1 MIN VIDEO I 5 MIN READ
Elton John
The Icon, The Legend, The Elton John doesn’t really need an introduction. You probably know his songs, like “Rocket Man” — his 1972 hit single. He’s released 31 albums since 1969.
Elton is one of the best-selling artists of all time, having sold over 300 million records worldwide in a six decade career in music. He has more than fifty Top 40 hits in the UK Singles Chart and US Billboard Hot 100, including nine number ones in the UK and US, as well as seven consecutive number-one albums in the US. His 1973 double album Goodbye Yellow Brick Road and his 1974 Greatest Hits compilation album are among the best-selling albums worldwide. His tribute single “Candle in the Wind 1997”, a rewritten version of his 1974 single in dedication to Diana, Princess of Wales, sold over 33 million copies worldwide and is the best-selling chart single of all time. In 2019, John was ranked by Billboard as the top solo artist in US chart history (third overall), and the top Adult Contemporary artist of all time. In 2021, John became the first solo artist with UK Top 10 singles across six decades.
In this 2016 article, Elton says, “He says his commercial ambitions for the new album are modest, a far cry from the days when, according to one statistic, he was singlehandedly responsible for 2% of all global record sales. “I don’t have to compete any more,” he says. “It’s Justin Bieber’s time and Rihanna’s time, Drake’s time, let’s just accept it and get on with it, move over. I make an album every year and a half, it’s not an event when I make an album.”
But that doesn’t mean that Elton is finished — his life, career and current farewell tour will be the subject of a new documentary, “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road: The Final Elton John Performances And The Years That Made His Legend.” It is set to feature decades of unseen concert footage and John’s own handwritten journals.
John came out as bisexual in a 1976 interview with Rolling Stone, and in 1992 he told Rolling Stone in another interview that he was “quite comfortable about being gay”. In 1992, after losing two friends to HIV/AIDS in the span of a year, John founded the Elton John AIDS Foundation, an organisation which has raised over $600 million to support HIV related programs in fifty-five countries.
This introduction to the life and contributions of LGBTQ+ icon, Elton John, was made possible through a partnership with Pratt.
