'Goodbye Yellow Brick Road'

Around 2000, my junior year of college, Elton John's Goodbye Yellow Brick Road completely took over my life.

I was living in an apartment and, by then, had a turntable and an ever-growing collection of vinyl including a lot of Billy Joel and John.

Goodbye Yellow Brick Road may be the closest to the perfect pop record: It's melodic as hell. Thanks to Bernie Taupin, it was well written with a variety of tunes ranging from the serious to the raucous piano-guitar rock that made John what he was. It wasn't all the watered down piano soft rock that would define him when he started wearing a toupee and dressing like Donald Duck.

It had layers. As many guitars and pianos. Big drums and vocals. John wasn't worried about album sales or his reputation or reality shows. He just wanted to rock.

If I built a soundtrack to my life, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road would define year No. 20.