Elton John (Album)
Elton John is the second studio album by British musician Elton John and was released on 10 April 1970 in the UK and on 22 July 1970 in the United States. It is considered Johns first successful studio album and made him almost an overnight sensation.
- 3.1 Commercial success
- 3.2 reviews
- 3.3 Awards
Formation
Elton's first LP Empty Sky was a big flop with a total of only 4,000 units sold. However, John's publisher Dick James, enabled him more this album, which helped him to break through. Although it is John's second album with Elton John, it was often considered his debut, because the actual debut in the United States was not published until 1975.
It was recorded during several sessions in January 1970 in the Trident studios in London. Originally the music coordinator Steve Brown wanted to win the Beatles Produzenzen George Martin for the recordings, but it failed, that Martin made it a condition to be responsible as an arranger, while Brown had already decided to Paul Buckmaster. Buckmaster had previously David Bowie's Space Oddity arranged, and its producer Gus Dudgeon was also committed to the care of Elton John.
During the production of the album and the songs "Thank You Mama ," " All the Way Down to El Paso " and "I'm Going Home " were recorded but not used for the album.
Title list
Album 1970
CD re-release in 1995
Deluxe Edition 2008
CD 1:
CD 2:
On the album released in Portugal a horn is used in the introduction of "The Greatest Discovery " instead of the violin used in all other versions. When MCA Records released the album in the eighties on audio cassette, the order of "I Need You to Turn To " and was " The Cage " mixed up. 2004 Elton John appeared as a remastered Super Audio CD with three bonus tracks on the CD re-release of 1995.
Reception
Commercial success
Published in March 1970 the first single "Border Song " reached only number 92 the U.S. Top 100 and placed there a total of five weeks. On August 25, 1970 Neil Diamond said at the U.S. concert debut of John with his newly formed band " The Troubadour " in Los Angeles. As a result of this highly acclaimed presentation, the album reached # 4 on the Billboard 200 in the UK Albums Chart reached Elton John 11th and stayed 14 weeks in the charts.
The decoupled from the album 's second single "Take Me to Your Pilot" was with "Your Song " John's B-side first single, the Top Ten of the Billboard Hot reached number 8 100. "Your Song " was released on 7 January 1971 in the UK as a separate single, reached # 7 on the UK Top 40 and stayed 12 weeks in the charts. By the year 2000, could so many of John's singles in the Billboard Top 40 place, that he has already surpassed 1992 Elvis Presley record for the most consecutive years with their own singles in the American charts.
Elton John was one of the four albums that John had in 1971 in parallel in the American album charts, what was he was the first artist since the Beatles succeeded. To date, approximately 7 million recordings of the album were sold worldwide, of which 500,000 in the United States. On February 17, 1971, the album reached gold status in the United States.
Reviews
The Melody Maker called Elton John as "a truly great record" ( German: ". Truly a great record") The Billboard magazine praised the album as "one of the top LP's of the week, Both creatively and Commercially " ( German: " one of the tips LPs of the week, both creatively and commercially. " ) Bill Shapiro attested the album in 1991 with his use of compact piano, enthusiastic vocals, and the contrast of ardent ballads and fully ascended rockers "a formula Whose time had come" ( German: " a formula whose time had come ").
William Ruhlmann called the album 1995 The All- Music Guide to Rock as " uncharacteristic of his other work" ( German: " uncharacteristic of his other work" ) because it contained by Buckmasters Arrangements many strings, of which he does not overwhelm leave. Because at the 2008 appeared deluxe edition, the differences between early demo recordings and ausproduzierten album versions are clearly visible, Franz Scholer imputed in the German Rolling Stone exactly these arrangements a negation to " magnificent kitsch". Were not only called because of contact with Martin the Beatles and Simon and Garfunkel and Jerry Lee Lewis as a musical reference points.
Awards
1970 Elton John was nominated for the Grammy Award for Album of the Year, but did not win the award. In 2003, the album was performed at position 468 of a list of the 500 greatest albums of all time by the American Rolling Stone.