Photo: By Raph_PH (EltonTwicStoop030617-15) [CC BY 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
Elton John’s first album, entitled Empty Sky, was released in 1969. It was the same year Led Zeppelin released their debut album, Led Zeppelin.
In 1969, Jim Hendrix blew away crowds at Woodstock, and the Vietnam War continued to divide the nation. Since Elton John’s debut album in that historic year, the singer-songwriter has continued to release albums almost yearly, with few exceptions. During the 1970s, the artist released two albums per year under his MCA Records contract. Between albums, Elton John released hit singles in a similar Beatles-style.
As of this updated writing in 2018, Elton John has released thirty-one studio albums. This does not count the three collaboration albums he has also released. In addition, Elton John has also released nine soundtrack albums. On the live front, Elton John has only released four official live albums despite his incredible track record of live performances. His record companies have released many compilation CDs, including the standout To Be Continued…
box set released in 1990.
10 Best Elton John Albums
# 10 – Songs from the West Coast (2001)
Songs From The West Coast returned to the original Elton John sound. It was Elton’s best record in twenty years! Sitting in a doctor’s office, I heard the Elton John song “Ballad of the Boy in the Red Shoes.” I was initially baffled when I first heard the song because it sounded like old Elton John from the Tumbleweed Connection period. (A period that Elton John said recently on the Howard Stern show was heavily influenced by The Band.)
I had heard every Elton John song from the nineteen seventies, so it was odd to listen to what sounded like a vintage Elton John classic. It was thrilling to discover that the song was brand new and had just been released on Elton John’s album Songs From the West Coast.
I instantly raced to the mall to buy the new Elton John album. It had been a while since I eagerly anticipated listening to a new Elton John record. Elton’s records since the late 1970s have been great, but they did not come close to the quality of his nineteen seventies records.
In interviews around the time Songs From the West Coast was released, Elton John was quoted as saying that Songs From the West Coast was the best album he had released in twenty years. What blows my mind right now, in 2023, is that this album is now over twenty-two years old. In a 2001 VH1 interview with Rebecca Rankin, Elton John also said he was tired of technology because it slowed the creative process. Elton said it was time to go back to what he did best: playing and writing on the piano. The album Songs From the West Coast defined Elton’s renewed vision and was a welcome return by the artist for longtime Elton John fans.
# 9 – Tumbleweed Connection
Elton John’s third album, Tumbleweed Connection, was released on October 30th, 1970. While the album should not be defined as a country album, the musical structure inherent in the melodic lines, chord changes, and lyrical content sounds like what we now call Americana. The album featured a long roster of musicians, including well-known vocalists like Dusty Springfield, who sang backup vocals. Roger Pope was on drums for the LP, who would eventually lose his drumming seat to Nigel Olsson. Nigel would continue contributing backing vocals and the drum sound that would play a significant role in the great Elton John band.
Also on board for Tumbleweed Connection
was the debut of Dee Murray on bass guitar. Caleb Quaye also shared the bass guitar duties. The original issue of the Tumbleweed Connection LP featured a deluxe multi-page booklet bound between a very sturdy hard cardboard cover. Songs such as “Country Comfort, Come Down in Time,” and “Amoreena” were well written and performed. Those songs are among the finest pieces Elton John and Bernie Taupin wrote together in their early period. Sting did a standout cover of Elton John’s “Come Down In Time.”
Tumbleweed Connection was one of the few early Elton John albums to feature a song not written by Elton John and Bernie Taupin. Lesley Duncan’s “Love Song” appeared as the second song on the album’s second side. While the song was not released as a single from Tumbleweed Connection, it was later issued in a new live version on the 1976 LP Here and There. Elton John’s Tumbleweed Connection
is one of Elton’s most enjoyable recordings, which is too often ignored because of the lack of a big hit single.
# 8 – Blue Moves
Elton John’s album Blue Moves was released on October 22, 1976. It was the second double album that Elton John had released in his career. His first double album, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, had only been released three years earlier. The fact that both albums were two-record sets was the only real commonality apparent between the two records. Goodbye Yellow Brick Road
was a huge commercial success that yielded multiple hit singles. While Blue Moves sold well, the album only produced one top-40 single. But commercial success and hit singles are not the only measures of artistic merit.
