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Elton John · S4 E8
Four in the Top 10
The only artist in history with four albums in the Billboard Top 10 simultaneously. A commercial peak no one will replicate
In late 1975, four Elton John albums sit in the Billboard Top 10 at the same time. No solo artist has done this before, and no solo artist has done it since.
Elton John -- Sorry Seems to Be the Hardest Word (1976). Released just one year after the four-in-the-Top-10 peak. The most commercially dominant artist on the planet, singing a ballad about not knowing what to say. The cracks are already showing.
The Four
Rock of the Westies enters the chart at number one, Captain Fantastic is still in the Top 10, and Greatest Hits refuses to leave. Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, two years old, continues to sell. Four albums, four different eras, all competing with each other.
TAP TO REVEAL: How much of the world's music was Elton selling?
“I looked at the charts and thought: that can't be right. Four albums at the same time? I was outselling myself, my own competition.”
— Elton John, Me (2019)
Sorry Seems to Be the Hardest Word (1976)
From Blue Moves, released barely a year after the commercial peak. The arrangement is stripped to its bones: piano, strings, and a vocal so exposed it sounds like a confession. Listen for how Elton's voice cracks slightly on the title line, a moment of genuine vulnerability from a man the world sees as invincible.
Curtains -- Elton John
The closing track of Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy (1975). A quiet, fragile piano piece that ends the autobiography of Elton and Bernie's early years. Every peak has a moment of silence before the descent begins. The curtain falls.
Which of these was NOT one of Elton's four albums in the Billboard Top 10 in late 1975?
Four albums in the Top 10, two percent of all records sold, and nowhere left to climb. Next season: the bill comes due, and the man inside the sequins starts to unravel.
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To be continued
Season 5: Excess
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