Product Description
Very Rare Actual 1971 Japanese First Pressing ~ Still In Top Condition Over 53 Years Later! Heavy Grade Hardbound Textured Gatefold Cover Includes 12-Page Booklet Plus 8-Page Insert With Lyrics In English & Japanese. Labels Are Clean. Easily One Of The Finest LPs From Elton John! Features Rick Wakeman Playing Organ On “Razor Face”, “Rotten Peaches” & The Magnificent Title Track.
Price On Back Cover Verifies This LP As First Pressing: ¥ 2,000
Condition – Vinyl: EXCELLENT! Sounds wonderful!
Condition – Cover: EXCELLENT! Light shelf wear. Remarkably well preserved all these years! Booklets are NM!
Japanese vinyl pressings are highly sought after by audiophiles and collectors, due to their premium sound quality and beautifully presented packaging. The sonic quality of Japanese records is regarded as the best in the world. No wonder all the original Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab records were pressed in Japan! The covers are printed on better quality heavy stock paper too. Near Mint condition original Japanese pressings are becoming scarcer ~ and therefore more collectable and valuable every year.
Side 1:
Tiny Dancer
Levon
Razor Face
Madman Across The Water
Side 2:
Indian Sunset
Holiday Inn
Rotten Peaches
All The Nasties
Goodbye
AMG –
An ambitious and rewarding work... the songs have a richly dark and haunting edge. Trading the cinematic aspirations of Tumbleweed Connection for a tentative stab at prog rock, Elton John and Bernie Taupin delivered another excellent collection of songs with Madman Across the Water. Like its two predecessors, Madman Across the Water is driven by the sweeping string arrangements of Paul Buckmaster, who gives the songs here a richly dark and haunting edge. And these are songs that benefit from grandiose treatments. With most songs clocking in around five minutes, the record feels like a major work, and in many ways it is. While it's not as adventurous as Tumbleweed Connection, the overall quality of the record is very high, particularly on character sketches "Levon" and "Razor Face," as well as the melodramatic "Tiny Dancer" and the paranoid title track. Madman Across the Water begins to fall apart toward the end, but the record remains an ambitious and rewarding work, and John never attained its darkly introspective atmosphere again. 4 ½ Stars