Elton John's massive new project, The Lockdown Sessions, has arrived.

On Friday (October 22), the industry veteran released the 16-track project featuring some of his famed friends, including Dua Lipa, Lil Nas X, Miley Cyrus, Stevie Nicks, Nicki Minaj, Charlie Puth and more. In an interview for the album, John admitted that the project came together "as an accident" when he spontaneously worked on a record with Puth and it slowly evolved after recording a string of singles with some other famous friends. “Gradually, I got an album coming together, so I thought I’m going to keep continuing,” he explained.

When the album was announced, John said that he worked on the LP when quarantine kicked off in March 2020, making the project’s title all the more appropriate. “As the pandemic went on, one‐off projects kept cropping up and I’ve ended with a selection of really interesting and diverse stuff that was completely different to anything I’m known for, stuff that took me out of my comfort zone into completely new territory," the icon said in a statement. “And I realised there was something weirdly familiar about working like this. At the start of my career, in the late 60s, I worked as a session musician. Working with different artists during lockdown reminded me of that. I’d come full circle: I was a session musician again. And it was still a blast."

John had planned to support the album on tour this year, but a fall required him to get hip surgery and postponed "The Yellow Brick Road Tour" until 2023.

If you want another duet from the chart-topper, you can expect a new collaborative holiday single from the rock icon as he teamed up with Ed Sheeran last Christmas to work on the track. "He rung me up on Christmas Day and he said ''Step Into Christmas' is No. 6 on the charts, and I'm 74, and I'm still having f*cking chart hits, this is great! I want to do another Christmas song, will you do it with me?'" Sheeran recalled in an interview earlier this month.

Joe Rossetti

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