The Elton John album that disappointed George Michael: “I thought it was beneath him”
It’s a double-edged sword to write albums thinking about the fans. While artists should keep their audience’s best interests at heart when making their masterpieces, that doesn’t always bode well when some of them just want the chance to make a song that tests their capabilities as writers or is more in line with how they’re feeling creatively. But Elton John was already looking to make a new audience altogether with The Lion King, and George Michael never really forgave him for it.
Then again, it’s not that out of the question for artists to make songs for movie soundtracks. There have been plenty of bands that have released one-off tracks to be included during pivotal scenes in movies, and as films like A Star is Born have clearly shown, there’s a lot of money to be made if you get a big-name artist behind a soundtrack for an entire project.
While John had been no stranger to trying new things, though, The Lion King was a different venture altogether. Outside of making various soundtrack pieces for the film Friends back in the 1970s, this would be the kind of operatic pop singles that could please both children and adults in equal measure.
For as much of a sell-out move as it seems on paper, making this kind of soundtrack is actually a pretty hefty challenge for anyone to do. Anyone’s hoping that one of the tunes gets on the radio, but how are you supposed to make something that is directly related to what’s going onscreen with two lions and still make that scan properly as a love song between two people?
Although John did find a way by making tracks like ‘The Circle of Life’ and ‘Can You Feel the Love Tonight’, the whole thing didn’t sit well with Michael. He had already grown as a songwriter by the time of releasing albums like Listen Without Prejudice, and as far as he could tell, this was the cheap version of Elton John that he was trying to sell to the masses rather than the genius behind Goodbye Yellow Brick Road.
The raw musicianship was on display, but Michael thought that what John stood for as an artist got neutered a bit in the process, saying, “I just don’t really think that a great musician can be done justice by cartoon characters really. I know Elton loves the stuff, and he’s thrilled with it, and it’s sold very, very well because lots of people loved it and it’s great. My own feeling is that I don’t want to hear Elton John’s voice and think of Simba the Lion, you know…He’ll hate hearing this, I’m really sorry to say this, but I thought it was beneath him, really.”
But John was never one to back down from a challenge, no matter what studio or artist he happened to be working with. Outside of just the ‘House of Mouse’, he also contributed music to Dreamworks’ The Road to El Dorado and has still continued expanding his craft by working with everyone from Kanye West to Queens of the Stone Age as a session player.
Michael felt that he was much more suited to expanding his craft on separate albums, but maybe it was just a case of him getting burned the first time he tried approaching the silver screen. ‘I Want Your Sex’ worked as a brilliant song on its own, but when it’s shoehorned into a movie like Beverly Hills Cop II, it’s understandable why Michael wouldn’t be as onboard with movie tie-ins.
