Elton John and Brandi Carlile Announce Album, Shares New Song 'Who Believes in Angels?': Listen
All products featured on Pitchfork are independently selected by Pitchfork editors. However, when you buy something through our retail links, Condé Nast may earn an affiliate commission.
Brandi Carlile and Elton John, photo by Peggy Sirota
Elton John and Brandi Carlile are releasing an album together: Who Believes in Angels? lands on April 4 via Interscope. Listen to the title song below; scroll down for an album trailer.
John and Carlile made Who Believes in Angels? with John's longtime songwriting partner, Bernie Taupin, and producer Andrew Watt. They began work on the album, in October 2023, at Los Angeles' Sunset Sound. Additional musicians on the new album include Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith, renowned bassist Pino Palladino, and multi-instrumentalist Josh Klinghoffer.
Elton John, Brandi Carlile, Bernie Taupin, and Andrew Watt were recently nominated for the 2025 Academy Award for Best Original Song. The track, originally made for the documentary Elton John: Never Too Late, is featured on Who Believes in Angels?
In 2021, John and Carlile released the song 'Simple Things' for the former's Lockdown Sessions album. Revisit Pitchfork's 'Pass the Aux' video with the musicians from around that time.
$40.00, Rough Trade
Who Believes in Angels?:
01 The Rose of Laura Nyro 02 Little Richard's Bible 03 Swing for the Fences 04 Never Too Late 05 You Without Me
01 Who Believes in Angels? 02 The River Man 03 A Little Light 04 Someone to Belong To 05 When This Old World Is Done With Me
Originally Appeared on Pitchfork
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Yahoo
50 Years Ago, Elton John Became First Artist to Enter Billboard 200 at No. 1 – Just How ‘Fantastic' Was the Feat?
Fifty years ago, in the Billboard issue dated June 7, 1975, Elton John did something no one had ever done before: He entered the Billboard 200 at No. 1. He achieved the feat with his ninth studio album, Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy. The album dislodged Earth, Wind & Fire's That's the Way of the World, which had spent the three previous weeks at No. 1. It was potent enough to hold Wings' Venus and Mars – the band's follow-up to its classic album Band on the Run – to the No. 2 spot for four consecutive weeks before Wings finally moved up to No. 1 for one week. More from Billboard Elton John's 'Yellow Brick Road' Journey in Billboard's Back Pages: From 'Silly' Upstart to Undeniable Icon Queens of the Stone Age Couldn't 'Over-Rehearse' for Paris Catacombs Concert Film: 'You Go Down There & All the Plans Are Off' Billboard & Global Venture Partners Launch Billboard Africa In the nearly two decades between the introduction of the Billboard 200 in March 1956 and Captain Fantastic's history-making accomplishment, the highest any album had entered the Billboard 200 was No. 2. Van Cliburn's Tchaikovsky: Piano Concerto No. 1 debuted in the runner-up spot in the issue dated Aug. 4, 1958 (which, coincidentally, was the same week the Hot 100 debuted, with Ricky Nelson's 'Poor Little Fool' as the inaugural leader). How was a classical album able to get off to such a fast start? Cliburn had achieved global fame when he won the inaugural International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow in 1958 near the height of the Cold War. A cover story in TIME (May 19, 1958) proclaimed him 'The Texan Who Conquered Russia.' His album topped the Billboard 200 for seven weeks, won a Grammy for best classical performance – instrumentalist and received an album of the year nod. Since the Cliburn album was a little far afield, let's go deeper. The highest that a contemporary pop or rock album had debuted prior to Captain Fantastic was No. 3. That was the debut position for The Beatles' Hey Jude (March 21, 1970) and a pair of Led Zeppelin albums: Led Zeppelin III (Oct. 24, 1970) and Physical Graffiti (March 15, 1975). Three more contemporary pop or rock albums had debuted in the top five prior to Captain Fantastic: the Woodstock soundtrack (No. 4, June 6, 1970), George Harrison's All Things Must Pass (No. 5, Dec. 19, 1970) and Elton's previous studio album Caribou (No. 5, July 6, 1974). Captain Fantastic was Elton's sixth No. 1 album in less than three years. His 1972 album Honky Chateau reached No. 1 in its fifth chart week. A pair of 1973 albums – Don't Shoot Me I'm Only the Piano Player and Goodbye Yellow Brick Road – both reached No. 1 in their fourth weeks. A pair of 1974 albums – Caribou and Greatest Hits – both reached the top spot in their second weeks. Elton was steadily getting