Brad's Take:
This album was an important one for its generation and generations to come. It was the first rock and roll album to ever reach #1 on the Billboard Top Pop Albums charts and it was the first album to ever make one million dollars and sell one million copies. That's definitely impressive, especially for the time it was released.
It's hard to review the debut album by an artist like this because he became such an important musical icon after this was released. He became the king of rock and roll, for crying out loud! Whether you like him or not, everyone has done an Elvis impression at one point in their lives, and everyone knows at least one Elvis song. But all those facts aside, I'll review this for what it is more than what it became...
Elvis Presley's self titled debut album sounds a lot like what was already popular in the 50's. It's not much different than Bill Haley's album that we reviewed before this one. These recordings sound cleaner though and the mixes sound a bit better. This album sounds a little different to me though. I think this is a good representation of what was to come from pop acts following Elvis' success. Before, it didn't really matter what you sounded or looked like as long as the music was fast and something the kids could dance to, but it feels like this album was more focused on the King's vocals rather than the overall general feel of the music.
Sometimes in the older rock and roll records, the vocals were pushed to the back or middle of the mixes so the piano or guitar would shine more, or equally. Elvis' vocals on this album are pushed a lot more to the front though. They're louder and cleaner sounding than the music is, like they really wanted his voice to shine and be the selling point. Elvis' voice sounds great on this album, but sometimes the instrumentation seems a little too bare and empty, but I think they meant for it to be that way. His vocals were more important than the music was, and they wanted them to really stand out and almost be on their own.
As an album though, I'd say that these are its ingredients:
1/4 cup of solid radio hits
1/4 cup of great non-hit songs
1/4 cup of semi-boring ballads
1/4 cup of filler songs
Dad's Take:
I think to fully appreciate this album, you have step back in time. You have to remember, Elvis was not yet The King. He was a little-known 21-year-old kid from Tupelo, with good looks, a good voice, and a style that was just a little bit different than similar artists. Few people knew him, and the RCA record company went on a hunch, based on the very modest performance of his Sun releases.
At RCA, Elvis moved firmly into the new rock 'n' roll, without leaving behind his country and southern blues roots. Rockabilly was hot, and it was genre that fit Elvis very well. This first RCA album isn't all that different than a lot of old rockabilly records, but Elvis obviously had something special that drew the kids to him, and his album became a much bigger hit than RCA had probably anticipated.
It's not really a great album, although it has a few great songs. Much of the album consists of covers of recent hits by others, recordings that Sun didn't think were good enough to release. Some of those, like Elvis's versions of "Tutti Frutti" and "Blue Moon," pale in comparison to the popular versions. In fact, "Blue Moon" teeters on the edge of unintentional comedy. But this album deserves the "classic" label because this is the greatest force in rock and roll history on the verge of greatness. He's often a little restrained, and the quality of many of the recordings show that nobody was ready to throw more money in his direction than was safe. The $40,000 to transfer Elvis and his recordings to RCA was a big enough risk. So they did enough to give them hope of recovering their investment, but they didn't do what they'd do for him when he became a sure thing.
Looking back on it as we are, all the elements that made Elvis The King are there. The energy (although he holds back a little more than he would very soon), the style, the passion. It's easy to see through the flaws and find The King.
My favorite thing about this album is that it's Elvis without the gloss and pressure of superstardom. This is raw Elvis, pure Elvis, without baggage. It's easy to have as much fun as he was.
Dad's Take:
I think to fully appreciate this album, you have step back in time. You have to remember, Elvis was not yet The King. He was a little-known 21-year-old kid from Tupelo, with good looks, a good voice, and a style that was just a little bit different than similar artists. Few people knew him, and the RCA record company went on a hunch, based on the very modest performance of his Sun releases.
At RCA, Elvis moved firmly into the new rock 'n' roll, without leaving behind his country and southern blues roots. Rockabilly was hot, and it was genre that fit Elvis very well. This first RCA album isn't all that different than a lot of old rockabilly records, but Elvis obviously had something special that drew the kids to him, and his album became a much bigger hit than RCA had probably anticipated.
It's not really a great album, although it has a few great songs. Much of the album consists of covers of recent hits by others, recordings that Sun didn't think were good enough to release. Some of those, like Elvis's versions of "Tutti Frutti" and "Blue Moon," pale in comparison to the popular versions. In fact, "Blue Moon" teeters on the edge of unintentional comedy. But this album deserves the "classic" label because this is the greatest force in rock and roll history on the verge of greatness. He's often a little restrained, and the quality of many of the recordings show that nobody was ready to throw more money in his direction than was safe. The $40,000 to transfer Elvis and his recordings to RCA was a big enough risk. So they did enough to give them hope of recovering their investment, but they didn't do what they'd do for him when he became a sure thing.
Looking back on it as we are, all the elements that made Elvis The King are there. The energy (although he holds back a little more than he would very soon), the style, the passion. It's easy to see through the flaws and find The King.
My favorite thing about this album is that it's Elvis without the gloss and pressure of superstardom. This is raw Elvis, pure Elvis, without baggage. It's easy to have as much fun as he was.
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