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List Price: $16.98 | | Label: Rocket/Mercury/Universal
Salesrank: 35987
Released: May 12, 2003 |
| Our Price: $9.89 |
| Used Price: $9.00 |
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| Media: Audio CD |
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Jump Up! Track Listing:
1. Dear John
2. Spiteful Child
3. Ball & Chain
4. Legal Boys
5. I Am Your Robot
6. Blue Eyes
7. Empty Garden (Hey, Hey Johnny)
8. Princess
9. Where Have All the Good Times Gone
10. All Quiet on the Western Front
Editorial Review:
Remastered reissue of 1982 album. Ten tracks including the hits, 'Blue Eyes', 'Princess', & 'Empty Garden'. Mercury. 2003.
Jump Up! Reviews:
BLUE EYES 
2009-12-12 - Considering the early-to-mid 80's were Elton's "low point", it's surprising to see a quality album like this turn up in the midst of his supposed creative drought.What's disappointing is that a great number like "Empty garden (hey hey Johnny)" has never been featured on any Elton John compilations
WTF 
2009-10-14 - After years of wondering how to tell a genious a song he did REALLY sucked I have got to say that "I am your Robot" is the lamest song ever written & recorded by Elton. Even worse he played it live. Elton I love you but WTF???
Jump Up,Dear Elton! 
2009-05-22 - In the early 80's Elton John was going through a a bit of a commercial dry spell.His albums before this 21 at 33 and The Fox (which I actually thought was very consistant and liked) were considered uneven and didn't make a lot of commercial headway. This album proved to be the beginning of a comeback for him. Bernie Taupin returns as lyricist but Gary Osborne actually is on for some of the songs here,so it's a duel-lyricist format. Now that is not entirely a bad thing because it gives the material an excellent sense of variety.So I'll kind of split my reviews in terms of who penned the lyrics I suppose because there is something of a difference in musical approch."Spiteful Child" is definately a classic John/Taupin tune with that great shuffling beat and piano style that would certify Elton's full fleged comeback the following year with the blockbuster Too Low for Zero. On "I Am Your Robot" we're treated to a great rocker with some..yes rather robotic electronics to get things started off on.One of the most powerful tunes the team turned out on this album was "Empty Garden (Hey Hey Johnny)";we all know who it's about and the comparasin between Lennon and a deserted gardener really says a lot more then the lyrics really can.The electronic piano used on "Where Have All The Good Times Gone" makes this tune a nice little piece of 3 minute pop and well "All Quiet On The Western Front" shows for all naysayers the teams ability to craft epic ballads have not abandoned them.As for the Osborne contributions "Dear John" and "Ball And Chain" are both very powerful guitar rockers,pretty charged up stuff for Elton in this particular period."Legal Boys" fools you a little;you think your getting a Taupin style epic at first until it tranforms mid song into a blue eyed soul number."Princess" is actually one of the best tunes here,very moving and also pretty...dancable in it's own way.Of course of the John/Osborne collaboration their ultimate achievment has to be "Blue Eyes". I cannot honestly think of a more romantic song on this album and it has those great chord progressions a classic Elton ballad would tend to have. It was the perfect choice as a first single for this album. Even though this album,really the start of a huge commercial comeback tends to get overshadowed by the albums and singles that came after it this is really where it all began and there is a lot of great music here for those willing to dig in.
Cool album!
