First, you should know I like Elvis and not just in a postmodern ironic way, though I understand that take on the King.
The British music rag NME recently carried an item on the Top 100 Most Successful Acts of All Time, based on the total number of weeks an act has spent on the UK singles and album charts and … Elvis checks in at No. 1 ahead of Cliff Richard, The Beatles, Queen and Madonna. (The Rollings Stones are unbelieveably No. 16.)
Now, if NME’s list has you hankering for some Elvis, for your listening pleasure I recommend The Memphis Record, the best single disc collection of his “comeback” material (including “Suspicious Minds,” “Kentucky Rain,” “True Love Travels on a Gravel Road,” “Stranger in My Own Home Town,” “Long Black Limousine,” “Only the Strong Survive,” “In the Ghetto,” and many other superb songs…really).
If you’re still unconvinced try reading the best rock biography ever written: Peter Guralnick’s 2 volume bio of Elvis (Last Train to Memphis and Careless Love).
If you continue to reject the grand narrative of the King of Rock n Roll, then perhaps you can enjoy him as an ironic, cultural icon … Try reading Greil Marcus’s biography of Elvis after he left the building, Dead Elvis, where he quite successfully argues that Elvis has been more important dead than he ever was while alive…
Thank you very much…
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