Category: SACD

Title: Elton John – Tumbleweed Connection (1970) [Reissue 2004]
Genre: Rock
Format: MCH SACD ISO + Hi-Res FLAC

Tumbleweed Connection is the third album by English singer/songwriter Elton John. It is a concept album based on the country and western/Americana themes. All songs are written by John and Bernie Taupin, with the exception of “Love Song” by Lesley Duncan. The album was recorded at Trident Studios, London, England in March 1970 and released in October of the same year. It peaked at #2 on the UK Albums Chart and #5 on the US Billboard 200 chart. In the US, it was certified gold in March 1971 and platinum in August 1998 by the RIAA. In 2003, Tumbleweed Connection was ranked #463 on Rolling Stone magazine’s list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.

Instead of repeating the formula that made Elton John a success, John and Bernie Taupin attempted their most ambitious record to date for the follow-up to their breakthrough. A loose concept album about the American West, Tumbleweed Connection emphasized the pretensions that always lay beneath their songcraft. Half of the songs don’t follow conventional pop song structures; instead, they flow between verses and vague choruses. These experiments are remarkably successful, primarily because Taupin’s lyrics are evocative and John’s melodic sense is at its best. As should be expected for a concept album about the Wild West, the music draws from country and blues in equal measures, ranging from the bluesy choruses of “Ballad of a Well-Known Gun” and the modified country of “Country Comfort” to the gospel-inflected “Burn Down the Mission” and the rolling, soulful “Amoreena.” Paul Buckmaster manages to write dramatic but appropriate string arrangements that accentuate the cinematic feel of the album.

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Title: Elton John – Super Audio CD Sampler (2004)
Genre: Rock
Format: MCH SACD ISO + Hi-Res FLAC

The title says all. Here is just a promotional collection of Elton John’s best sounding songs released in SACD format.

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Title: Elton John – Peachtree Road (2004)
Genre: Rock
Format: MCH SACD ISO + Hi-Res FLAC

Peachtree Road is the 28th studio album by British singer/songwriter Elton John, released in 2004. It was named after Peachtree Road, the northern part of Peachtree Street in Atlanta, where one of John’s four homes is located. This is the only album during his long career on which John alone has sole credit as producer.

Elton John returned to the sound and aesthetic of his classic early-’70s work with 2001’s Songs From the West Coast, finding critical acclaim, if not much commercial success. Not that the lack of sales greatly bothered Elton — in many interviews, including one with Entertainment Weekly the week before Peachtree Road was released in November 2004, he claimed he was “disappointed” that it just barely went gold, but he was tired of making “uneven” records. John wasn’t merely doing publicity: Peachtree Road proves that he’s back to making good, solid records focused on songs, not hits, the way he did at the outset of his career. Since this is an album by a veteran, not an artist on the rise, it doesn’t have the sense of discovery, or the hunger, that the early records still retain, and the production — the first self-production by John with no collaborators — is a little cleaner and crisper than the rich, warm sound of the late Gus Dudgeon (to whom this record is dedicated), who helmed such masterworks as Tumbleweed Connection. This means Peachtree Road is about craft, both in the writing and recording, which also means that it’s a grower, with each song sounding stronger, better with each spin. While the sound of the record is bright and polished, this album makes few concessions to radio: this is certainly adult pop, but it never panders to adult contemporary radio, and the music is a little too rugged and sturdy to fit alongside the stubbornly sweet sounds of 21st century MOR. Which is precisely the point, of course: Elton has consciously returned to the reflective singer/songwriter template of the early ’70s, both in his writing and production. Not that this is as lush as Elton John or country-tinged as Tumbleweed Connection — “Answer in the Sky” recalls the high-flying disco of “Philadelphia Freedom” quite deliberately, and “They Call Her the Cat” finds a halfway point between “Honkey Cat” and “The Bitch Is Back” — but it fits alongside those albums quite nicely because the focus is on songs, not trying to have hits. These songs may not rival his standards, but they’re in the same tradition, and there’s not a bad song in the bunch, resulting in a sturdy, satisfying record that proves that the comeback on Songs From the West Coast was no fluke and, hopefully, this latter-day renaissance for Elton will not be short-lived either.

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Title: Elton John – Madman Across The Water (1971) [Reissue 2004]
Genre: Rock
Format: MCH SACD ISO + Hi-Res FLAC

Madman Across the Water is the fourth studio album by British singer/songwriter Elton John. The title song was set to be released on John’s previous album Tumbleweed Connection. However, it was set aside and would eventually be re-recorded and serve as the title track of this album. The SACD version of the album contained a longer version of “Razor Face” which extended the song-ending jam to 6:42 instead of the early fade on the original album.

Trading the cinematic aspirations of Tumbleweed Connection for a tentative stab at prog rock, Elton John and Bernie Taupin delivered another excellent collection of songs with Madman Across the Water. Like its two predecessors, Madman Across the Water is driven by the sweeping string arrangements of Paul Buckmaster, who gives the songs here a richly dark and haunting edge. And these are songs that benefit from grandiose treatments. With most songs clocking in around five minutes, the record feels like a major work, and in many ways it is. While it’s not as adventurous as Tumbleweed Connection, the overall quality of the record is very high, particularly on character sketches “Levon” and “Razor Face,” as well as the melodramatic “Tiny Dancer” and the paranoid title track. Madman Across the Water begins to fall apart toward the end, but the record remains an ambitious and rewarding work, and John never attained its darkly introspective atmosphere again.

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