“Cold Heart” (PNAU Remix) by Elton John ft. Dua Lipa, Tuesday, April 19, 2022

Damn you Covid-19! Sir Elton John simply wanted to tour the world and retire. The 75-year-old legend has been making music and touring since 1962. After saying goodbye to touring, he planned to settle down with his husband David Furnish and their two children and lead a quiet, un-Elton John life—out of the spotlight. But instead of stadiums full of fans across generations singing along to John's most famous hits from the '70s to '90s, we got an album of collaborations called The Lockdown Sessions, seventeen tracks featuring a few fellow legacy acts like Stevie Wonder, Stevie Nicks, and Eddie Vader. But mostly the album contained tracks with newer artists--pop, rock, hip-hop, and country acts.

IT'S A HUMAN SIGN. In some ways, I feel that this month's playlist is an April Fool's joke on my younger self. I've included mostly catchy pop songs, and my younger self would have refused to see the talent of the pop artists like Joe Jonas, Olivia Rodrigo, or Ed Sheeran. Heck, even including Elton John on my list 15 years ago would have made me wonder if I were sick after the blasted music on road trips made me never want to hear Elton again. My criteria for picking a song each day doesn't mean I necessarily pick the best song I listened to that day or that the song is even good. It's the most catchy song or the most blog-worthy song, and this morning hearing "Cold Heart" (PNAU Remix) on Rick Beato's latest video of him reacting to the iTunes purchased songs chart certainly made a huge impression on me. Beato praises the tune "Cold Heart"'s chorus is built on: "Rocket Man," but lambastes the 2021 hit "Cold Heart." Beato's cursory reaction to the song; however, fails to appreciate how mediocre the song really is. Beato focuses mostly on Dua Lipa's chorus, but touches on the problematic autotune on Elton's lines. The chorus makes us long for Elton John singing "Rocket Man." But beyond the problem with the chorus is that the song is a mash-up of four Elton John hits that have been Frankensteined together to make absolutely no sense. The other songs that contributes most of the lyrics and melody is "Sacrifice," and neither of these two songs go together much less the strange vocals and instrumentation in other parts of the song.

SOME THINGS LOOK BETTER, BABY, JUST PASSING THROUGH. I'm still scarred by Elton John from my childhood, but I can tell that most of the songs on The Lockdown Sessions pale in comparison to Elton's greats. That's not to say that there weren't a few stand out tracks. "Chosen Family," a duet with Rina Sawayama is beautiful ballad about friendship, especially in the midst of polarizing times. Elton did a version of "It's a Sin" with Years & Years, whose Olly Alexander had starred in a the HBO Max miniseries by the same name about the AIDS crisis in the 1980s from the perspective of gay men and the nightlife they enjoyed. But the most impressive track doesn't feature Elton on vocals. Instead, Miley Cyrus sings to a band of all stars including Elton John on keys, Red Hot Chili Peppers' drummer Chad Smith, Yo-Yo Ma on cello, and Robert Trujillo on bass playing his band Metallica's "Nothing Else Matters." Out of all of the quarantine projects by established and up-and-coming acts, The Lockdown Sessions is pretty low on the list. Certainly Elton John's feature on Lady Gaga's "Sine from Above" was much better than most of the tracks on Lockdown. All in all, Lockdown is a lesson in what not to do as a veteran artist. Elton John certainly inspired generations of artists from singer-songwriters to piano-rockers to the proudly flamboyant. But trying so hard to stay relevant doesn't look so good. I hope he tries again, though. There could be something interesting to refine from this.

Official Music Video:

David Bennett Piano talking about this song's 4 tracks that make up this song:

Read “Cold Heart (PNAU Remix)” by Elton John & Dua Lipa on Genius