Greatest Hits Volume II (Elton John album)

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Professional reviews
Greatest Hits, Vol. 2

Studio album by Elton John
Released	1977
Recorded	1971,1974,1975 & 1976
Genre	Rock
Length	51:51
Label	Polydor
Producer(s)	Gus Dudgeon
All Music Guide link Robert Christgau (B+) link
Elton John chronology
Blue Moves (1976)	Greatest Hits, Vol. 2 (1977)	A Single Man (1978)

Elton John's Greatest Hits - Volume II is a compilation album by Elton John featuring songs from the early-to-mid-1970s.

1 History
2 Track listing

[edit] History

There are several versions of the album. There were two original versions, one in the United States and Canada and another for Great Britain and the rest of the world, both released in 1977. The British version, released on DJM Records, included "Bennie and the Jets", a song that had appeared on the 1973 album Goodbye Yellow Brick Road but had only recently been released as a single (1976) in Elton John's home country. In North America, where the album was released by MCA Records, this song had already appeared on the first volume of Greatest Hits. It was replaced with "Levon", an even older song (from 1971's Madman Across the Water album) that had not yet been collected.

The album also contained two songs that would later be replaced, "Sorry Seems to Be the Hardest Word" and "Don't Go Breaking My Heart". These were the newest songs on the collection (both from 1976), and the only two not owned by DJM/This Record Company. They had been released on Elton John's own Rocket Records and were owned by his own royalty collection company, Sackville Productions. They appeared on this DJM album by mutual agreement. In North America, all his records were released by MCA (the singles from 1976 as well as the Blue Moves album also carried the Rocket logo), so for now no agreement was necessary.

The original album contained a booklet containing lyrics to the songs (even to the covers of "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" and "Pinball Wizard"), plus an illustration for each song.

In 1992, a new version was released worldwide. Elton John had moved to Polygram Records, who got the rights to all of his DJM recordings (pre-1976.) MCA now controlled his post-DJM recordings, including his later work on Geffen Records which had been taken over by MCA. Greatest Hits Volume III was deleted and replaced with Greatest Hits: 1976-1986, which also contained "Sorry Seems To Be The Hardest Word" and "Don't Go Breaking My Heart" from the original version of Greatest Hits - Volume 2. On the new edition, those two songs were replaced with two singles not on the original version, 1971's "Tiny Dancer" and 1975's "I Feel Like a Bullet (In the Gun of Robert Ford)." Meanwhile, since the current edition of Greatest Hits Volume One now included "Bennie and the Jets" worldwide, now Volume 2 included "Levon" worldwide.