There's going to be very little of Elton John singing on the Rocketman soundtrack

By William Hughes  |  May 2, 2019 | 2:31am
Aux Features Film
There's going to be very little of Elton John singing on the Rocketman soundtrack
Photo: Rich Fury

We’re less than a month out from the release of Elton John “biopic” Rocketman, which promises to tell a fantastic, R-rated version of the celebrated singer’s life. You’d be forgiven for assuming that the John-authorized project—which stars Taron Egerton as the former Mr. Reginald Dwight—would also feature some of his celebrated singing, too, but, well:

Variety reports tonight that new details about the movie’s soundtrack have just emerged, including the information that John and Egerton will duet together on a new, original, won’t-someone-please-give-us-an-Oscar-huh track, “(I’m Gonna) Love Me Again.) And that, apparently, is also the only Actual Elton on the movie’s soundtrack. While the film will heavily feature tunes written by John and Bernie Taupin, they’ve all been re-recorded, with Egerton providing the vocals and Giles Martin producing.

Here’s John himself, talking about the decision to back away from this aspect of the project:

It was so important that the music I composed and recorded had to be sung by Taron. I left Taron in the hands of Giles Martin, who I trusted implicitly because he’s brilliant. I didn’t want to be in Taron’s shadows, watching over the process, I trusted them to do what they needed to do, artistically, and listening back I’ve been astonished with the results.

Which is a noble enough intent, of course. But while Egerton has shown that he can at least do pretty decent Elton John karaoke, it still means that the end result will be an album that’s essentially Elton John’s Greatest Hits, But Worse—so, yeah, “The Rocketman Soundtrack” is probably a better way to sell that to the fans.

 
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