In the spring of 1976, Elton John was recording in four cities at once — London, Santa Monica, Los Angeles, Toronto. This time he was making something stranger, longer and harder to pin down. On October 22, 1976, that record arrived: Blue Moves, his eleventh studio album.
Rocket Record Company and Gus Dudgeon
It was the first release on Rocket Record Company, the label John had founded himself, and his second double album. The sessions ran from March to June 1976, with producer Gus Dudgeon shaping the sprawling material. Blue Moves would be their last collaboration until Ice on Fire in 1985.
The music was a deliberate departure. Pop, gospel, disco and jazz rubbed against each other, with orchestral arrangements and unusually extended songs. The London Symphony Orchestra and Martyn Ford's orchestra both played on the record. Critics heard ambition, but many also heard excess. Some said the album was too much; others argued there simply was not enough strong material to justify two discs. The song Cage the Songbird was dedicated to the French singer Edith Piaf. A year later Kiki Dee recorded a cover of it for an unreleased Rocket album that only appeared in 2008.
An Indefinite Break From Touring
The timing made the stakes even higher. In the same month the album appeared, John told Rolling Stone he was taking an indefinite break from touring. He also publicly acknowledged his bisexuality in that interview. Blue Moves arrived not as another victory lap, but as the sound of an artist stepping off the treadmill.
Blue Moves arrived not as another victory lap, but as the sound of an artist stepping off the treadmill.
The cracks were visible in the details. The song Chameleon had been written two years earlier and was first performed at Wembley Stadium in 1975. The Beach Boys had turned it down. John kept it for Blue Moves. The album's first single, Sorry Seems to Be the Hardest Word, still reached the top 10 in the US and top 20 in Britain. The album still found commercial life beyond its lead single. Bite Your Lip (Get Up and Dance!) and Crazy Water, the latter released only in Britain, both climbed into the top 30. Blue Moves eventually earned a platinum certification from the RIAA and a gold award from the BPI.
The Number-Three Peak
But the chart run had changed. Blue Moves peaked at number 3 on the US Billboard 200, ending John's streak of number-one albums in America. In the UK it also landed at number 3. For an artist who had made chart-topping look routine, that third place felt like a stumble. The mixed reviews did not help.
After Blue Moves, John and lyricist Bernie Taupin paused their partnership, reuniting only partially on the 1980 album 21 at 33. The record also marked the end of his work with Dudgeon until 1985. Yet John himself never lost faith in it. He has called Blue Moves one of his favorite albums, and later listeners have come around too — many now describe it as one of the most underrated records in his catalogue. Some of its songs took on lives of their own long after the release. George Michael performed Idol during his Symphonica tour in 2011, introducing it as a song about an aging pop star. His version of Tonight later appeared on the 2014 album Symphonica. In 1992 John came out as gay. The album also marked his last work with Caleb Quaye and drummer Roger Pope.
Fifty years on, Blue Moves remains one of John's favorite albums. It was too long for some, too strange for others, and just right for the man who made it.