Elvis has left the building

[armful]

I have just read this article on the Guardians website about the waning popularity of Elvis Presley how he will be ultimately forgotten apart from the comical image of him bloated in his white jump suit.   

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2017/may/16/millennials-elvis-presley-legacy


Although my favourite genres of music are Punk, Alt Rock and Indie I have always had a soft spot for the king.  Growing up my Dad used to listen to Elvis a lot; while my siblings would cringe at songs like Hound Dog I would love it. I can even recall (with a little shame) being about seven years old and crying at the emotional ending of the Elvis film Love me Tender.
Although Elvis didn't write his own songs he had an absolutely amazing voice and was a pretty mean rhythm guitar player.  The Emotional weight he carries in these  two songs is beautiful

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HOLH63c7SG0  My Boy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMJxEfhykbI   Separate ways


I do get why people don't like Elvis, not long after his peak artists were making a name for themselves penning their own hits for example The Beatles. Overall the films Elvis did weren't very good and footage of him doing those karate moves on stage in Vegas made him a sort of comical figure.   I still think it would be a shame if Elvis was forgotten, love or hate him he inspired a lot of the great rock stars of the 60s, had one of the best voices in rock and roll he was one of the first true music icons.

Do you think Elvis will be forgotten? Or with the 40 year anniversary of his death coming up could Elvis have a surge in popularity?

[Custard]

#ThreadsWhereYouWorryElvisCostelloHasGoneAndDied

[Dr Rock]

As long as the human race endures, Elvis Presley will not be forgotten.

[Phil_A]

I don't think he'll ever be completely forgotten, he's far too iconic. Everyone knows at least one Elvis song, even if there isn't the mania for him there was in the last century.

I wonder what happened to all those people who used to claim in all earnestness that Elvis had faked his own death and was going to make a surprise comeback at some point? Don't hear much from them now, do you.

[armful]

As long as the human race endures, Elvis Presley will not be forgotten.

That's what I like to hear

[armful]

I don't think he'll ever be completely forgotten, he's far too iconic. Everyone knows at least one Elvis song, even if there isn't the mania for him there was in the last century.

I wonder what happened to all those people who used to claim in all earnestness that Elvis had faked his own death and was going to make a surprise comeback at some point? Don't hear much from them now, do you.

I used to love those guys.

The sands of time must have taken them, even if Elvis had not have died that  fateful summer of 77 he would be reaching his human expiry date now

[non capisco]

#ThreadsWhereYouWorryElvisCostelloHasGoneAndDied

Same! Between the couple of seconds between reading the title and clicking and skimming the opening post I realised how sad I'll be when that happens.

[armful]

Same! Between the couple of seconds between reading the title and clicking and skimming the opening post I realised how sad I'll be when that happens.

I apologise for the Costello death scare I may have caused     

[DrGreggles]

I've never loved Elvis*.

*Presley

[lazyhour]

We can barely give his albums or singles away in my record shop - with an absolutely tiny amount of exceptions.

[The Masked Unit]

He never meant shit to me.

[Dead Soon]

Bores me fucking arse off.

[DrGreggles]

A mate of mine is an Elvis obsessive, and I like to wind him up by telling him that, as a singer of other people's songs and a very limited songwriting ability, he'd be classed these days along the lines of Will Young if he'd arrived on the scene in the last 10-15 years.
Now, this IS suggested purely to take the piss, but there is an element of truth to it.

I do think he was a great singer, but I'd have him nowhere near my top 10.

[armful]

A mate of mine is an Elvis obsessive, and I like to wind him up by telling him that, as a singer of other people's songs and a very limited songwriting ability, he'd be classed these days along the lines of Will Young if he'd arrived on the scene in the last 10-15 years.
Now, this IS suggested purely to take the piss, but there is an element of truth to it.

I do think he was a great singer, but I'd have him nowhere near my top 10.

There is an element of truth to what you say. Elvis is not in my top ten either , but for nostalgia reasons I do play his records sometimes and his voice is cracking

[Nowhere Man]

Elvis was fucking magic, to say that he would be the Will Young of today implies that Will Young has an even slightly interesting aura (or any level of charisma behind him.) Elvis was the king for a reason, no one else defined the 1950s as much as him (or just the idea of Elvis in the first place.)

I know for a start that life would be far less wonderful without the Sun Sessions. Hell, the likes of Jailhouse Rock, All Shook Up, Love Me Tender, Latest Flame and Hound Dog are almost modern rituals as far as i'm concerned.

[armful]

Elvis was fucking magic, to say that he would be the Will Young of today implies that Will Young has an even slightly interesting aura (or any level of charisma behind him.) Elvis was the king for a reason, no one else defined the 1950s as much as him (or just the idea of Elvis in the first place.)

I know for a start that life would be far less wonderful without the Sun Sessions. Hell, the likes of Jailhouse Rock, All Shook Up, Love Me Tender, Latest Flame and Hound Dog are almost modern rituals as far as i'm concerned.

True, and if you listen if live versions of Elvis singing back in the day , I can't think of many modern popstars who can match his vocal skills

[hewantstolurkatad]

Elvis would be maybe closer to the Justin Bieber of today. Something of an innocent whose talent crossed with his inherent marketability got him propelled to superstardom.Elvis would be even more carefully managed than he was at the time, to the point that his inherent talents are practically hidden with a gloss on top of them, and the chances of that late 60s revival occurring would be slim to nonexistant.
Giving where he grew up, a modern Elvis would be caught up within the extremely insular country pop industry, playing to huge arenas but virtually unknown outside of red states.



