Elton John is the second studio album by British singer-songwriter Elton John. It was released on 10 April 1970 through DJM Records. Including John's breakthrough single "Your Song", the album helped establish his career during the rise of the singer-songwriter era of popular music.
In the US, Elton John was certified gold in February 1971 by the RIAA. In the same year, it was nominated for the Grammy Award for Album of the Year at the 13th Annual Grammy Awards. In 2003, the album was ranked number 468 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time. On 27 November 2012, it was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame as an album cited as exhibiting "qualitative or historical significance".
This was the first of a string of John albums produced by Gus Dudgeon. As Dudgeon recalled in a Mix magazine interview, the album was not actually intended to launch John as an artist, but rather as a collection of polished demos for other artists to consider recording his and co-writer Bernie Taupin's songs. Two songs from the album did find their way into the repertoire of other artists in 1970: "Your Song" was recorded by Three Dog Night as an album track on their LP It Ain't Easy, while Aretha Franklin released a cover of "Border Song" as a single that reached number 37 in the US pop charts and number 5 on the R&B chart, later included on her 1972 album Young, Gifted and Black.
The song "No Shoe Strings on Louise" was intended (as homage or parody) to sound like a Rolling Stones song.
John Mendelsohn in a contemporary (1970) review for Rolling Stone felt that the album was over-produced and over-orchestrated, comparing it unfavourably with the less mannered and orchestrated Empty Sky; though he felt that John had "so immense a talent" that "he'll delight you senseless despite it all". Robert Christgau in his weekly "Consumer Guide" column for The Village Voice also felt the album was overdone ("overweening", "histrionic overload", "semi-classical ponderousness"), but that it had "a surprising complement of memorable tracks", including "Your Song" which, despite its "affected offhandedness", he considered "an instant standard".
The US version of the 8-track tape of Elton John released by MCA Records (citation: MCA MCT-3000) repeats the tracks "Your Song" and "I Need You To Turn To", total time 46:00, and has the following running order:
Program 1: Your Song : I Need You To Turn To : First Episode At Hienton
Program 2: No Shoe Strings On Louise : Sixty Years On : Border Song
Program 3: I Need You To Turn To : Your Song : The King Must Die
Program 4: Take Me To The Pilot : The Greatest Discovery : The Cage
John performed many of these songs live, and included six of these ten songs on his 1987 album Live in Australia with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra.
Track numbers refer to CD and digital releases of the album.
Grammy Awards
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