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Elton John partners with Burberry for limited edition vinyl box set

By Paul Sinclair

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A new Elton John vinyl box has been produced in association with luxury British brand Burberry and will be available exclusively in their stores from November.

Limited to 800 units, this box features six albums chosen by Elton presented in a specially designed Burberry box, individually numbered and “flecked with gold glitter” and has Elton’s signature embossed in gold lettering.

The albums within are Elton John (1970), Madman Across The Water (1971), 17-11-70 (the live album from 1971), Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy (1975) Too Low For Zero (1983) and Songs From The West Coast (2001).

From a collector’s point of view Songs From The West Coast is notable since that has never been issued on vinyl. These are 180g pressings have apparently been remastered by engineer Bob Ludwig, and the vinyl cut at Abbey Road Studios in London (by Sean Magee). It’s not clear whether any of these are new remasters or utilising previous work by Ludwig. Original artwork will be replicated for these albums.

Speaking about this set Elton said “choosing these six wasn’t easy; however I think they are a very good representation of my catalogue between 1970 and 2001.”

Obviously being a luxury brand, Burberry has attached a ‘luxury’ price to this product – £225 or $375. That’s a lot of cash when you consider this doesn’t come with even a ‘proper’ Elton signature (just a gold embossed one). SDE’s attempts to secure a review copy fell on deaf ears! (Burberry aren’t supplying press samples).

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60 thoughts on “Elton John partners with Burberry for limited edition vinyl box set”

  1. Pingback: Out This Week / 14 April 2017 | superdeluxeedition
  2. Pingback: Elton John / Songs From The West Coast available on 2LP vinyl separately | superdeluxeedition

  3. Really only interested in Songs From The West Coast.
    The price for this set is absolutely ludicrous and its a crime that this is out of the reach of a good majority of faithful fans budgets.Im sure individual releases will follow soon,especially for SFTWC.A release of the Thom Bell 6 track album would be nice also.

  4. Personally as a life long Elton fan I feel badly treated by Elton and whoever advises him as I would have loved this box set but there comes a point when you have to say enough is enough with regard to paying this ridiculous price for just 6 LP’s.
    As with most things these days its all about getting as much money as possible and sod the loyal fans who have bought their music since the first releases.
    I live in hope that a better vinyl box set will be released in time at a price that will be good value and not just a money grabbing exercise………….
    As a self confessed vinyl fan I bet Elton has the Queen coloured vinyl box set , maybe he may get some divine inspiration next time he plays that!!!

  5. Having gone to the trouble of pressing it up for this box set, I wouldn’t be surprised if “Songs From The West Coast” appears as a separate vinyl release later on.
    Meanwhile, nice to see that Elton continues to live on another planet as far as money is concerned. That said, it will be interesting to see if this sells out and commands even higher prices later on.

  6. It would be great to have Songs from the West Coast on vinyl. All the rest I have originals on vinyl that are in VG+ to NM. The Elton John album I picked up last year for 2 dollars. It was in great shape and just needed a clean.
    When I saw that Burberry was releasing this set I expected it to be expensive. Isn’t that what designer stuff is all about? I was more interested in Elton’s picks. Great selections in my opinion with the exception of the live album. Flip that for GYBR and it’s a far better set, but I still wouldn’t buy it.
    I heard Elton isn’t going to record any more new albums, too bad his last few were very good.

    1. Peter m, nothing wrong with that, at least one track Slow Rivers is a classic. Would like to hear the version he did in Australia live back in the 80s but not holding my breath.

      1. Not unless you can do circular breathing – ‘Slow Rivers’ could not be included on ‘Live In Australia’ due to contractual restrictions, and they would still apply. Elton called ‘Leather Jackets’ the album of his that he disliked most, although it may be the memory of the circumstances of his life at that time that make him feel that way. Many of the tracks are left-offs from ‘Ice On Fire’, and I have often thought that it would be a good idea for the healthy Elton to have a crack at re-recording [or redressing live] some of the work that the unhealthy Elton did not perhaps give the care he could have to. I always liked ‘Billy and the Kids’ from the B-Side of the ‘Slow Rivers’ single as well as the classic A-side. Maybe Elton could have partnered up a Burberry exclusive clothing-themed CD, with ‘Leather Jackets’ on it, alongside ‘Who Wears These Shoes’, ‘Soul Glove’, ‘Sartorial Eloquence’, ‘Heels Of The Wind’ [stretching it a bit with that one!] …. add your own if you also have nothing else to do on a Sunday afternoon!

