Over the years, Elton John has acquired the nickname "EJ the DJ." Whenever he's been given the opportunity — whether at the BBC in England or 99X here in Atlanta — the singer shows up to a radio station with a stack of fresh releases and an enthusiasm for his favorite new acts.

When he sat down recently with the AJC, the pop star was far more interested in discussing what's currently on his personal top ten list than reflecting on the 40 years of hits he and lyricist Bernie Taupin have contributed to the world.

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But the singer still prefers CDs to downloaded music.

"I'm from the old school," he explains. "I don't have a computer, I don't have an iPod and I don't have a portable phone. My fear is if I did get a computer I would end up spending all my [expletive] time on it, ordering things! My one concession to modern technology is a fax machine. I like to physically go to the record store, which will probably be extinct in the few years. That saddens me a lot."

Each week, his office sends over a list of new releases and he picks out which new albums he wishes to purchase — and how many (he has an entire room in Atlanta devoted to his CD collection).

The notion of cherry-picking random tracks off the Internet doesn't appeal to John: "You wouldn't go into an artist's exhibition that's taken someone a year to do and look at one painting. You look at it as a whole. That's what I love to do with an artists' CD. I want to see where they recorded it, who played on it. It crucifies me to think that in a few years' time we won't be able to do that. With albums, I used to sit there with the gatefold sleeves and do the same thing. I still do the same thing now with CDs. It's just that now I need a magnifying glass!"

And thanks to a band-wide outbreak of writer's block, Elton John collaborated in the studio with other songwriters for the very first time in 2006.

"Can you believe it?" he asks, "It's taken me all these years to actually sit down and write with someone else. With Bernie, Tim Rice and the other people I've worked with, everything was always developed separately."

Last year, John was in New York and decided to pop in on his friends, the Scissor Sisters, who were holed up in the studio attempting to come up with the music for their sophomore album, "Ta Da!"

"They were stuck and they were terrified," he recalls. "So I said, 'Have you ever heard of Bo Diddley?' 'No, not really.' 'Right then, let's download some.' Then I just started playing [the piano riff]: da, da, da, da-da."

The end result? The Scissor Sisters U.K. radio hit and U.S. club hit "I Don't Feel Like Dancin.'"

"I swear to God, we had the whole thing done from start to finish in half an hour," John says. "It was one of those great things that just happened. I had no intention of writing a song that day. And now, the bloody thing won't go away! I think it's still No. 28 [on the U.K. charts]."

In addition to Scissor Sisters, here's a partial list of some of the other acts currently in high rotation on Sir Elton's Hi-Fi:

Toronto-based singer-songwriter Ron Sexsmith, whose latest album, "Time Being" came out in 2006: "He's brilliant. It's always playing. I can't stop listening to it,"

U.K. rapper Just Jack, a one-man band courtesy of musician Jack Allsop: "I must have bought a hundred copies of his first album, 'The Outer Mark.' I fell in love with the album. He's now one of our acts in the U.K. We manage it. I said, 'We've got to find this boy, he's amazing.' The new album, 'Overtones' even tops the first one. I said to him, 'You've repaid every faith I had in you with this album.' It's amazing."

U.K. R&B singer-songwriter Amy Winehouse, whose second album, "Back to Black," arrived here in stores this month. The sometimes-naughty "Rehab" vocalist's new disc even sports a "Parental Advisory Explicit Content" warning label: "She's brilliant. She's brought a new lyrical perspective to a classic R&B soul sound. That's another one I can't turn off. I even have Bernie listening to it, that old curmudgeon!"

New York dance-rock outfit Young Love, fronted by singer-songwriter Dan Keyes: "It's my new tip for the top. It's really good. Listening to younger artists and working with them just gives me an adrenaline rush. It's what excites me. I'd much rather get exposed to something new than listen to the same old stuff."