1001 Albums – Number 2

Elvis Presley: Elvis Presley

Well it's only taken me six months but I finally got round to listening to some more of the stuff in this book. The delay is of course a natural consequence of my extreme and visceral dislike of the first album on the list; Frank Sinatra's In The Wee Small Hours.

Fortunately Elvis has impressed me a hell of a lot more than old Frank. Listening to this record (probably one the of the first real rock and or roll albums) in contrast to Sinatra gives an insight into just what made rock music so popular and revolutionary in comparison to the pop music that preceded it. While Elvis is pretty tame stuff by today's standards, you can still hear in the lyrics many of the techniques used by songwriters in any rock genre from indie to black metal, such as smutty innuendo and threats of violence.

Yes I must admit that I enjoyed this album. It will probably never be a regular feature on my playlist but I do appreciate its upbeat energy as a contrast to my normal musical diet and I was also very surprised by just how more impassioned Elvis is when compared to Sinatra or even to today's kings of the middle-of-the-road snooze-a-thon such as The Killers or Jet. Elvis had more balls in his little finger than either of those bands do in their collective testicles. Even if he does seem twee in some respects by modern standards, he at least sang like he meant it and not like an actor reciting melodramatic bullshit while knowingly winking at the audience the whole time.