Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy is the ninth studio album by Elton John. The album is an autobiographical account of the early musical careers of Elton John (Captain Fantastic) and his long-term lyricist Bernie Taupin (the Brown Dirt Cowboy). It was released in May 1975 by MCA in America and DJM in the UK and was an instant commercial success. The album reached number 1 in its first week of release on the US Billboard 200, the first ever album to do so, reportedly selling 1.4 million copies within 4 days of release, and it stayed in that position in the chart for seven weeks. In 2003, the album was ranked number 158 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, maintaining the rating in a 2012 revised list.
Sitting atop the charts in 1975, Elton John and Bernie Taupin recalled their rise to power in Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy, their first explicitly conceptual effort since Tumbleweed Connection. It's no coincidence that it's their best album since then, showcasing each at the peak of his power, as John crafts supple, elastic, versatile pop and Taupin's inscrutable wordplay is evocative, even moving. What's best about the record is that it works best of a piece -- although it entered the charts at number one, this only had one huge hit in "Someone Saved My Life Tonight," which sounds even better here, since it tidily fits into the musical and lyrical themes. And although the musical skill on display here is dazzling, as it bounces between country and hard rock within the same song, this is certainly a grower. The album needs time to reveal its treasures, but once it does, it rivals Tumbleweed in terms of sheer consistency and eclipses it in scope, capturing John and Taupin at a pinnacle. They collapsed in hubris and excess not long afterward -- Rock of the Westies, which followed just months later is as scattered as this is focused -- but this remains a testament to the strengths of their creative partnership.
~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music
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Track List:
01. Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy [0:05:45.08]
02. Tower of Babel [0:04:28.23]
03. Bitter Fingers [0:04:33.39]
04. Tell Me When the Whistle Blows [0:04:20.55]
05. Someone Saved My Life Tonight [0:06:45.20]
06. (Gotta Get a) Meal Ticket [0:04:01.23]
07. Better Off Dead [0:02:37.29]
08. Writing [0:03:40.23]
09. We All Fall in Love Sometimes [0:04:16.17]
10. Curtains [0:06:16.26]
Exact Audio Copy V1.3 from 2. September 2016
EAC extraction logfile from 28. February 2020, 19:10
Elton John / Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy
Used drive : PLEXTOR DVDR PX-L890SA Adapter: 1 ID: 0
Read mode : Secure
Utilize accurate stream : Yes
Defeat audio cache : Yes
Make use of C2 pointers : No
Read offset correction : 6
Overread into Lead-In and Lead-Out : No
Fill up missing offset samples with silence : Yes
Delete leading and trailing silent blocks : No
Null samples used in CRC calculations : Yes
Used interface : Native Win32 interface for Win NT & 2000
Gap handling : Appended to previous track
Used output format : User Defined Encoder
Selected bitrate : 1024 kBit/s
Quality : High
Add ID3 tag : No
Command line compressor : C:\Program Files (x86)\Exact Audio Copy\Flac\flac.exe
Additional command line options : -8 -V -T "ARTIST=%artist%" -T "TITLE=%title%" -T "ALBUM=%albumtitle%" -T "DATE=%year%" -T "TRACKNUMBER=%tracknr%" -T "GENRE=%genre%" -T "PERFORMER=%albuminterpret%" -T "COMPOSER=%composer%" %haslyrics%--tag-from-file=LYRICS="%lyricsfile%"%haslyrics% -T "ALBUMARTIST=%albumartist%" -T "DISCNUMBER=%cdnumber%" -T "TOTALDISCS=%totalcds%" -T "TOTALTRACKS=%numtracks%" -T "COMMENT=%comment%" %source% -o %dest%
TOC of the extracted CD
Track | Start | Length | Start sector | End sector
---------------------------------------------------------
1 | 0:00.00 | 5:45.08 | 0 | 25882
2 | 5:45.08 | 4:28.23 | 25883 | 46005
3 | 10:13.31 | 4:33.39 | 46006 | 66519