2008-03-25 - Pinner,England-born Reginald Kenneth Dwight,known to the public as Elton John,has recorded a multitude of albums on the Uni and MCA labels between 1969 and '80. In '80,he left MCA to sign with the newly christened Geffen,which distributed six(one album per year)albums between 1981 and '86. This album is the second of the six. Top 20 hits include BLUE EYES and EMPTY GARDEN(Hey,Johnny). BE is a beautiful easy listening piece that was later recycled for 1996's LOVE SONGS(a compilation with two original songs). EG is Elton's tribute to his longtime friend,ex-Beatle John Lennon who was murdered in December 1980 in New York City,where he last lived. Elton is godfather to Lennon's now-32-year-old son Sean Taro Ono Lennon. A year ago,when Elton gave his 60th concert on his 60th birthday at NYC's Madison Square Garden,he told the audience that MSG was the only venue where he would painlessly perform EG live. He told about his November 28,1974 memory of performing Lennon's WHATEVER GETS YOU THRU THE NIGHT with him on the MSG stage when the song topped the pop/rock charts. In the studio recording,Elton sang unison background,and it appears on Lennon's WALLS AND BRIDGES album. I even dedicate EG to the memory of Liverpool,England-born Lennon and I'm sure many others do. Interestingly,the rhythm of EG was exactly the same as the GOODBYE YELLOW BRICK ROAD track CANDLE IN THE WIND,which paid homage to Hollywood great Marilyn Monroe. The other songs from this album are cool. This album followed THE FOX and preceded the megahit TOO LOW FOR ZERO,BREAKING HEARTS.ICE ON FIRE and LEATHER JACKETS. This album was re-released on MCA because Elton returned to MCA after the release of LJ.
Some terrific songs mixed with more mundane material makes this an "Up" and down affair 
2008-03-02 - Elton John had already peaked as an artist and his collaborations with his best lyricist Bernie Taupin had dissolved when he came to record "A Single Man". With "21 at 33", "The Fox" and "Jump Up" he tentatively reunited with Taupin on a small amount of songs for each album still working with lyrcist Gary Osborne and adding new collaborators including Tom Robinson ("Glad to be Gay")and his future "The Lion King" collaborator Tim Rice ("Jesus Christ Superstar")on this album. Although "Jump Up" doesn't scale the heights of, say, "Honkey Chateau", "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" or even "Madman Across the Water", it does compare favorably to "Caribou" and is often better than "Rock of the Westies" recorded at the tail end of his most creative period as an artist.
As far as sound goes those who don't like No Noise will be unhappy as it clearly was used here to eliminate tape hiss and, as a result, sucks some of the life out of the original recording. While this isn't as loud or compressed as most reissues that came out in 2003, it does sound a bit more compressed than the original disc. For those folks, I'd strongly recommend the original CD issue on Geffen/Universal from 1992. The only difference aside from that is a very good booklet with lyrics and John Tobler's liner notes discussing the making of the album.
The big hit was "Blue Eyes" (John wrote it with Gary Osborne) but there's other strong material here as well. "Dear John" is a solid rocker written with Gary Osborne that could hold its own musically with Elton's earlier rockers. The tracks that John writes with Osborne here are better than the work they did on "A Single Man". The other highlights include "Legal Boys" a clever ballad about a divorce written with Rice. The stand out track, though, is the moving "Empty Garden" written with Bernie Taupin about their idol (and friend) John Lennon and his murder in 1980. It's probably the most moving of any of the songs written about Lennon (certainly better than most of the songs written by Lennon's former bandmates Paul McCartney and George Harrison).
Although the album and some of the production touches (particularly on the weaker tracks such as "I Am Your Robot")put the album firmly in the 80's, that's not a bad thing--it's an album of its time that manages at its best to transcend its time. The most appealing songs are still exceptionally good. Although it doesn't quite measure up to "Too Low for Zero", it's a nice return to form and certainly better than John's career low the horrible disco album "Victim of Love" (a complete miscalculation).
It's a pity we don't get any bonus tracks as with the other albums from John's earlier discography but what we do get here is very good at its best. Curiously, "The Retreat" the one b-side that would have fit on this album and was released as a b-side for "Blue Eyes" was carried over to "2Lowfor0" (or Too Low For Zero) and isn't here. Elton hadn't lost his touch just got a little lost in the maze of drugs and good living that took over much of his life during the late 70's/early 80's.
