The Fox (Elton John album)


The Fox is the fifteenth studio album by English singer Elton John, released in 1981. With sales of approx. 300,000 US copies, it was one of Elton's poorest-selling albums in the United States.
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 were recorded during the sessions for his previous album 21 at 33. All B-sides released around this time were also from those sessions. The first single "Nobody Wins" charted in the US at #21, but charted best in Norway, peaking at #10. The next single "Chloe" charted even better in Adult Contemporary chart, at #16.

Track listing

;Side one
  1. "Breaking Down Barriers" – 4:42
  2. "Heart in the Right Place" – 5:15*
  3. "Just Like Belgium" – 4:10
  4. "Nobody Wins" – 3:40
  5. "Fascist Faces" – 5:12
;Side two
  2. "Carla/Etude" – 4:46*
  3. "Fanfare" – 1:26*
  4. "Chloe" – 4:40*
  5. "Heels of the Wind" – 3:35
  6. "Elton's Song" – 3:02*
  7. "The Fox" – 5:20
: Recorded in August and December 1979, January 1980 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 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" on his 1986 world tour with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and on subsequent solo tours, plus on a set of 2004 shows with the Royal Academy of Music Orchestra, making it the only song off the album that was performed up to 2010 on a tour with Ray Cooper.

B-sides

''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 video disc, a precursor to the Laserdisc and DVD, but has not been released since. The video for "Elton's Song", which dealt with the story of a teenager boy's admiration for another teenage boy he yearns for, but is too shy to confront his feelings, was excluded from the UK video release because the public school it was filmed in objected to the theme of the song. All the videos were conceptualised by Keith Williams and directed by Russell Mulcahy.

Personnel

Track numbering refers to CD and digital releases of the album.

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

Certifications