Elton John recently said in the BBC that he doesn’t like to listen to his own music. So we do it for him! In advance it can be said about this selection: Sir Elton has published a lot, over 30 studio albums. Among them is nonsense, of course, but even on almost every lame Elton album is at least one huge hit and karaoke classic. It doesn’t make it easy. But everything is included here: White Boy Blues, Extra male Schunkelballaden, Camp Rock. The full Elton.
Essential
Elton John (1970)
It is his second album that many still think for his debut because the first work, Empty Sky (1969), had completely lost. Elton John was his first successful album, it appeared the week when the Beatles dissolved. It starts with the symphonic orchestrated ballad “Your Song” and the Evergreen-Refrain: “How Wonderful Life Is While You’re In The World”. A completely different voice, a full shouting soul rock organ, wears “Take Me To The Pilot”. In “The Cage” the genres change a second: brisk R’n’B-Beat, Prog-Rock-Interlude, big drama with a big band, and somehow everything fits together. A blatant varied foundation stone for an epic career – Lots to Unpack, so to speak.
★★★★★
Madman Across The Water (1971)
The fourth album was actually his fifth within a year and a half, recorded in just ten days. Truly Mad. Elton sings his impressions from the tours through the United States, with the texts, as almost always, were written by Bernie Taupin. It is difficult to impress how the initially almost intimate piano clamp in the opening hit “Tiny Dancer” will soon become a violent thundering rock opera. Also on it: “Indian Sunset”. A passage from it appears in “Ghetto Gospel”, Elton’s duet with 2PAC, which was released in 2004 on his posthumous album Loyal to the Game. “Ghetto Gospel” produced a good buddy: Eminem. The and Elton John-probably one of the most unlikely, sweetest pop friendships forever.
★★★★★
Honky Chateau (1972)
Elton’s tax advisor advised that he should absorb his albums outside of Great Britain, for fiscal reasons. So Elton booked the music studio in the “Cunished Castle”, the Château d’Hérouville from the 18th century, 40 kilometers north of Paris. The infinite karaoke classic “Rocket Man” was created here. Back then it was the big Space Travel time in pop culture, see Kubrick’s film “2001: Odyssey in Space”, David Bowies “Life on Mars?”, His Ciggy Stardust Persona with the hit “Starman”, etc. etc. The sound is still bright as a cloudless star night.
★★★★★
Goodbye Yellow Brick Road (1973)
The album with the powerful rock hits “Bennie and the Jets” and “Saturday Night’s Alright (for Fighting)”, but of course primarily with “Candle in the Wind”. The Marilyn Monroe dedicated to death -sad ballad (“Goodbye Norma Jean …”) assumed a completely new meaning in 1997 when Elton re -recorded it on the occasion of Lady Diana’s tragic accidental death (“Goodbye England’s Rose …”). Rarely has a pop song accompanied and supported the world in collective mourning.
★★★★★
Too low for zero (1983)
A welcome return to form, according to the rather mediocre works at the end of the seventies and early 1980s. “I’m Still Standing” today referred to as resilience & self-empowerment hymn, and the ballad “I guess that’s why they call it the blues”, including a heart-contradictory sanctuary by Stevie Wonder, has a decisive factor in the fact that Elton will now play in the “Adult Contemporary” category at the latest.
★★★★ ☆
also good
A single man (1978)
Especially because of “Song for Guy”. The piano instrumental, in which a little singing comes in, Elton devoted to his motorcycle courier Guy Burchett, who was fatal at the age of 17. Insanely melancholic and romantic. The composition not only plays in a league with Beethoven’s “for Elise” or Schumann’s “dreaming”. But almost.
★★★★ ☆
Ice on fire (1985)
The album is great mainly because “Nikita” is on it. A year before Gorbachev called the Perestroika in the Soviet Union and the Iron Curtain began to hang out, Elton sings the impossible love between himself and a Russian border guards on the wall in East Berlin. How does the Caribbean-looking cuddly schluchz-beat fit? Well, longing for freedom and distance is the topic here! Nikita was of course played by a woman in the music video, otherwise that would have been too gay for MTV at the time. Otherwise Ice on Fire is mixed, but “satellite” is great. Here, Elton is again elegant on a halbel electronic quasi-fusion sound through the arrangement. Also on the record: Guest appearances by George Michael as well as Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards from Chic.
★★★ ☆itch
The Union (2010)
The cooperation album with the Nashville legend Leon Russell. He was known throughout his life (1942–2016) as Sideman by Bob Dylan, Willie Nelson, Joe Cocker and many others, and unmessable as a soloist, singer, songwriter. Produced by T Bone Burnett, this album unfolds a stunning country/gospel/rock power. “Hey Ahab” and “Monkey Suit” stamp proudly in the prairiest dust, the ballad “Gone to Shiloh” traces the most terrible battle of Shiloh in Tennessee, in which the Union troops won just over the confederated in 1862. Elton’s voice and Russell’s gentler, higher roots crooner-tembrer complement each other perfectly. A MATCH Made in Heaven.
★★★★★
Fully wrong
Victim of Love (1979)
Just because you like to celebrate in Studio F4, you don’t have to do a discomucki yet! Elton’s disco album begins with a creepy cover version of “Johnny B. Goode”. The fact that the rock critics found it stupid at the time and still find it today is explained by themselves – they don’t like disco anyway. But even those who are equipped with a rich love for good disco music have to say: The album was an unsuccessful and unnecessary attempt to surf the disco trend. With the help of the Giorgio Moroder cooperate, Pete Bellotte produced, the hip Munich sound should be emulated. Victim of Love? Rather victim of the zeitgeist.
★★ ressed
Funny, funny, Campy
Duets (1993)
This album is probably the most clear of Elton’s talent to the kitsch noodle and large camp queen. The duet with the Dragqueen Rupaul, “Don’t go Breaking My Heart” was produced by Giorgio Moroder, whom Elton would have already had for his disco album in 1979. Giorgo unpacks dance technology balls and even lets a few acid lines bubble at the beginning. Very funny! And very great: “Don’t let the sun go down on me”, the live duet with George Michael in the ramble Wembley Arena with a complete mass-cheering sunny energy. The proceeds went to AIDS aid. Thanks.
★★★★ ☆
Regimental SGT. Zippo (2021)
The album should have been his debut, it was recorded in late 1967, early 1968, so: before Empty Sky. It marks the beginning of the collaboration with the copywriter Bernie Taupin to this day and was released from the archive to the Record Store Day in 2021. Somehow it should be a tribute to SGT. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band of Beatles, but fails musically. It is neither really epigonal, nor satirical, but somehow also programming and psychedelic. Elton and Bernie have not really raised themselves here. Taupin later said the album was primarily inspired by Procol Harum. Oh right.
★★ ressed
The Lockdown Sessions (2021)
Covid greetings. The uninhibited self -discarding of old hits “Cold Heart (Pnau Remix)” is today on Spotify Elton’s most streamy song. Consisting of a stanza from “Sacrifice” (1989), sung by Elton, and the chorus from “Rocket Man”, sung without any tension and energy from Dua Lipa. That is a shame, but reflects the lethargy and nostalgia in which the world was caught during the Corona pandemic. 1st place in the UK charts, 3rd place in Germany. Old hit melodies in the new cuddly corner sound for the sealed home disco: It would be nice if we never needed Sedativa again!
★★★ ☆itch