's Alright For Fighting" has only grown in my estimation, as - like the Beach Boys cut - it showed their unmistakeable band sound while also paying honest tribute to the original. 

It might not best the original, but Kate Bush's version of "Rocket Man" is extremely interesting (and was voted 'best cover of all time' by the readers of The Observer). Bush, ever musically adventurous, marries moody synths to a light reggae rhythm, and then later in the song the Celtic instrumentation she started to explore in the late 80s comes in. This version of the song sounds like nothing else. Every song got a little annotation by the artists in the booklet, mostly little love letters that explained their love for Elton or the song in question, and how they first heard it etc. Here's Shinead O'Connor's text in its entirety: "I can't believe no one did 'Candle In The Wind'." Truly, the (in)famous no bullshit/speak your mind attitude of Ms. O'Connor on full display. Back then I didn't get it and found that comment weird, now I find it absolutely brillant. 

As said before, everything on here is good to very good, and nothing is eminently skippable. And yet, and yet, listening to the album in its original configuration your hand might still linger towards the skip-button, because Two Rooms is an unwieldy album. Before ripping it to Mp3s this week I hadn't realized that the album is 79 minutes long, taking full advantage of CD-capacity, while also testing the listening capacity of its audience. If you have been here long enough and read along a bit, you know that I harp on a lot about flow and sequencing and perfect length for comps. Well, guess what, folks, I'll take that ol' hobbyhorse for another tour 'round the stables today. So, I think that any listeners gets kind of tired and worn out by around the 70 minute mark, and its true that with the original Two Rooms, despite George Michael's closing number "Tonight" being one of the highlights here, you were rightly slipping in attention by that point. 

And of course, as I'm prone to, I had some problems with the sequencing. I found Eric Clapton's Dr. John-styled take on "Border Song" to not be a terribly great choice for an opener, Sting's austere "Border Song" came too early in the program etc. etc. You know, the usual OBG gripes.  Oh, and that Sinead O'Connor aside about no one doing "Candle In The Wind"? Well, someone did! Kate Bush cut her version of that song as the b-side to, or technically, a double a-side with "Rocket Man". So it made sense to include that here, even if it is less adventurous than her take on "Rocket Man". What also made sense to include, because it came out in parallel to this compilation, was George Michael's live version of "Don't Let The Sun Go Down On Me", featuring Elton John himself. The reaction of Wembley Stadium to John appearing as a surprise guest on that duet, introduced by George with the now legendary 'Ladies And Gentlemen, Mr. Elton John' is amazing, a gargantuan crowd pop for John, whose European-wide release of The Very Best Of the year before had brought him back into the spotlight. 

Bringing out his version of "Sun" - recorded as his version of "Tonight" on the album during his Cover To Cover tour - was a savvy move by George. Two Rooms colleague Oleta Adams' gospel-take on the very same song was chosen as the album's lead single and had been out for two months, reminding people of the greatness of the song, then Michael's version climbed to number one on both sides of the Atlantic. And, honestly, it's probably the best version of this song, hands down.  

So, the solution to the above-mentioned issues, with an already long running time now seeing two extra tracks included? Why, treat the whole thng like a vinyl rather than a CD affair. If sequenced into a double vinyl album configuration with a running time of 45 minutes per album/disc, the whole thing becomes a whole lot more digestable. The two albums/discs - or, in the parlance of the comp - two rooms - were sequenced according to my personal taste, obviously, but also for a good flow between slower and quicker numbers. Both have a great rock'n'roll number as openers ("Saturday Night's Alright (For Fighting)" and "Crocodile Rock"), a moody female-led track right after ("Rocket Man" and "Sacrifice") and so on, both ending with a big George Michael live number. I think this improves the flow considerably, and - if taken in two hearings rather then the extremely long original one - go down better. 

Two Rooms will appeal to you, if you have a heart for veteran rockers'n'poppers and the AOR sound of the late-80s and early-90s, as your host does. If nothing else, these songs will remind you what a writing team John& Taupin could be, as they were supposed to. I'd say that's already more than enough. So leave your hipster cred by the door and dive in...