Elton John

Peachtree Road (2004)

1.The Weight Of The World
2.Porch Swing In Tupelo
3.Answer In The Sky
4.Turn The Lights Out When You Leave
5.My Elusive Drug
6.They Call Her The Cat
7.Freaks In Love
8.All That I'm Allowed
9.I Stop And I Breathe
10.Too Many Tears
11.It's Getting Dark In Here
12.I Can't Keep This From You

Following the much-celebrated Songs from the West Coast, an album that was rightly hailed as a return to form, hopes were understandably high for its follow-up. Sadly, Peachtree Road—released in 2004—feels less like a continuation of that momentum and more like a soft retreat. It’s not that the record is offensive or poorly made—it’s simply lifeless. Measured against the peaks of Elton’s earlier work, or even the emotional resonance of West Coast, Peachtree Road drifts by with barely a ripple.

For an album bearing the name of a Southern boulevard, the concept seems promising. The packaging gestures toward a rustic Americana theme, and at first, you might be hopeful. But what follows is a largely flat, homogeneous collection of slow-to-mid-tempo tracks that lack spark, edge, or purpose. There are pleasant textures and polished arrangements, sure—but precious little that sticks.

The album opens with The Weight of the World, a tired-sounding meditation on the burdens of fame that doesn’t say anything new. From there, we get a string of songs that sound nearly interchangeable. Answer in the Sky and All That I’m Allowed are meant to be uplifting, but they float by inoffensively, never taking root. They’re well-meaning, but feel more like adult contemporary placeholders than memorable entries in Elton’s catalog.

The supposed country influences don’t add much flavor either. Porch Swing in Tupelo name-drops states and rivers with mechanical precision but offers little in the way of narrative or emotion. Turn the Lights Out When You Leave aims for that old-school country heartbreak charm, but feels more like a parody than a pastiche. The few moments that do try to break the mold—They Call Her the Cat, for instance—go completely off the rails. A funk-laced misfire complete with background vocals meowing, it’s hard to understand how it made it past the demo stage, let alone to the final tracklist. It doesn’t just clash with the rest of the album—it undercuts it.

There are a couple of gentler tracks that might have worked better on a shorter EP. Freaks in Love and I Stop and I Breathe are modestly successful in tone, but suffer from being buried in an album that overstays its welcome by at least twenty minutes. By the end, the songs begin to blur together, not due to complexity but due to sameness.

It’s worth noting that this is Elton’s first fully self-produced album. Without a seasoned producer like Gus Dudgeon or even a more objective third-party voice, there’s a sense that nobody was around to question the choices—or lack thereof. The record feels safe, overly polished, and strangely unfinished, as though it’s missing the very heartbeat that drove so much of Elton’s best work.

In the long view of his discography, Peachtree Road feels like one of Elton’s more inconsequential entries. It’s an album that neither embarrasses nor impresses. A background listen at best, it’s the kind of record that’s hard to remember even after multiple plays. Maybe not terrible—just terribly forgettable.