hotter year-by-year, as you can see. Captain Fantastic's debut at No. 1 received considerable media attention and contributed to Elton's status as the Greatest Pop Star of the Year – years before Billboard officially recognized such a thing. In calendar year 1975, Elton had three No. 1 albums on the Billboard 200 (one a carryover from 1974) and three No. 1 singles on the Billboard Hot 100 (plus an uncredited, but prominent, featured role on a fourth – Neil Sedaka's 'Bad Blood'); had a cameo as The Pinball Wizard in the hit movie adaptation of The Who's Tommy; made the cover of TIME (the inevitable cover line: 'Rock's Captain Fantastic'); and became the first artist since The Beatles to play a concert (two, actually) at Dodger Stadium. Since Elton's through-the-roof 1975, we've seen such artists as the Bee Gees (1978), Michael Jackson (1983-84) and Taylor Swift (2023-24) experience this same 'how-much-hotter-can-they-get' phenomenon. Captain Fantastic was a loosely autobiographical concept album about the struggles that John (Captain Fantastic) and his longtime lyricist Bernie Taupin (the Brown Dirt Cowboy) experienced in the early years of their careers in London from 1967 to 1969, leading up to John's eventual breakthrough in 1970. Captain Fantastic spent its first six weeks at No. 1 before yielding the top spot to Wings' Venus and Mars and then Eagles' One of These Nights (which had five weeks on top). In late August, Captain Fantastic returned for a seventh week at No. 1. Only two other John albums ever logged seven or more weeks at No. 1: Goodbye Yellow Brick Road (eight weeks on top in 1973) and Greatest Hits (10 weeks on top in 1974-75). Captain Fantastic received two Grammy nominations: album of the year (John's third in that category, following Elton John and Caribou) and best pop vocal performance, male. He lost both awards to Paul Simon for Still Crazy After All These Years. (Fun Fact: Simon had also won album of the year, in tandem with Art Garfunkel, for Bridge Over Troubled Water five years earlier, when the Elton John album was nominated.) Gus Dudgeon, who produced John's album, received a Grammy nod for producer of the year, non-classical. (He lost to Arif Mardin.) Just one single was released from Captain Fantastic: 'Someone Saved My Life Tonight.' Despite its length and somber tone, the song reached No. 4 on the Hot 100, a reflection of Elton's popularity at the time. Clocking in at 6:45, 'Someone Saved' was the longest song to crack the top five on the Hot 100 since The Temptations' symphonic soul smash 'Papa Was a Rollin' Stone' (6:53), a No. 1 hit in December 1972. Of course, even though just one single was released from Captain Fantastic, Elton was blanketing pop radio at the time. The week Captain Fantastic debuted, John's previous single, the marvelous, disco-accented 'Philadelphia Freedom,' rebounded to No. 10 on the Hot 100, having reached No. 1 in April. And though it was never released as a single, John's rendition of 'Pinball Wizard' from the Tommy soundtrack was played on many pop radio stations with the frequency of a hit single. The Billboard staff included three songs from Captain Fantastic on its 2022 list of the 75 Best Elton John Songs, timed to coincide with the star's 75th birthday. 'Tower of Babel' ranked No. 73, 'Curtains' was No. 29, and 'Someone Saved' was way up at No. 3, with Billboard's Melinda Newman saying of the latter song, 'The song has more drama than a made-for-Lifetime movie, including allusions to John's first suicide attempt in 1968. With a heavy, slow, and instantly unforgettable piano-pounding melody that matches the theatrical storytelling … 'Someone' is like slowly walking through molasses in the best possible way, Sugar Bear.' In November 1975, just five months after Captain Fantastic became the first album to debut at No. 1, Elton's follow-up album, Rock of the Westies, became the second. Unlike Captain Fantastic, Rock was led by a highly commercial single, the zesty funk-reggae smash 'Island Girl,' which topped the Hot 100 for three weeks. In October 1976, Stevie Wonder's Songs in the Key of Life became the third album to debut at No. 1. No other albums debuted in the top spot for a little more than a decade, until Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band's Live/1975-85 achieved the feat in November 1986. The following year, Whitney Houston and Michael Jackson started on top with their hit-laden albums Whitney and Bad, respectively. In May 1991, Billboard began compiling the Billboard 200 based on actual units sold. As a result, No. 1 debuts became much more common. Between June and December 1991, seven albums entered