4 | 14:46.70 | 4:20.55 | 66520 | 86074
5 | 19:07.50 | 6:45.20 | 86075 | 116469
6 | 25:52.70 | 4:01.23 | 116470 | 134567
7 | 29:54.18 | 2:37.29 | 134568 | 146371
8 | 32:31.47 | 3:40.23 | 146372 | 162894
9 | 36:11.70 | 4:16.17 | 162895 | 182111
10 | 40:28.12 | 6:16.26 | 182112 | 210337
Track 1
Filename H:\AUDIO\MUSIC\Elton John Japan\1975. Elton John - Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy (Mercury UICY-78964, Japan, SHM)\01 Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy.wav
Pre-gap length 0:00:02.00
Peak level 100.0 %
Extraction speed 5.4 X
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC B6D9499A
Copy CRC B6D9499A
Accurately ripped (confidence 6) [5327063B] (AR v2)
Copy OK
Track 2
Filename H:\AUDIO\MUSIC\Elton John Japan\1975. Elton John - Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy (Mercury UICY-78964, Japan, SHM)\02 Tower of Babel.wav
Peak level 96.1 %
Extraction speed 6.0 X
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC A1519226
Copy CRC A1519226
Accurately ripped (confidence 6) [7A44D734] (AR v2)
Copy OK
Track 3
Filename H:\AUDIO\MUSIC\Elton John Japan\1975. Elton John - Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy (Mercury UICY-78964, Japan, SHM)\03 Bitter Fingers.wav
Peak level 82.5 %
Extraction speed 5.9 X
Track quality 99.9 %
Test CRC C1333F84
Copy CRC C1333F84
Accurately ripped (confidence 6) [72E97E43] (AR v2)
Copy OK
Track 4
Filename H:\AUDIO\MUSIC\Elton John Japan\1975. Elton John - Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy (Mercury UICY-78964, Japan, SHM)\04 Tell Me When the Whistle Blows.wav
Peak level 90.9 %
Extraction speed 7.0 X
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC 35DE70EC
Copy CRC 35DE70EC
Accurately ripped (confidence 6) [333C3C1E] (AR v2)
Copy OK
Track 5
Filename H:\AUDIO\MUSIC\Elton John Japan\1975. Elton John - Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy (Mercury UICY-78964, Japan, SHM)\05 Someone Saved My Life Tonight.wav
Peak level 96.0 %
Extraction speed 7.9 X
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC 924C417F
Copy CRC 924C417F
Accurately ripped (confidence 6) [281EF235] (AR v2)
Copy OK
Track 6
Filename H:\AUDIO\MUSIC\Elton John Japan\1975. Elton John - Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy (Mercury UICY-78964, Japan, SHM)\06 (Gotta Get a) Meal Ticket.wav
Peak level 93.4 %
Extraction speed 7.9 X
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC FD463885
Copy CRC FD463885
Accurately ripped (confidence 6) [C20F8C1C] (AR v2)
Copy OK
Track 7
Filename H:\AUDIO\MUSIC\Elton John Japan\1975. Elton John - Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy (Mercury UICY-78964, Japan, SHM)\07 Better Off Dead.wav
Peak level 97.4 %
Extraction speed 6.4 X
Track quality 99.9 %
Test CRC EEC6F00E
Copy CRC EEC6F00E
Accurately ripped (confidence 6) [8FD627F2] (AR v2)
Copy OK
Track 8
Filename H:\AUDIO\MUSIC\Elton John Japan\1975. Elton John - Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy (Mercury UICY-78964, Japan, SHM)\08 Writing.wav
Peak level 93.0 %
Extraction speed 2.3 X
Track quality 99.5 %
Test CRC 44792C32
Copy CRC 44792C32
Accurately ripped (confidence 6) [90A163E9] (AR v2)
Copy OK
Track 9
Filename H:\AUDIO\MUSIC\Elton John Japan\1975. Elton John - Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy (Mercury UICY-78964, Japan, SHM)\09 We All Fall in Love Sometimes.wav
Peak level 78.9 %
Extraction speed 1.8 X
Track quality 99.7 %
Test CRC E5DAFE7F
Copy CRC E5DAFE7F
Accurately ripped (confidence 6) [B5BE026C] (AR v2)
Copy OK
Track 10
Filename H:\AUDIO\MUSIC\Elton John Japan\1975. Elton John - Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy (Mercury UICY-78964, Japan, SHM)\10 Curtains.wav
Peak level 86.0 %
Extraction speed 3.7 X
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC 4549380D
Copy CRC 4549380D
Accurately ripped (confidence 6) [6C251C26] (AR v2)
Copy OK
All tracks accurately ripped
No errors occurred
End of status report
==== Log checksum 33BC33B24540D2BB3C9C3FBFB835B529F2B21314C78E7A497C356311A37F0636 ====