Elton John - Goodbye Yellow Brick Road (1973) [2CD] [1988, Japan]

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Elton John - Goodbye Yellow Brick Road (1973) [2CD] [1988, Japan]

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Elton John - Goodbye Yellow Brick Road (1973) [2CD] [1988, Japan]

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"Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" is the seventh studio album by Elton John, released in 1973. The album sold over 12 million copies worldwide, and is regarded as one of John's best. It was recorded at the Château d'Hérouville in France after problems recording at the intended location of Jamaica. Among the 17 tracks, the album contains the hits "Candle in the Wind", "Bennie and the Jets", "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" and "Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting" plus "Funeral for a Friend/Love Lies Bleeding" and "Harmony". The move to the château from Jamaica provided John and his band with a great deal of creative inspiration, and an abundance of quality material was produced, leading to the decision to release the work as a double album (LP). "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" has come to be regarded as John's best and most popular album, and is his best-selling studio album. Three singles were released in the US: "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road", "Bennie and the Jets" and "Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting". In the US it was certified Gold in October 1973, 5× Platinum in March 1993, and eventually 8× Platinum in February 2014 by the RIAA. In 2003, the album was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. The album was ranked #91 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time, and #59 in Channel 4's 2009 list of 100 Greatest Albums.

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Elton John - Goodbye Yellow Brick Road (1973) [2CD] [1988, Japan]

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It was designed to be a blockbuster and it was. Prior to Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, Elton John had hits - his second album, Elton John, went Top 10 in the U.S. and U.K., and he had smash singles in "Crocodile Rock" and "Daniel" but this 1973 album was a statement of purpose spilling over two LPs, which was all the better to showcase every element of John's spangled personality. Opening with the 11-minute melodramatic exercise "Funeral for a Friend/Love Lies Bleeding" as prog as Elton ever got Goodbye Yellow Brick Road immediately embraces excess but also tunefulness, as John immediately switches over to "Candle in the Wind" and "Bennie & the Jets," two songs that form the core of his canon and go a long way toward explaining the over-stuffed appeal of Goodbye Yellow Brick Road. This was truly the debut of Elton John the entertainer, the pro who knows how to satisfy every segment of his audience, and this eagerness to please means the record is giddy but also overwhelming, a rush of too much muchness. Still, taken a side at a time, or even a song a time, it is a thing of wonder, serving up such perfectly sculpted pop songs as "Grey Seal," full-bore rockers as "Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting" and "Your Sister Can't Twist (But She Can Rock & Roll)," cinematic ballads like "I've Seen That Movie Too," throwbacks to the dusty conceptual sweep of Tumbleweed Connection in the form of "The Ballad of Danny Bailey (1909-34)," and preposterous glam novelties, like "Jamaica Jerk-Off." This touched on everything John did before, and suggested ways he'd move in the near-future, and that sprawl is always messy but usually delightful, a testament to Elton's '70s power as a star and a musician.

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Elton John - Goodbye Yellow Brick Road (1973) [2CD] [1988, Japan]

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Elton John - Goodbye Yellow Brick Road (1973) [2CD] [1988, Japan]

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Elton John - Goodbye Yellow Brick Road (1973) [2CD] [1988, Japan]

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