50 Years Ago: Elton John's Historic Billboard Triumph – A True Game-Changer?

Fifty years ago, issue dated June 7, 1975 Elton John accomplished what nobody had done previously: He joined the 200 At number one, he accomplished this milestone with his ninth studio record. CaptainFantastic and theBrownDirtCowboy .

The album dislodged Earth, Wind & Fire 's Such Is Life , which had occupied the top spot for the preceding three weeks. It was strong enough to maintain its position. Wings ' Venus and Mars - the group's subsequent release after their iconic album Band on the Run – to the No. 2 spot for four consecutive weeks before Wings finally moved up to No. 1 for one week.

Over the nearly twenty years from the launch of the 200 in March 1956 until Captain Fantastic 's history-making accomplishment, the highest any album had entered the 200 was No. 2. Van Cliburn's Tchaikovsky: Piano Concerto No. 1 emerged at number two in the edition from Aug. 4, 1958 (interestingly enough, this was also when the Hot 100 first appeared). Ricky Nelson 's "Poor Little Fool" as the inaugural leader).

How did a classical album manage to gain rapid popularity? Cliburn attained worldwide recognition after winning the first edition of the competition. International Tchaikovsky Competition In Moscow during 1958, at the peak of the Cold War. A cover story was published in TIME On May 19, 1958, he was dubbed "The Texan Who Tamed Russia." His album remained at the top of the 200 charts for seven consecutive weeks, earned a Grammy Award for Best Classical Performance – Instrumentalist, and was nominated for Album of the Year.

As the Cliburn album was somewhat distant from our focus, we'll delve further. Previously, the peak position for a modern pop or rock album upon release had been Captain Fantastic It ranked as No. 3. This was its first appearance at that position. The Beatles ' Hey Jude (March 21, 1970) and a pair of Led Zeppelin albums: Led Zeppelin III (Oct. 24, 1970) and Physical Graffiti (March 15, 1975). Three more contemporary pop or rock albums had debuted in the top five prior to Captain Fantastic : the Woodstock soundtrack (No. 4, June 6, 1970), George Harrison 's All Things Must Pass (No. 5, Dec. 19, 1970) and Elton's previous studio album Caribou (No. 5, July 6, 1974)

Captain Fantastic It was Elton's sixth number one album within less than three years. His 1972 record remained at the top spot. Honky Chateau reached the top spot during its fifth chart week. Two albums from 1973 – Don't Blame Me, I'm Just the Musician and Goodbye Yellow Brick Road —both topped the charts in their fourth week. Two albums from 1974 achieved this as well. Caribou and Greatest Hits — Both achieved the number one position in their second week. Elton’s popularity continued to rise consistently from year to year, as evident.

Captain Fantastic 's debut at No. 1 received considerable media attention and contributed to Elton's status as the Top Pop Artist of the Year – years before officially recognized such a thing.

In calendar year 1975, Elton had three No. 1 albums on the 200 (one a carryover from 1974) and three No. 1 singles on the Hot 100 as well as a notable cameo appearance in a fourth production – Neil Sedaka 'S "Bad Blood")); made a brief appearance as The Pinball Wizard in the acclaimed film version of The Who’s Tommy ; featured on the cover of TIME (the inevitable cover line: "Rock's Captain Fantastic"); and became the first artist since The Beatles to play a concert (two, actually) at Dodger Stadium.

Since Elton's through-the-roof 1975, we've seen such artists as the Bee Gees (1978), Michael Jackson (1983-84) and Taylor Swift (2023-24) experience this same "how-much-hotter-can-they-get" phenomenon.

Captain Fantastic was a loosely autobiographical concept album about the struggles that John (Captain Fantastic) and his longtime lyricist Bernie Taupin (the Brown Dirt Cowboy) experienced in the early years of their careers in London from 1967 to 1969, leading up to John's eventual breakthrough in 1970.

