Made in England | 
 enlarge | Artist: Elton John
Label: Polygram UK
Category: Music
List Price: $14.98
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Rating:  51 reviews
Sales Rank: 47939
Format: Import
Media: Audio CD
Discs: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 5.4 x 4.9 x 0.3
UPC: 731452618528
EAN: 0731452618528
ASIN: B000008OM6
Release Date: August 1, 2005
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| Tracks:
| • | Believe | | • | Made in England | | • | House | | • | Cold | | • | Pain | | • | Belfast | | • | Latitude | | • | Please | | • | Man | | • | Lies | | • | Blessed |
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| Customer Reviews:
 Good things always come to an end January 30, 2008
Guy Campeau (Stoneham, Quebec Canada)
Elton is a great artist, a real one. He made fantastic album in the 70's
and in the 80's, but good things never last forever. I think he did great stuff but his star has faded. This album isn't great but Elton still is.
 If you're made in England, you're built to last July 3, 2007
Tim Brough (Springfield, PA United States)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
After the twin triumphs of having "The One" peak in the US top ten and scoring a number one single with "Can You Feel The Love Tonight" from The Lion King," Elton was charging through the nineties on a renewed wave of success. In 1995, he released "Made In England," and the first single, "Believe." There is a sense of deep seriousness about that song, and Elton delivers it with a great deal of emotional force. Paul Buckmaster's strings accent the song perfectly. It is one of his best anthems in a long career and is the highlight of the album.
There more than a few change-ups on "Made In England." After several albums with Chris Thomas, new producer Greg Penny (former Elton cohort dating back to mixing "Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy") lightened up the sound to a point where it came closer to classic Elton than anything prior to "21 at 33." Bernie Taupin's lyrics were sharper than usual, a fact underscored by their terse single-word titles. And as they did on "The One's" "The Last Song," they took on a more serious topic in the lovely "Belfast."
It is a more jovial Elton that belts out the title track, which lives up to the line "here's my middle finger." A brief biography of Elton's childhood, it would have fit nicely on both "Captain Fantastic" or the recent "The Captain and the Kid." Along with the less interesting "Pain," it's the most upbeat song on the CD.
My personal favorite song on the album is "Blessed." With a lyric to an unborn child, it conveys all the love you can muster, cliches and all, for a baby to come. Bookending the album from the anthemish "Believe" ("Without love, I wouldn't believe in anything that lives and breathes") to the swelling expectations of the love for a life to come, it brought the album to a perfect close for me. Even though his output had slowed considerably since the glory years, Elton and Bernie proved again that they were capable of delivering quality music on "Made In England."
 One of Elton John's 2 best albums June 1, 2007
Christian Belinga (Durban, SA)
This album is the first revelation of the climax in the working collaboration between Elton's and his musical creativity and his lifetime friend and songwriter Bernie Taupin.
Favorites songs: Latitude, Belfast, Made in England and all the rest...
Also check "The Big Picture".
How in the world did this one slip by me?! January 7, 2007
I. Gross Georg (Edmond, Oklahoma USA)
5 out of 6 found this review helpful
As a 35-year fan of Sir Elton John, I thought I'd heard all of them. I had never heard this CD before late 2005! It's extraordinary!
The album was produced by Greg Penny, who I must say I'm thoroughly unfamiliar with, but I have to applaud him. George Martin conducted the strings and orchestra for "Latitude", a bluegrass beauty that has me wanting to waltz every time I hear it! He was behind the Beatles' better work, and he's a man who obviously appreciates orchestration like I do. I'm definitely a sucker for a French horn in a song. Young people believe strings don't belong in popular music; that's unfortunate and it's their loss.
The great Paul Buckmaster conducted the London Session Orchestra on the songs "Believe", "House", "Cold", and the exquisite Celtic masterpiece, "Belfast", a song that absolutely brings tears to my eyes for its sheer beauty; it's outstanding. "Believe" was re-introduced to me through YouTube; it's a gorgeous work, with a powerful message and a great music video that went with it that features the Twin Towers in it and is done in black and white. Just gorgeous.
The title track is a hoot! In this homage to his birthplace Taupin writes, and Sir Elton sings: "you can still say 'homo' and everybody laughs!" And I found out that a blue Cortina is a car! "House" sounds as if it were written for or by John Lennon; this doesn't surprise me at all. I love "Pain"; it's an excellent uptempo rocker, and the lyrics definitely convey a sense of the pervasiveness of pain! "Please" has a rockabilly/Beach Boys feel to it that's very pleasant. I hear the organ by Paul Carrack on "Man", and it makes me think of the late Billy Preston. There's really not a bad song on the album. I don't think that's always been the case with his recordings of the 90s.
Can I talk about Sir Elton's musicianship? His powerful piano work in the song "Lies" is second-to-none, as it is throughout the album. Davy's guitar work is fabulous, and he obviously emulates the late George Harrison at times. I love listening to him. Sadly, Dee's been gone a while, but I wonder why Nigel wasn't a part of this recording? Charlie and Bob are admirable stand-ins, none the less.
Finally, reading Bernie Taupin's lyrics are a very good reason to forego downloading this once, at least until the booklet is available by download also.
Seems like I do remember the song "Blessed", but for some reason I never made the connection to this album. It's typical that the song they chose for the single wasn't the best choice. It's very mellow with a sweet sentiment, though, not the dance number I would have thought would have been radio-worthy. I have to keep in mind that there's a whole generation of people who don't realize that Elton John is first and foremost a piano man/saloon singer! Maybe the record company felt this would be the safest song to release, since that generation knows him primarily as a balladeer!
This album put me in mind to the old days when I would see the song titles on an Elton John record and try to imagine what the songs would be like while I saved up to buy it. I used a lot of allowance money on his records back in the day, and at 10 cents a week I sometimes had a long wait. If this one had been released in the 70s when I was a teen, and with its non-electronica, live instrument sound it easily could have, this would have been well worth the wait! It's the sound that made this black teenager stare at the stereo with open-mouthed wonder in 1972. Listening to strings in my music was no surprise to me, I grew up with the Motown sound and it was as common as copper pennies back then. I miss orchestration in today's music as much as I miss melody. For me, Elton John's "Made in England" album represents everything that's missing in today's popular music.
Made in England was a gift from Sir Elton John that I'm sorry about not remembering when it was a brand new recording in 1995. But I've got it now, drawn by the compelling CD cover shot by Greg Gorman of Sir Elton at his handsome best, and I'm sharing it with everybody I know who still appreciates good music, good vocals, good arrangements, and good songwriting. It's a classic.
A GREAT Album September 23, 2006
Michael A. O. Donnell (Denver, Colorado)
If you enjoy Elton John's work of the early to mid 1990's Made In England will keep you smiling. No, it's not Madman Across The Water, but unlike some of Elton's music during the mid 1980's, there's a seriousness to this album that's refreshing. It appears Elton placed some emphasis on making a great album rather than just creating some good singles combined with filler songs.
The title track and Lies are fun and rockin' while Man has a tilt towards the gospely type songs E.J. excells with. Please, is catchy pop at it's best and I was disappointed it never bacame a single. It certainly would have been an automatic hit. In other areas, E.J. doesn't quite hit the mark as in the somewhat sappy, Blessed.
This was Elton John's best work in years up to that point. In my opinion, it's not the masterpiece of some of his 1970's albums but it ranks up there with his creative and throughly enjoyable albums of late such as Songs From The West Coast and The Captain & The Kid.
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