Elton John’s album Blue Moves was a brilliant artistic leap in the craft of popular music, songwriting, arranging, and production. The album’s opening side, which featured the songs “One Horse Town” and “Tonight,” stands as one of Elton’s finest LP sides. The production of the song “One Horse Town” presented Elton fans with one of the best-sounding recordings Elton has ever produced. The orchestrated opening of the song “Tonight,” performed by the London Symphony Orchestra, was simply mesmerizing and is one of the most beautiful pieces of music Elton has ever written.
The rest of the album featured some of Elton’s best unknown songs. Side two’s “Crazy Water” and “Cage the Songbird” are songs that need to be heard. Side four’s “Idol” is simply stunning. The album’s instrumentals, “Theme from a Non-Existent TV Series,” “Out of the Blue,” and “Your Starter for…” were sonic joys and a great deal of fun to listen to. The album also featured various guest artists who contributed background vocals and instrumentation. The Brecker Brothers, David Crosby, Graham Nash, Toni Tennille, Bruce Johnstone, and David Sanborn were among the well-known musicians to appear on the Blue Moves
LP.
Many critics panned the Blue Moves LP as an inconsistent commercial failure. I always laugh at critics who write negative reviews as if they could write anything close to the quality of music or lyrics that Elton John and Bernie Taupin have written. Blue Moves is a spectacular highlight among the many great albums Elton John has recorded. If you only know of “Sorry Seems to Be the Hardest Word,” I highly recommend that you take a deep listen to the rest of the album.
Editor’s note: Check out our very interesting interview with Kenny Passarelli, who was the bass player in the Elton John Band on the Blue Moves album.
An Interview with Kenny Passarelli
# 7 – Honky Chateau
Elton John’s most important transitional album was released in 1972. The album was entitled Honky Château and was Elton’s fifth official album release. The album was both a critical and commercial success. The record yielded two major hits on the U.S. and U.K. pop charts. “Rocket Man” was the album’s first single. The song “Rocket Man” reached No. 6 on the U.S. Billboard Top 40. The second single from the album, entitled “Honky Cat,” hit No. 8 on the U.S. Billboard charts. Songs like “Rocket Man” and “Honky Cat” were written and produced in a much more pop-oriented fashion than John’s previous work, which had been more soft rock-oriented. It marked the beginning of a huge succession of hit singles in a very short period that no other single songwriter artist has ever matched.
We have had singers like Elvis Presley and songwriters like Burt Bacharach who had long runs of singles, but no one, except Paul McCartney, has matched the number of hit songs released by a single singer-songwriter like Elton John. Elton’s Honky Château album marked the beginning of a glorious period in pop music history.
# 6 – Elton John 11-17-70
Well, if there ever was an Elton John album that left no doubt over its release date, it was Elton John’s 11-17-70 record. However, all kidding aside, the album showed the world just how great a rock-and-roll piano player Elton John was. The album featured Elton John on piano, Dee Murray on bass, and Nigel Olson on drums. No other instrumentation was utilized on the album. The entire record was performed live in front of a studio audience. Well, to quote Jerry Lee Lewis, the album 11-17-70 was “all killer, no filler.” Elton John, Dee Murray, and Nigel Olsson lit it up that evening. If you ever need to inspire a young pianist, bassist, or drummer to practice, let them hear this record. BAM!
# 5 – Caribou
The Caribou LP was the follow-up record to Elton John’s monster album Goodbye Yellow Brick Road. Elton John’s Caribou album was released on June 28, 1974. The album contained two of Elton John’s biggest hits, “Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me” and “The Bitch is Back.” However, the album also contained some of Elton John’s deepest album cuts. Songs like “Ticking,” “I’ve Seen the Saucers,” and “You’re So Static” remain among some of Elton’s most loved songs by hardcore Elton John fans.
The Caribou album was sandwiched between the two greatest Elton John albums, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road and Captain Fantastic, so it’s possible that, at times, the album can be a bit overlooked in the overall perspective of the great Elton John years of the early to mid-1970s. Nonetheless, every Elton John album presented a slightly different sound from the previous work. The album’s Tower of Power horn section gave the Caribou LP a distinctly grittier, funkier feel than other Elton John albums. Songs like “The Bitch is Back” and “You’re So Static” benefited greatly from the mighty sounds of the Tower of Power.
It’s still hard to believe that only six months after Elton had released Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, the artist could still turn out another album of incredibly well-written and original-sounding pop songs. Even more astonishing is the LP he released six months after Caribou. And between records, in true Beatles fashion, he had hit singles such as “Philadelphia Freedom,” “Pinball Wizard,” and “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds,” all non-album tracks. Simply amazing!
