The Fox (Elton John album)

The Fox
Studio album by Elton John
Released 20 May 1981
Recorded August, December 1979
January–June 1980
at Super Bear Studios (Nice, France); Sunset Sound Recorders, The Village Recorder and Devlon Studios (Los Angeles); Abbey Road Studios (London).
Genre Rock, soft rock, pop rock, new wave
Length 45:39
Label Geffen (US)
Rocket (UK)
Producer Chris Thomas, Elton John, Clive Franks
Elton John chronology
21 at 33
(1980)		 The Fox
(1981)		 Jump Up!
(1982)
Singles from The Fox
  1. "Nobody Wins"
    Released: 23 May, 1981
  2. "Just Like Belgium"
    Released: July 1981
  3. "Chloe"
    Released: July 1981
Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
Allmusic[1]
Rolling Stone[2]

The Fox, released in 1981, is the fifteenth official album release for Elton John. With sales of approx. 300,000 US copies, it was one of Elton's poorest-selling albums in the United States.

The track, "Elton's Song", was banned from radio play in some countries due to its content, which included references to homosexuality. The album was produced by John, Clive Franks and for the first time, Chris Thomas, who would produce many more albums with John through most of the 1980s and '90s.

Five of the songs (noted below) were recorded during the sessions for his previous album 21 at 33. All B-sides released around this time were also from those sessions.

Track listing

Side one
  1. "Breaking Down Barriers" (John, Gary Osborne) – 4:41
  2. "Heart in the Right Place" (John, Osborne) – 5:11*
  3. "Just Like Belgium" (John, Bernie Taupin)– 4:08
  4. "Nobody Wins" (Jean-Paul Dreau, Osborne) – 3:37
  5. "Fascist Faces" (John, Taupin) – 5:10
Side two
  1. "Carla/Etude" (John) – 4:46*
  2. "Fanfare" (John, James Newton Howard) – 1:26*
  3. "Chloe" (John, Osborne) – 4:40*
  4. "Heels of the Wind" (John, Taupin) – 3:32
  5. "Elton's Song" (John, Tom Robinson) – 3:01*
  6. "The Fox" (John, Taupin) – 5:11

(*): Recorded in August and December 1979 and produced by John and Clive Franks. Chris Thomas produced the other tracks.

In 2003, Mercury/Universal and The Rocket Record Company reissued the album on CD, remastered by Gary Moore. The line-up contained no bonus tracks. On the 2003 reissue and remaster (and European) CD, "Carla/Etude", "Fanfare" and "Chloe" are combined into one track, making it a nine-track album.

French and Quebec releases of the album included "J'Veux de la Tendresse" in place of "Nobody Wins". "Tendresse" was the original French version of the song which Osborne wrote English lyrics for, thus transforming the song into "Nobody Wins".

After 1981, only "Chloe", "Just Like Belgium", "Nobody Wins" and "Elton's Song" would be included in Elton's Jump Up tour in 1982. While "Chloe", "Just Like Belgium" and "Nobody Wins" have never been performed again since that tour, "Elton's Song" was performed a few times on a solo tour in 1999. Since then, however, Elton has also stopped performing that song.

However, since the album's release, Elton would perform "Carla/Etude" frequently, making it the only song off the album that is still occasionally being performed as of 2015.

B-sides

Song Format
"Fools in Fashion" "Nobody Wins" 7" (US/UK)
"Nobody Wins" (extended version) "Nobody Wins" 12" (US)
"Je Veux De La Tendresse" (French version of "Nobody Wins") "Nobody Wins" 12" (US)
"Can't Get Over Getting Over Losing You" "Just Like Belgium" 7" (UK)
"Tortured" "Chloe" 7" (US)

Visions: The videos from The Fox

Visions, released on VHS in 1982, is a video of all ten songs recorded for The Fox album. It is notable as one of the first long-form video releases of an album. The collection was also released on RCA's CED digital video disc, a precursor to the Laserdisc and DVD, but has not been released since. One of the videos, for the song "Elton's Song", dealt with a teenager's admiration of another teenage boy he yearns for, but is too shy to confront—it was excluded from the UK video release, because the public school it was filmed at objected to the theme of the song. All the videos were directed by Russell Mulcahy.

Personnel

Production

Charts

Weekly charts

Chart (1981) Peak position
Australian Kent Music Report Albums Chart[3] 2
Austrian Albums Chart[4] 11
Canadian RPM Albums Chart[5] 43
Dutch Mega Albums Chart[6] 20
French SNEP Albums Chart[7] 5
New Zealand Albums Chart[8] 6
Norwegian VG-lista Albums Chart[9] 5
Swedish Albums Chart[10] 25
UK Albums Chart[11] 12
US Billboard 200[12] 21
West German Media Control Albums Chart[13] 34

Year-end charts

Chart (1981) Position
Australian Albums Chart[3] 31
French Albums Chart[14] 15

Certifications

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Region Certification Certified units/Sales
United Kingdom (BPI)[15] Silver 60,000^

^shipments figures based on certification alone

References

  1. ↑ "The Fox". Allmusic. Retrieved 16 February 2012.
  2. ↑ Archived 16 May 2007 at the Wayback Machine.
  3. 1 2 Kent, David (1993). Australian Chart Book 1970–1992. St Ives, NSW: Australian Chart Book. ISBN 0-646-11917-6.
  4. ↑ "austriancharts.at Elton John – The Fox" (ASP). Hung Medien (in German). Retrieved 29 October 2011.
  5. ↑ Library and Archives Canada. Retrieved 29 January 2012
  6. ↑ "dutchcharts.nl Elton John – The Fox" (ASP). Hung Medien (in Dutch). MegaCharts. Retrieved 29 January 2012.
  7. ↑ "InfoDisc : Tous les Albums classés par Artiste > Choisir Un Artiste Dans la Liste" (PHP) (in French). infodisc.fr. Retrieved 29 January 2012.
  8. ↑ "charts.org.nz Elton John – The Fox" (ASP). Hung Medien. Recording Industry Association of New Zealand. Retrieved 29 January 2012.
  9. ↑ "norwegiancharts.com Elton John – The Fox" (ASP). Hung Medien. VG-lista. Retrieved 29 January 2012.
  10. ↑ "swedishcharts.com Elton John – The Fox" (ASP) (in Swedish). Retrieved 29 January 2012.
  11. ↑ "Chart Stats – Elton John – The Fox" (PHP). UK Albums Chart. Retrieved 29 January 2012.
  12. ↑ "allmusic ((( The Fox > Charts & Awards > Billboard Albums )))". allmusic.com. Retrieved 29 January 2012.
  13. ↑ "Album Search: Elton John – The Fox" (in German). Media Control. Retrieved 29 January 2012.
  14. ↑ "Les Albums (CD) de 1981 par InfoDisc" (PHP) (in French). infodisc.fr. Retrieved 29 January 2012.
  15. ↑ "British album certifications – Elton John – The Fox". British Phonographic Industry. Enter The Fox in the field Keywords. Select Title in the field Search by. Select album in the field By Format. Select Silver in the field By Award. Click Search
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