        1. Paul, you could also add Monkey Suit and the Emperors New Clothes. I am sure there are more. Agree about Billy and the Kids and as you will be aware there are other great songs from the 80s which remain unreleased on CD including the B sides / EP tracks associated with the 21 at 33 album. The only one to my knowledge that is released is Cartier (now there is a tie in!) on the To Be Continued box set.

  10. Surprised there aren’t dozens of SDE readers chomping at the bit to get their hands on this latest over-priced ornament. They normally are!

  13. Guys, this box isn’t targeted at you. It’s targeted as an impulse buy in Burberry, for people to whom the price is irrelevant. It may even be designed for men to find while they’re waiting for their wives to finish choosing clothes… They could have stuck a diamond on the front and put a zero after the price and it would still sell. Xmas comes to rich people too, you know…

    1. If rich folk didn’t care about price then the BHS pension pot would be full to the brim again!

      £225 for six ordinary LPs is NOT an “impulse buy” no matter how much dosh you have. All they had to do to justify the pricetag is sign and number them, so effectively a no-cost justification.

  14. Yes, I think I paid circa £3.75 – in Woolies [ask your parents, streaming generation] – when it came out. Although it can be found in charity shops, trying to find one with the poster is an altogether different matter. Rather like Aladdin Sane with the Fan Club inserts, if you want the full job, you have to be prepared to add a zero on to the price. Elton seems rather loathe to release even Deluxe Editions, let alone SDL’s, which is rather puzzling, given both the sales of [most of] his back catalogue, and his legendary expenditure. ‘Captain Fantastic’ is more than deserving of the SDL treatment – quite why it never features in the top levels of those endless ‘Greatest Album’ polls is bizarre – and even without a disc of demos a nice set would be the album on CD, the album on vinyl, a disc of extras [the Lennon tracks and the b-sides and non-album tracks from the assorted re-issues], and the full Wembley concert on a further 2 CDs [the Deluxe Edition only contains the second half of the 21 June show of course, and the first half contains such live rarities as ‘Dixie Lily’ and ‘Chameleon’]. But not this November please!

    1. Paul, agree, I would buy that Captain Fantastic SDE you suggest in a shot (even with the vinyl). There are plenty of other EJ albums deserving that kind of treatment above a lot of the stuff that actually does make it to SDE-ville. The greatest albums of all time lists always amuse me with there lack of EJ content. Talk about underrated.

    2. Yes it’s quite bizarre that this album and others don’t make these critics’ lists, but actually I see that as a good thing. The people that know the worth of these albums have nothing to prove whereas critics are always trying to make out they have superior taste and insight over us mere mortals. I’ve bought plenty of records that appear on those lists because I believed the hype and guess what? Most of them are totally over-rated. They usually end up in charity shops. Elton’s work from 1970-75 is up there with the best.

  15. I wonder if it will come with stacks of errors such as crackles, pops, out of centre holes, warps, text misspellings, centre labels missing…etc and then it will be as good as the Dead Or Alive box set disaster for those who think it is okay because they can make a profit out of them later in life due to flaws and balls-ups because of bad quality control!

  18. I love Kenneth Dwight but come on ….. Your asking £35 + for each album… What does Burberry offer? Nothing. Absolutely nothing apart from cashing in on the vinyl revival. Elton please, please stop these people cashing in on your back catalogue. YOUR BETTER THAN THIS.

    1. I like Kenneth Dwight’s work too but I wouldn’t go so far as to say I love him. He’s possibly the best plumber in Swindon but that’s about the sum of it.

      As for Reginald Dwight, good singer but can’t say I can see the point of this box set. Rather elitist.

  19. How much would each click, pop and groove warble come to in currency? Anyone want to do the math? I ran from vinyl in the 80s and I’m not going back. The record labels tried Copy Protection on CDs… absolute failure. This is just their way of making money again.

  21. It’s quite easy to find second hand copies of “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road” cheaply in charity and second hand record shops. I paid 25p for my copy back in the summer, cleaned it using a cleaning machine – Knosti Disco Anti Static Record Cleaning Machine ( bargain at £37.90 from Amazon) and invested in new inner sleeves and protective covers from Covers 33 (the cheapest source I can find).

    By searching secondhand record shops, charity shops and ebay I have managed to buy a complete set of Gillan albums for under £10 including postage and all the albums in the Status Quo vinyl box for under £40.

    There are lots of bargains to be found out there and if you are prepared to invest in a cleaning machine and protective covers the sound reproduction will be as good as when the record was first pressed. Also, you have the advantage of having the original mix rather than a remix more suited to cd or an ipod. With a few exceptions I see no need to pay the often extortionate prices that the record companies are charging.