Captain Fantastic spent its first six weeks at No. 1 before yielding the top spot to Wings' Venus and Mars and then Eagles ' One of These Nights (which had five weeks on top). In late August, Captain Fantastic returned for a seventh week at No. 1. Only two other John albums ever logged seven or more weeks at No. 1: Goodbye Yellow Brick Road (eight weeks at number one in 1973) and Greatest Hits (10 weeks on top in 1974-75).

Captain Fantastic received two Grammy nominations: album of the year (John's third in that category, following Elton John and Caribou ) and Best Pop Vocal Performance, Male. He didn't win either award. Paul Simon for Crazy After All These Years Still (Fun Fact: Simon had also claimed Album of the Year, alongside Art Garfunkel , for Bridge Over Troubled Water Five years prior, when the Elton John album was nominated.) Gus Dudgeon The producer behind John's album was nominated for Producer of the Year, Non-Classical category at the Grammys. (He lost out to Arif Mardin.)

Only one single was released from Captain Fantastic : "Someone Saved My Life Tonight." Despite its length and somber tone, the song reached No. 4 on the Hot 100, a reflection of Elton's popularity at the time. Clocking in at 6:45, "Someone Saved" was the longest song to crack the top five on the Hot 100 since The Temptations ' symphonic soul smash "Papa Was a Rollin' Stone" (6:53), a No. 1 hit in December 1972.

Certainly, despite only one single being released from Captain Fantastic , Elton was dominating pop radio that week. Captain Fantastic launched, John's earlier single, the fantastic, disco-infused "Philadelphia Freedom," rebounds to No. 10 on the Hot 100 after reaching No. 1 in April. Despite not being officially released as a single, John’s version of "Pinball Wizard" from the Tommy The soundtrack was frequently aired on numerous pop radio stations as if it were a top-hit single.

The The staff featured three tracks from Captain Fantastic in its 2022 listing of the 75 Greatest Elton John Tracks , synchronized with the star's 75th birthday celebration. "Tower of Babel" secured the 73rd position, "Curtains" took the 29th spot, and "Someone Saved" remarkably climbed to the third place. Melinda Newman commented on the latter song, stating, “This track brims with more dramatic flair than a typical Lifetime TV movie, touching upon Elton’s initial suicide attempt back in 1968. The music, characterized by its weighty, sluggish, yet immediately memorable keyboard-driven tune, complements the grandiose narrative… 'Someone’ moves at a pace as slow as molasses but in an incredibly captivating manner, Sugar Bear.”

In November 1975, merely half a year following this event, Captain Fantastic was the first album to top the charts upon release; following this success, Elton released another album, Rock of the Westies , ranked as the second. Unlike Captain Fantastic , Rock was headlined by a strongly commercial single, the vibrant funk-reggae hit "Island Girl," Which ruled the Hot 100 chart for three consecutive weeks.

In October 1976, Stevie Wonder 's Music from the Heartbeat of Life was the third album to reach the No. 1 position upon release. It took over a decade before another album topped the charts right after its release. Bruce Springsteen with the E Street Band 's Live/1975-85 accomplished this in November 1986. The subsequent year, Whitney Houston and Michael Jackson began at the pinnacle with their chart-topping album releases Whitney and Bad , respectively.

In May 1991, Started assembling the list of 200 based on genuine unit sales. Consequently, reaching number one became far more frequent. From June through December 1991, seven albums launched atop the charts—a slight increase compared to the six records that accomplished this over the preceding sixteen years. (As of December 2014, the ranking system for the chart shifted to include total album units, factoring in both streams and sales; since then, albums have continued to frequently debut at number one.)

In 2006, John created a follow-up of sorts to Captain Fantastic . That album, The Captain and the Kid reached number 18 on the list of 200.

Two songs from Captain Fantastic were included in the 2018 tribute album, Reimagine: Rediscovering the Music of Elton John & Bernie Taupon . Mumford an d Sons Covered "Someone Saved My LifeTonight." Coldplay undertook "We All Fall in Love Sometimes." That album climbed to No. 13 on the charts.

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