In this episode, Scot and Jeff discuss Elton John with Jamie Kirchick, author of The End of Europe.
Introducing the Band:
Your hosts Scot Bertram (@ScotBertram) and Jeff Blehar (@EsotericCD) with guest Jamie Kirchick (@JKirchick). He’s a Brookings Institution Visiting Fellow, author of The End of Europe, and columnist for Tablet magazine.
Jamie’s Music Pick: Elton John:
Allow us to simply quote from this recent Vulture piece on Sir Elton:
He had seven No. 1 albums in a row in the U.S. These albums, in a three-and-a-half-year period, spent a total of 39 weeks at No. 1, a bit less than a quarter of that overall span. By Billboard’s rankings, he is by far the biggest album act of the 1970s (despite the fact that he didn’t have a top-ten album after 1976). He is also Billboard’s biggest singles act of the decade, and the magazine’s third-biggest singles artist of all time, with nine No. 1 singles and 27 top-ten hits, which is a lot. In all, he’s sold more than 150 million albums and 100 million singles.
We cover his classic period in-depth, discuss works through Too Low For Zero, and then do our best to summarize the remainder of an amazing career.