# 4 – Madman Across The Water
Two of the best Elton John songs were released on the Madman Across the Water LP. Elton’s “Levon” and “Tiny Dancer” opened the great Madman Across the Water LP and easily stand as two of the singer’s most loved songs. The rest of the LP featured a darker presentation of lyrical ideas through songs like” Indian Sunset,” which defined the Native American experience of the nineteenth century. “And the red sun sinks at last into the hills of gold, and peace to this young warrior comes from a bullet hole.” The album’s darker feel was even more fully expressed in the title track’s lyrics: “There’s a joke, and I know it very well; it’s one of those that I told you long ago.” Take my word, I’m a madman, don’t you know.” The songs delivered powerful imagery by combining Bernie’s lyrics and Elton’s melodies and chord changes. For many Elton fans, Madman Across the Water is their favorite LP. It was a work of depth that delivered songs bound to stories of the past while attempting to bridge their meaning into the present.
# 3 – Don’t Shoot Me I’m Only the Piano Player
Elton John’s Don’t Shoot Me I’m Only the Piano Player arrived in stores on January 23rd, 1973, with impressive album packaging. Inside the gatefold cover was an immense multi-page booklet containing colorful photographs of Elton John and Bernie Taupin. The pull-out booklet included the lyrics and credits to the album’s musical selections. It was the third time an Elton John album had contained a sizeable deluxe booklet; both Tumbleweed Connection and Madman Across the Water featured large booklets inside their gatefold covers. These booklets were only included in early pressings of the LPs and were eventually discontinued from the vinyl albums.
As beautiful and impressive as the packaging of Don’t Shoot Me I’m Only the Piano Player was, the music featured on the LP was even more outstanding. It was unbelievable the number of songs Elton and Bernie had been composing and recording at such a high quality at an alarming rate. Just after releasing songs like “Rocket Man” and “Honky Cat”, a mere six months later, the LP Don’t Shoot Me I’m Only the Piano Player presented Elton fans with more soon-to-be classic songs such as “Daniel, Crocodile Rock, Teacher I need You, Elderberry Wine and Midnight Creeper.” These were unique pieces of music that would define the entire careers of many artists. For Elton and Bernie, these songs defined just an average six-month period of a 40-plus-year career.
Elton’s Don’t Shoot Me I’m Only the Piano Player was a massive album that hit No. 1 on the Billboard Top 200 album charts. The first single, “Crocodile Rock,” also hit No. 1 on the Billboard Top 100 Pop Songs charts. The second single from the album, Daniel, hit No. 2 on the Billboard Top 100 Pop Songs charts. And just as it seemed Elton John and Bernie Taupin were sitting on the top of the musical world with nowhere else to go, just six months later, they released an even more epic album entitled Goodbye Yellow Brick Road that can easily be viewed as one of the greatest pop rock records ever made.
# 2 – Goodbye Yellow Brick Road
Elton John and Bernie Taupin’s epic work Goodbye Yellow Brick Road was released on October 5, 1973. The album was a two-record set that contained seventeen songs. The album reached No. 1 on the Billboard 200. The record also reached No. 1 on the UK album Charts. Elton John’s Goodbye Yellow Brick Road also finished the year in 1974 as the No. 1 album for the year on the Billboard Top 200 Album Charts. In 2014, the album was certified 8x platinum. It is easily the biggest-selling album of Elton John’s career. It spawned four hit singles: “Bennie and the Jets, Candle in the Wind, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, ” and ” Saturday Night’s Alright for Fighting.” It would have continued to yield singles if not for the release of a new Elton John album titled Caribou, which came six months after Goodbye Yellow Brick Road.
The album’s opening track, “Funeral for a Friend/ Love Lies Bleeding,” was a progressive rock pop masterpiece that became the classic opening number at Elton John shows throughout the artist’s career. The second and third tracks, “Bennie and the Jets” and “Candle in the Wind,” on the opening side became huge hit singles from the album. The reworked version of “Candle in the Wind,” rewritten in tribute to Princess Diana, has become Elton John’s biggest-selling single.
Side two opened with what this writer believes is Elton’s greatest song, “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road.” Yellow Brick Road was followed by classic, well-written, and performed Elton John deep album tracks like “This Song Has No Title” and “I’ve Seen That Movie Too.” Side two also contained “Grey Seal,” one of the most loved Elton John songs that was never released as a single. “Grey Seal” was one of the most popular songs from the album, played on FM rock radio.
