Elton John – Captain Fantastic And The Brown Dirt Cowboy (1975/1996)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 1:02:25 minutes | 1,32 GB | Genre: Rock
Official Digital Download – Source: HDTracks.com | Digital Booklet | @ Island Def Jam
Listed in Rolling Stone’s “500 greatest albums of all time,” Elton John’s ninth studio album includes the monster hit “Someone Saved My Life Tonight,” debuted at #1 on the U.S. Pop Albums chart and is certified triple platinum. This audiophile re-release includes three songs not on the original release, including a cover of The Beatles’ “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” and the single “Philadelphia Freedom,” both which hit #1 on the US Billboard Pop Singles chart.
Sitting atop the charts in 1975, Elton John and Bernie Taupin recalled their rise to power in Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy, their first explicitly conceptual effort since Tumbleweed Connection. It’s no coincidence that it’s their best album since then, showcasing each at the peak of his power, as John crafts supple, elastic, versatile pop and Taupin’s inscrutable wordplay is evocative, even moving. What’s best about the record is that it works best of a piece — although it entered the charts at number one, this only had one huge hit in “Someone Saved My Life Tonight,” which sounds even better here, since it tidily fits into the musical and lyrical themes. And although the musical skill on display here is dazzling, as it bounces between country and hard rock within the same song, this is certainly a grower. The album needs time to reveal its treasures, but once it does, it rivals Tumbleweed in terms of sheer consistency and eclipses it in scope, capturing John and Taupin at a pinnacle. They collapsed in hubris and excess not long afterward — Rock of the Westies, which followed just months later is as scattered as this is focused — but this remains a testament to the strengths of their creative partnership.
Tracklist:
01. Captain Fantastic And The Brown Dirt Cowboy (00:05:45)
02. Tower Of Babel (00:04:28)
03. Bitter Fingers (00:04:34)
04. Tell Me When The Whistle Blows (00:04:21)
05. Someone Saved My Life Tonight (00:06:45)
06. (Gotta Get A) Meal Ticket (00:04:01)
07. Better Off Dead (00:02:37)
08. Writing (00:03:40)
09. We All Fall In Love Sometimes (00:04:16)
10. Curtains (00:06:23)
11. Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds (00:06:18)
12. One Day At A Time (00:03:50)
13. Philadelphia Freedom (00:05:25)
Elton John & Leon Russell - The Union/24bit/96khz/hdtracks
Elton John – Goodbye Yellow Brick Road (1973/1996)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 1:16:08 minutes | 1,73 GB | Genre: Rock
Official Digital Download – Source: HDTracks.com | Digital Booklet | @ Island Mercury
Elton John’s 1973 best selling masterpiece – seven times platinum – was also his most brilliantly diverse record. Originally released as a double LP, the album runs a gamut of styles and features some of the greatest singles of 1970s rock. This hi-def release offers an amazing re-experience of one of the all-time greatest rock recordings.
Goodbye Yellow Brick Road was where Elton John’s personality began to gather more attention than his music, as it topped the American charts for eight straight weeks. In many ways, the double album was a recap of all the styles and sounds that made John a star. Goodbye Yellow Brick Road is all over the map, beginning with the prog rock epic “Funeral for a Friend (Love Lies Bleeding)” and immediately careening into the balladry of “Candle in the Wind.” For the rest of the album, John leaps between popcraft (“Bennie and the Jets”), ballads (“Goodbye Yellow Brick Road”), hard rock (“Saturday Night’s Alright for Fighting”), novelties (“Jamaica Jerk-Off”), Bernie Taupin’s literary pretensions (“The Ballad of Danny Bailey”), and everything in between. Though its diversity is impressive, the album doesn’t hold together very well. Even so, its individual moments are spectacular and the glitzy, crowd-pleasing showmanship that fuels the album pretty much defines what made Elton John a superstar in the early ’70s.
Tracklist:
01 – Funeral For A Friend / Love Lies Bleeding
02 – Candle In The Wind
03 – Bennie And The Jets
04 – Goodbye Yellow Brick Road
05 – This Song Has No Title
06 – Grey Seal
07 – Jamaica Jerk-Off
08 – I’ve Seen That Movie Too
09 – Sweet Painted Lady
10 – The Ballad Of Danny Bailey (1909-1934)
11 – Dirty Little Girl
12 – All The Girls Love Alice
13 – Your Sister Can’t Twist (But She Can Rock’n Roll)
14 – Saturday Night’s Alright For Fighting
15 – Roy Rogers
16 – Social Disease
17 – Harmony
Madman Across The Water/24bit/96khz/hdtracks
Elton John – Madman Across The Water (1971/1996)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 45:30 minutes | 996 MB | Genre: Rock
Official Digital Download – Source: HDTracks.com | Digital Booklet | @ Island Records
Elton John’s 1971 introspective masterpiece stands among the songwriter’s most emotive and intimate work. The album reached #8 on the Billboard 200 chart in 1972. The intricacies of the string arrangements and brilliant recording quality can be heard more clearly than ever before with this Hi-Res release.
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.