The Japan LP replica edition SHM-CD is no improvement in sound over the 1996 Gus Dudgeon remaster - in fact if you lay out the wav file on cool edit pro, you'll find they're exactly the same.

After "Honky Chateau" became Elton's first album to top the charts, he continued on with this next release in a still more commercial direction. This album gets mixed reviews from John fans. Fans of John's older material cried sell out, as Elton continued to gain more and more commercial success, while this and the previous album gained Elton a whole new following of fans at the same time. For me "Piano Player" is a solid album and although not Elton's best, it is mostly quite good. Of the two hit singles I like "Daniel" a lot better than "Crocodile Rock" which never really clicked with me. Of the album tracks there are several good to great ones including "Teacher I Need You" (which pre-dated Van Halen's "Hot For Teacher" by about a decade), the funky pop rock of "Elderberry Wine", "Blues For My Baby And Me", the epic "Have Mercy On The Criminal" which is my favorite song on the disc, and the album closer "High Flying Bird". Elton was on a commercial role at this time and "Don't Shoot Me" remains one of his classics.

This album includes a number of Elton's 45s that my mother and uncle listened to as kids. Good sound and quality. This is still early in Elton's career and it is interesting to see how much different he sounds in this album from more recent albums. Elton John fans should have this album.

I've always regarded this as Elton's best and I also think it has aged better than Yellow Brick Road. On this album, Elton had just come into his full creative powers as a songwriter and the album is near perfect. Elton was not especially regarded as a great singer up to this album and at this point, he started regularly writing great songs that were perfect for his voice. The two hits-"Daniel" and "Crocadile Rock"-are a little overplayed but within the context of the strong album material, I continue to include them on my MP3 player and I like listening to the album as a whole. I would even venture to say that "Teacher, I need you", "Eldeberry Wine", "Midnight Creeper" and "Blues for Baby and me" are some of my favorite Elton John songs.

This was the first Elton John album I bought and it remains to this day my favorite. Yes, I had a vinyl album, and for some reason never moved to the cassette or CD. After buying this CD and singing along once again, I realized that it did indeed stand the test of time. Elton's melodies and piano-playing and Bernie Taupin's lyrics stand out. I know that "Honky Chateau" is considered by many to be a finer effort, but I just like every song on "Don't Shoot Me". In fact, several of the songs that weren't released as singles seem to me stronger efforts.