I had been an avid buyer of Elvis Presley albums in the 1970's, but found other interests in the 1980's. I became a huge Queen fan, but explored a wide range of music (Deep Purple, Rainbow, Iron Maiden, Genesis, Status Quo and lots of the new eighties bands like Prefab Sprout, U2, too many to name). But as we entered the 1990's my old interest in Elvis Presley was re-ignited. There were significant gaps in my Elvis collection, so I set off in an attempt to fill them ...
A brief discussion of Elvis' Gold Records, vols 1-5. I've never been happy with volume 5 in this series, considering it to miss out too many good tracks from the last decade of Elvis' life. Here, I give my own selections for 1967-1977 over two volumes of music. These tracks were not all of them hits, let alone million sellers - but they should have been.
I present a guide to the films of Elvis Presley in the form of comments and observations with respect to Elvis' own acting ambitions, as well as his career as a singer. Against critics who dismiss almost the whole of Elvis' film career as worthless, cheap commercial vehicles for Elvis fans only, I show that there are at least eight films of merit in the list of Elvis movies. Beyond that, there are a number which are entertaining enough, depending upon personal taste. Against fans, I don't see Elvis films as harmless fun and light entertainment. I will have harsh comments for the cynical and exploitative approach, both for betraying the trust and loyalty of the fans but ultimately for betraying the talent of Elvis Presley himself. So, from the perspective of the fans, some of my comments will be hard hitting and controversial, likely to cause upset. Those who are happy enough to be entertained, without need of anything more challenging, are welcome to their happiness. Nothing can be changed with regards to the facts now. I did think of merely focusing on the positives and ignoring the negatives. That would have made for a much shorter article. The problem with that is that it leaves the big questions as to why there weren't more positives than there were unanswered. In answering that question, I go into some dubious areas in the Elvis film. I don't think we can avoid addressing the fact that very many of the Elvis films were sexploitation features, maybe light and casual in the approach, but exhibiting some pretty dubious features that do not reflect well on Elvis. That's putting it mildly. A word I use throughout is "dishonest." I think this is the biggest criticism I can make, given that what attracted me to Elvis in the first place was the naked piety, honesty, and joyous nature of his voice and music. Taken as a whole, the films represented a betrayal and corruption of all that was good about Elvis.