the chart at No. 1 – slightly more than the six albums that had achieved the feat over the previous 16 years. (Since December 2014, the chart has ranked titles by equivalent album units, incorporating streaming and sales, with albums continuing to regularly soar in at No. 1.) In 2006, John recorded a sequel of sorts to Captain Fantastic. That album, The Captain & the Kid, reached No. 18 on the Billboard 200. Two songs from Captain Fantastic were featured on the 2018 tribute album, Revamp: Reimagining the Songs of Elton John & Bernie Taupin. Mumford and Sons covered 'Someone Saved My Life Tonight.' Coldplay took on 'We All Fall in Love Sometimes.' That album reached No. 13 on the Billboard 200. Best of Billboard Chart Rewind: In 1989, New Kids on the Block Were 'Hangin' Tough' at No. 1 Four Decades of 'Madonna': A Look Back at the Queen of Pop's Debut Album on the Charts Chart Rewind: In 1990, Madonna Was in 'Vogue' Atop the Hot 100


Axios
2 days ago
- Axios
Pride, music and art pack Richmond's weekend
The weekend is almost here. Check out what's happening in town. Thursday 🤘 Innsbrook After Hours is back, baby — only now as After Hours Innsbrook with a Tribute Thursdays series. This week, it's Face 2 Face, a tribute to Elton John and Billy Joel. 6pm. Tickets start at $27.60. Friday 🪩 Common House is throwing a Pride Prom in celebration of Pride Month. 8-11pm. Free for members, $20 for nonmembers. 🖼️ It's the First Friday in June, so walk on over to the Arts District for First Fridays Art Walk. 5-11pm. Free. 🏰 Take The Valentine's History of Scott's Addition Walking Tour, which apparently has "perhaps Richmond's best selection of Art Deco and Moderne commercial architecture." 3-4:30pm. $20 for nonmembers. Saturday 📚 There's a Pride Book Fair over at Shelf Life Books in Carytown. 6-8pm and again on Sunday, 5-7pm. Free. ⚱️ RVA Clay Tour has some self-guided tours of local studios and their work. 10am-5pm, and Sunday, noon-4pm. Free. 💅 Richmond Makers Market is popping off at Basic City Beer Co. in Manchester with a all local queer makers and vendors, plus a drag show and "Queereoke." Noon-6pm. Free. 🎨 Family Day at VMFA celebrates Art of Africa: Mali with performances and entertainment, plus art activities for kids. 11am-3pm. Free. 🎸 Rocker Rick Springfield takes the stage at Allianz Amphitheater at Riverfront for what's now the new grand opening concert. 7pm. Tickets start at $30.
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Yahoo
Barry Manilow heartbroken by Billy Joel's health crisis
Barry Manilow's heart "broke" when he heard about Billy Joel's health crisis. The veteran musician was forced to cancel all of his tour dates for the rest of the year after he was diagnosed with a rare brain condition called Normal Pressure Hydrocephalus (NPH), which is caused by a build-up of fluid in the brain, and now Manilow has admitted he feels terrible about seeing the Piano Man go through such a tough time. He told Billboard: "Oh, it's so horrible, so horrible. It just broke my heart when I heard about Billy Joel. I'm such a fan of his work. I really hope he's able to get back to it." Manilow went on to admit there aren't many of his contemporaries still performing. He said: "It's like: 'What? Am I the only one left?' It's Billy Joel, and Elton [John] is not well and Rod [Stewart] and Neil [Diamond]. Diana Ross is still in great shape, I think. "There must be only a handful of people in my world that are still there. "I'm still healthy. I'm strong and I've still got my voice and my energy. The night I can't hit the F natural on Even Now, that's the night I throw in the towel. But I can still do it." Joel recently axed all of his tour dates - including 17 dates in North America and England - but reports suggest he has no plans to retire despite the diagnosis. Announcing the news on social media, a statement from Joel's team read: "Billy Joel has announced that he will be cancelling all scheduled concerts following a recent diagnosis of Normal Pressure Hydrocephalus (NPH). This condition has been exacerbated by recent concert performances, leading to problems with hearing, vision and balance. "Under his doctor's instructions, Billy is undergoing physical therapy and has been advised to refrain from performing during this recovery period. Billy is thankful for the excellent care he is receiving and is fully committed to prioritising his health. "He is grateful for the support from fans during this time and looks forward to the day when he can once again take the stage." Billy added his own message to fans, saying: "I'm sincerely sorry to disappoint our audience, and thank you for understanding."