Elton John - Goodbye Yellow Brick Road

Goodbye Yellow Brick Road is widely regarded as the album that made Elton John a household name, and it's easy to hear why. Released in 1973 on DJM Records, the double album was written and recorded in just two weeks at the Château d'Hérouville in France, with Elton, longtime lyricist Bernie Taupin, producer Gus Dudgeon, and the established Johnstone, Murray, and Olsson lineup working with the kind of creative momentum that turns a planned single LP into a sprawling seventeen-track statement.

That momentum shows in the range of material here. "Bennie and the Jets" became a US number-one hit, "Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting" delivered raw glam-rock energy, "Candle in the Wind" offered one of Elton's most enduring ballads, and the title track wrapped the whole record's themes of fame and disillusionment into a single, wistful farewell. Few albums move this fluidly between rock swagger and piano balladry without losing a consistent identity.

Commercially, the album debuted at number 17 on the Billboard 200 before climbing to number one, where it stayed for eight consecutive weeks, and topped the UK charts as well. It went on to sell more than 31 million copies worldwide and has been certified platinum seven times over in the US, cementing its place as one of the defining rock albums of the 1970s.

This 2014 pressing was mastered for vinyl by Doug Sax and Robert Hadley at the Mastering Lab in California, delivered here as two discs of heavy 180-gram audiophile vinyl, a genuinely superior way to hear one of rock's essential records.