  23. Surprised he’s included Madman Across the Water, I believe he never used to like that one – even though it’s a five star classic. Time to put the Mobile Fidelity version on me thinks and look forward to the Primark CD box LOL.

    1. I think he regretted his vocal mannerisms rather than hated the songs. I have this down as his second best album after Captain Fantastic. A brilliant album and no UK singles. Quite a statement back then.

  24. i think all These companies are testing how far they can with their Price. As Long as People Keep buying this stuff, they will try to raise the Price even more. (sorry for the nonsensical capital letters, my spellcheck is acting weird).
    Just an example from a different branch: Comics. Now that Luc Besson is directing the first Valerian movie, the Publishing Company has released a Special Edition of the Comic Album the movie is based on. Packed with never before published drawings and printed in an oversized Format this Comic now costs you “juat” 195 euros. Now that the limited run of 500 copies is sold out, all of sudden an even more exclusive Version is thrown on the market, with signed prints and more rare stuff. This Version is available for ONLY one thousand euros. Yes, one thousand. When they find enough buyers they can continue with the other 20 Comic books of the series. Without me.

  25. Unjustified asking price but cannot argue with the albums in question. I wonder if Captain Fantastic comes with booklets and poster. Was it £3.75 on release in 1975? I know he apologised to the Wembley Stadium crowd when he premiered it in full. One of the greatest albums of that decade and still holds up all these years later and features one minor UK hit (No. 22 if memory serves me well).

  26. Would it have killed Elton to sign all 800 with a metallic pen which would at least go some way to fending off the claims of gouging for the staggering price-tag? Each one would be unique and they’d save themselves a few quid on the print cost by not having to bother with a metallic ink.

  30. The likes of people who could afford £225 for 6 vinyl records are people like Elton himself. Would love this boxset but I’m not a sultan or Donald Trump.

    Hope ‘Songs From The West Coast’ gets an individual release, what a great album that is.

    3. I could not agree with you less.

      Why not? There is demand, and it does seem as though profit is becoming a dirty word such is the level of stealing from companies via downloading that many people don’t see paying as something they have to do. Companies need profit, if something is overpriced it won’t sell (I haven’t bought the latest Human League as it is overpriced), but if it is priced sensibly and there is a market for it I still don’t get the hostility. (I do laugh when people here say a 5 CD set is overpriced at £16.99). No profit, no music , no point!

      It is basically… I don’t have a turntable, I don’t like vinyl therefore no vinyl should be released just to suit me.

      I don’t have a CD player (really I don’t) but live and let live with all these pointless CD re-issues……it’s great that there is a resurgence of any kind in physical media or else we will only have Spotify and Apple and where will be then?

      I was listening to the Trojan Records “This is Trojan” on spotify, it is brilliant so I hunted down the 6 LP box set (RSD 2016) and it is a thing of beauty. The world is a better place for it. As with all box-sets, they are perfect for someone, even if they are not perfect for you.

  32. Oh my stars Elton. How about partnering with Primark for those of us with limited budgets but who have been keeping your florist in comfort for the last few decades! Grizzling aside, it is of course highly unlikely [trans: not a chance] that they have only pressed up 800 albums, so looking forward to Captain Fantastic and Songs From The West Coast on vinyl later rather than sooner, but still sooner than never.

    1. Given the increased popularity of vinyl it would seem only logical that Eltons back catalogue must be out on vinyl before very long and not just a limited release with Burberry.
      Every artist is jumping on the bandwagon and I cannot see him being any different, I would love something like the queen box set ,all on coloured vinyl.
      I suppose the only problem is he has made so many albums but It would be something to look forward to!

  33. As much as I would love this box set it is far too expensive for just six records .
    For that sort of money it should have been along the lines of the Queen box set with coloured vinyl and a book.
    It could have been so much better with a bit of imagination but that is really not Elton’s forte given the horrendous Wonderful Crazy Night box set and this just smacks of a money grabbing release.
    Paul,do you know if any of these will be released individually? as I would love a vinyl version of Captain Fantastic.
    Thanks

  34. I’d love to have ‘Songs from the West Coast’ on vinyl but I certainly won’t buy this super expensive box just to get one album I really want (guess that with 800 only the chances of getting one are slim anyway – even at that price)!

  37. Pretty good choice , I think , but I guess I’m surprised that ” Goodbye Yellow Brick Road ” isn’t there. I assume the fact that it’s a double vinyl sealed its fate.

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