Elvis will be remembered as a somewhat kitsch element of that weird period between WW2 and the 60s. He'll probably carry more respect among people into music than, say, Frank Sinatra and even if he is a bit of a joke figure, he'll still be the standout figure of the 50s in mainstream music... absolutely none of this will prevent the prices of his memorabilia to continue to plummet for yeeeeeeeears.

[Kane Jones]

I've never really got on with his early stuff, but In The Ghetto is fucking beautiful. Suspicious Minds is a bit of a corker too.

[hewantstolurkatad]

I've never really got on with his early stuff, but In The Ghetto is fucking beautiful. Suspicious Minds is a bit of a corker too.

Yep, the period in the late 60s (and early 70s) where he took some level of autonomy over his career had a bump in quality that's a bit silly.
Then he cashed out to be a junkie hanging around vegas.

Had he pumped out even one more album as good as From Elvis in Memphis after that, he wouldn't be facing this risk of being forgotten now, he may've stood a better chance of keeping some control over his legacy.  Like, there's an album that feels like even at the time it was really pretty strongly enhanced by his status as an icon, reminding people that it wasn't totally manufactured.

[mr beepbap]

No 15 year kid nowadays is gonna hear 'Hound Dog'  and  be blown away like some do when hearing Hendrix etc. The music is too dated.

[Monsieur Verdoux]

No 15 year kid nowadays is gonna hear 'Hound Dog'  and  be blown away like some do when hearing Hendrix etc. The music is too dated.

Probably, even the more curious younger people I know aren't really interested in anything released before pop music was really shaken up in 1965/66. It's a shame though, because Elvis isn't really trying to do the same thing as Hendrix, Cream, Black Sabbath etc. He's got his own style which is closer to amped up country music than what would become known as rock. Viewing him as merely an embryonic form of louder, more guitar-driven things to come is a real folly. If young people were into The Band or Gram Parsons they might key into Elvis a little more easily.

[hewantstolurkatad]

Country must be a wildly unappealing genre to kids these days. It's very hard to think of where their entry point could be. The only three I can see are getting really into the Byrds, seeking out acclaimed albums from the 90s and stumbling upon alt-country, and just having someone force them to listen to Townes Van Zandt.


Like, at least when I was at a formative age (early 00s) there were people like Jason Molina, Ryan Adams, Gillian Welch the kinda sorta not-really alt-country of Wilco.. lots of stuff with clear country influences at the very least, presumably coming from the last generation of people who grew up at a time where country wasn't yet completely turned into a kind of rural pop thing.

I can't think of a single good album from the past ten years that could be categorised as country.

[NoSleep]

Country must be a wildly unappealing genre to kids these days. It's very hard to think of where their entry point could be.

Taylor Swift? Well, nominally she's Country.

[hewantstolurkatad]

Taylor Swift? Well, nominally she's Country.

Her country stuff is very strictly on the side of the extremely homogenised stuff on US country music stations though, isnt it?

[NoSleep]

I wouldn't know. I've just seen her name associated with the genre (don't think I've heard a single thing she's recorded).

[NoSleep]

The last thing I remember that gave country a bump in popular culture was the soundtrack of Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?

[Petey Pate]

Country music is still popular in the USA, at least going by the charts.  There's even some godawful examples of recent country music which use autotune, like this:

George Strait - Stars On The Water

[armful]

No 15 year kid nowadays is gonna hear 'Hound Dog'  and  be blown away like some do when hearing Hendrix etc. The music is too dated.

Saying that having done quite a lot of youth work  from experience hardly any 15 year nowadays wouldn't be blown away by most sixties music. Kurt Cobain still seems to be the  historic rock kids love

[3D]

I read this earlier in the week and the news coincided with me having spent the previous few days wading through Spotify fifties playlists looking for something to add to my phone. Wading is the operative word, as for every Tom Hark, Rocket 88 or Somethin' Else there are dozens of examples of horrendous tripe - this remember in the best of playlists of the era.

Elvis won't vanish entirely. He was so vital to the rise of popular music he simply cannot be overlooked. Amongst all the talk of his nicking stuff, and reinterpreting the work of others, the fact remains he was a truly great artist. Without him perhaps we'd have had years more of "How Much Is That Doggy In The Window?", until maybe the world finally changed with the coming of Sigue Sigue Sputnik.

Perhaps this news is also in part the nature of the format changes we've seen over the last few decades. I like vinyl as much as anyone here, but it just doesn't fit into my lifestyle anymore.

As an eighties indie kid when I started to get sick of the same old and faced only with the likes of the Thompson Twins on the other side, I started to delve backwards in time, and I think some will always do that. Anyone with an interest in popular music cannot ignore Presley, any more than they could Sinatra or Little Richard or Dylan or the Beatles or the Stones.

PS : Everyone knows the Lieber and Stoller song Yakety Yak by the Coasters. I've had it on repeat for most of the week. It's always sort of washed over me before as a novelty song, but it's a fucking belter. Two minutes. Bosh. "Bring in the dog, and put out the cat!"

[NoSleep]

Country music is still popular in the USA, at least going by the charts.  There's even some godawful examples of recent country music which use autotune, like this:

George Strait - Stars On The Water

I find the drums (sound, technique and style) are really off-putting to any enjoyment of modern country for me. It really lacks a lightness of touch that would enhance the music no end. I don't mind a bit of Cowpunk, though.