The third side of Goodbye Yellow Brick Road also featured another FM radio staple called the “Ballad of Danny Bailey.” And while “Danny Bailey” was one of the highlights of the third side, the side also features an acid-sounding heavy rock tune called “All the Girls Love Alice,” which fit perfectly as the follow-up to side three’s funk-inspired song “Dirty Girl.”
The album’s closing side hosted the mega-hit “Saturday Night’s Alright for Fighting,” which has always stood as one of Elton’s heaviest rock-pop hits of his career. The song was played constantly on both AM and FM radio and was probably the favorite off the album for most Elton fans. It was a simply stunning and glorious rock-and-roll track with one of the greatest opening guitar riffs ever written in popular music history. Closing the album was Elton’s beautiful ballad “Harmony,” which had been poised to be released as the fifth single before time ran out, as a new album was released. “Harmony” was a huge fan favorite and was picked as the No. 1 song of all time on New York’s radio station 99x in 1975.
Most Elton John fans would choose Goodbye Yellow Brick Road as their favorite Elton John album. It was easily Elton’s most successful record. The songs released on the album have stood the test of time and are still played on the radio. I have always compared Elton’s Goodbye Yellow Brick Road to the Beatles’ Revolver and Rubber Soul records. For many Beatles fans, Revolver and Rubber Soul were their favorite Beatles records. John Lennon had always said that Revolver and Rubber Soul were recorded at the same time and really count as one large artistic moment in time for The Beatles. The two records delivered so many hits for the Beatles in a similar fashion to Elton John’s Goodbye Yellow Brick Road. However, as great a pair of records as Revolver and Rubber Soul were, The Beatles then went and released Sgt. Pepper, which has been widely regarded as the Beatles’ greatest album and possibly the greatest record ever made.
And so, only a year after Goodbye Yellow Brick Road and Caribou had been released, Elton John and Bernie Taupin delivered an album that many hardcore Elton John fans have viewed as Elton’s greatest album. As Goodbye Yellow Brick Road was Elton’s Revolver and Rubber Soul, his next album, Captain Fantastic, would be Elton John and Bernie Taupin’s Sgt. Pepper.
# 1 – Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy
Elton John and Bernie Taupin’s Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy album was their crowning moment and most outstanding musical achievement. Even Eton John has often said he thought the album was his best. The album opener, “Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy,” set the tone instantly for an album that defined the craft of deep poetic lyrical songwriting juxtaposed against extremely original melodies and chord changes written by a master musical composer experiencing and almost out of this world celebration of his natural gift for songwriting. The album left the listener breathless with songs like “Tower of Babel, Bitter Fingers, Better Of Dead, Meal Ticket,” and the massive hit single “Someone Saved My Life Tonight.”
Featured Photo” By Heinrich Klaffs [CC BY-SA 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
Updated February 10, 2026
Check out more Elton John articles on ClassicRockHistory.com Just click on any of the links below……
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Top 10 Elton John Love Songs
A Look At Elton John’s Christmas Songs
Top 100 Elton John Songs
Top 10 Elton John Albums
Top 10 Elton John Album Covers
10 Best Non-Album Track Elton John B Sides
Top 10 Elton John Non-Album Singles
Elton John Discography and Retrospective
Why Elton John’s Captain Fantastic Album Was So Great
Why Elton John’s Honky Château Was A Turning Point
Elton John’s Beautiful “Cage The Songbird,” Featured Crosby & Nash
Elton John’s “White Lady White Powder,” Featured The Eagles (Classic Rock Gems Series)
Elton John’s Retirement Seems Genuine This Time
Why Elton John’s Looking Up is His Best Single in Years
Elton John’s mesmerizing performance of Tiny Dancer in 1971
Elton John Releases New Documentary On Lockdown Sessions
Elton John & Ed Sheeran Hit # 1 with ‘Merry Christmas’ Single
Why Elton John’s Don’t Shoot Me I’m Only the Piano Player Was One Of His Most Melodic LPs
Elton John’s Honky Château Album Gets Deluxe 50th Anniversary Reissue
Why There Were Many Overlooked Gems On Elton John’s Caribou LP
10 Best Elton John Albums article published on Classic RockHistory.com© 2026
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