It's unlikely that a mature composer, even one as great as EJ, can make such an excellent album.

But this is truly inspired stuff, not a rehashing of a well-known musical language.

And if it doesn't hit you immediately, keep listening. The reward is worthy.

The Big Picture for me was as a step down from the achievements of the previous release, Made In England. The main problem is the over production by Chris Thomas who gives these songs a dense, wall of sound production that drains the melodies dry. The songs themselves however are not that bad. In fact, it's a shame that several didn't escape to surface on a future album. Opening with Long Way From Hapiness, it's a fitting opener in lieu of Elton's recent personal tragedies, the death of Princess Diana and his good friend, Gianni Versace - though the album was recorded prior to those events in the summer of 1997.

Taupin returns for another round of lyrics that are his least ambitious in recent memory. Partly based on a loose concept of writing big old time ballads that the likes of Sinatra would sing, the album never quites hits it mark. Most are too simplistic and lack his unique narrative to tell what amounts to basic love stories. Love's Got A Lot To Answer For is perhaps the best example of this: "love's got a lot to answer for, I just can't sleep with this feeling anymore".

Others like, Something About The Way You Look Tonight, which appears to be a grand attempt at a classic ballad, only succeeds due to Elton's powerful delivery. The melody and lyric however are routine at best.

And that's the problem with the rest. Live Like Horses is a powerful ballad about the death of Taupin's father but is mired by an over use of synthesizers and unnecessary effects (if you ever heard this solo, it's a great song). Meanwhile, The End Will Come and I Can't Steer My Heart Clear of You simply don't go anywhere. Most of these songs are slow to mid-tempo with the only real upbeat song being the closer Wicked Dreams. That one, while probably the most interesting lyric, simply never excels into what could have been a great rock song. It's just simmers, never boils.

But all is not lost here. If The River Can Bend is a wonderful gospel rave-up with a fantastic piano solo. January has a melody that changes and shifts dramatically along side one of Taupin's most romantic lyrics. The title track also has some nice moments, including a wonderful opening of just Elton and piano.

As you can see, I struggle with Elton's albums where I'm torn. I just can't outright not like it because there are some great songs here and Elton sings with great passion throughout.

My biggest complaint is the production. It would make a great bookend to The One, another over produced album. But this was five years since The One and Chris Thomas brought nothing new to the table for Elton and these songs. Elton and Thomas had disagreements during the recording according to a recent biography by David Buckley and Taupin complained that the album sounded cold and too technical.

The Big Picture falls squarely in the middle of pack of Elton's albums. And for me, that's frustrating.

Best Tracks: Live Like Horses, If The River Can Bend, January, The Big Picture and Something About The Way You Look Tonight.

When it came to the 90's for Elton John, he returned to the roots of making dominant albums. After his recovery from his addictions to drugs and alcoholism, he made some of the best music that had shown in years. With the success of albums like The One from 1992 and the 1995 overlooked masterpiece Made In England, which returned him to the classic roots of 70's albums. But, for the following few years, he had dealt a double whammy of blows which coincided with the deaths of his friends Gianni Versace and Princess Diana. It showed into what made his follow-up to Made In England a much more subdued but deeply creative album that showed in the reflection.

Elton John's 1997 album The Big Picture doesn't completely showcase a dominance that was shown in his music from earlier times. Nevertheless, that doesn't mean the album is medicore. The album does include some really good songs, but all of them were mainly overshadowed by the #1 smash, Something About The Way You Look Tonight, which was a part of the Candle In The Wind 1997 single to show in memory of Princess Diana's death. Regardless, this record was all done on memory of Gianni Versace. Other than Something About The Way You Look Tonight, there are a lot of surprising songs here like the Gospel-influenced If The River Can Bend, the overlooked Recover Your Soul, and slow mid-tempo somberness of songs like the opening track Long Way From Happiness to the depths of Live Like Horses, all the way to the essence of beginnings as detailed in January.

All in all, The Big Picture isn't a bad album for die hard Elton John fans and has some meaningful songs, but it doesn't do enough to bring in newcomers to Elton John's music. Still, it is a pretty good album that says so much from the heart and that is really the actual big picture.

Songs: B-

Price: B

Mastering: C+

Overall: B-

One of the best albums of Elton John. I recommend to all of his fans!!You should have this piece in your archive.. Do not hesitate to buy.. You can trust me as an excellent music lover of such pieces..

Luis Mejia (son) - Released in 1997, The Big Picture is the biggest adult contemporary oriented style, it contains a set of refined, touchy songs. It assembles a fabulous popcraft effort with a mannered, enjoyable and emotional moods, although not as meaningful and potential as his past releases. Although I've never heard Made In England, The Big Picture contains a recognizable debility also present in The One; colorless tunes, synthesized, forgetable compositions and in this case, a lack of originality, although The One is a better album. Beautiful compositions are still present in this album, possessing great, mellow mellodies with their great moments, but quite few: Live Like Horses, although a commonly crafted ballad, it contains some emotional mellodies and a stunning vocal performance. Something About The Way You Look Tonight, apart from being the most famous song in the album, it keeps the return of a marvelous instrumentation, it also possess the most colorful mellody. The Big Picture is still a synthesized, rutine composition but its obviously the only song with a rock inclinnation, and for the exception of its chorus, its a piano based, good composition. Recover Your Soul might be the second best track in the album, with a consistent pop basis and the cheerful, recognizable and memorizeable tunes, is another song for the collection catalogue. Finally, I Can't Steer My Heart Clear Of You stays as a bright, mellodic ballad with some of the semi dramatic style seen in Elton's deepest compositions. The rest of the songs assume an average, unoriginal composition, only made to 'fill up' the album. In conclussion this elegant, mid decade release still possess some acceptable, correct mellodies, with its slight moments, although I can recall the 90's as the worst of Elton John's periods, although all music in general was already dead by this time.