The advantage of being an aging icon is the artistic freedom to do whatever the hell you want. And when you’re Elton John — legend, diva, grand master of pop for 40 years — your high-ranking order merits an LP like The Diving Board. It’s a throwback in the sense that he recorded it, on the request of producer (and Fort Worth native son) T Bone Burnett, much like the albums of his heyday: by not overthinking. He took Bernie Taupin’s lyric sheet, entered the studio with a piano and improvised the melodies.
This approach makes for a respectable, mostly non-mainstream work still rooted in John’s name-making blues brand and his blossoming balladry. “Home Again,” the first single, falls into the latter category — a tuneful adult-contempo meditation that’s primed for the closing credits of a Disney film. That’s not necessarily a bad thing: it’s a lovely piano composition; it moves you; it’s Elton John post-millennium — the drug-less John, the dad and sober hubbie. Also: It doesn’t flicker out as soon as it’s over like some of the more languorous, here-and-gone melodies on Diving Board (there’s little weight to the bluesier tracks).
That the production falls short of Taupin’s words is unfortunate; the album is a lyrical masterpiece in scope and poeticism. There are many times, though, where divine production meets divine songwriting, and during them — the graceful piano piece “My Quicksand,” and the true-story song “The Ballad of Blind Tom” — John reminds you that, at 66, he’s still got it.
— Chris Azzopardi
This article appeared in the Dallas Voice print edition September 27, 2013.