10 Albums With Creepy Recording Stories
9. Goodbye Yellow Brick Road - Elton John
Though Elton John was coming into his own as a glam rock superstar, he decided that his next album demanded a change of scenery. Feeling that he had fallen into a holding pattern with recording tactics, John took his band and songwriter Bernie Taupin to a studio in Jamaica, inspired by the Rolling Stones previous work at the studio with Goats Head Soup.
From the very start, the sessions came to a halt because of the lax production values present at the studio. The band couldn't even find a way to mic any of their instruments properly due to the shoddy equipment made available at the studio. To add insult to injury, Jamaica was also under a lot of political tension because of a recent economic scare, which led to outward violence in the streets.
Quickly abandoning the concept, John and his band quickly moved out of the facilities, with John fearing he would be killed before he even boarded the plane. Luckily, the band found an even more prestigious studio space once they settled in a chateau in France. From there, the record's hits from the title track to "Candle In the Wind" seem to generate themselves via osmosis. Though it may be a modern classic of the pop rock genre, John had to go through Hell before it was fully realized.