WE SUGGEST A GIANT SHEET WITH A 'NO' VISIBLE FROM SPACE

He himself admits it could be a disaster, but that's not going to stop Elton John pushing ahead with a hip-hop album:

"I want to bring my songs and melodies to hip-hop beats. It may be a disaster, it could be fantastic, but you don't know until you try. I want to work with Pharrell, Timbaland, Snoop, Kanye, Eminem and just see what happens."

It's a little bit like when a small child decides to get his knob out in nursery school, "just to see what happens" - there's some experimentation that is best not undertaken, and really should be avoided being carried out in public at all.

Of course, we do have some respect for Elton and his desire to stretch himself musically - anything is better than him falling into Rod Stewartesque "here's another album of classics... oh, and another..." safety, but we'd suggest the time for announcing a hip-hop project is after you've made it, rather than before. Making such an album, deciding it works, and releasing it as a surprise would be a coup. Announcing that you're making hippity-hop before you've even spoken to your potential collaborators just has an air of Fred Wedlock's Oldest Swinger In Town about it.

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