Guardian article: Why Elvis memorabilia is plummeting in value

Seriously? He's an Elvis impersonator without the jump suit.

 

I'm done with the Beatles vs. Elvis stuff, but feel free to carry on.

 

You may like this one better:

 

Why does everything on this Forum come back to 'The Beatles are better/did it first'? We get it, they could walk on water, but wow, it gets tiring seeing this come up in non-Beatle threads.

 

Except in this case they don't have a leg to stand on since Elvis pre-dated them. In fact, if it weren't for Elvis there would most likely be no Beatles.

 

The Beatles sales toady are not necessarily youth as much as it isn't old people.
Many Baby Boomers, even more late Boomers, and probably all Gen X and early Millennials
stream and download.
It's not like recent years Beatles sales have been from the late millennials or Gen Z crowd.
If anything those crowds who are fans of Country music are representing a much younger crowd for Elvis than the Beatles have, due to the South's emphasis on Country, Gospel and Rockabilly.
All of which Elvis and Johnny Cash are iconic for to that culture.

 

Absolutely. Elvis songs are frequently performed at the county fair type circuit. I've seen them done personally.

 

The Beatles even come up in Beatles threads. (And so do their detractors...)

Shawn said: ↑
Don't forget what else those wacky Beatles created:

"Tomorrow Never Knows": did the Beatles invent "beats"?

Strawberry Fields Forever [Take 7 & Edit Piece]: The Birth of Hip-Hop?

Did John Lennon establish the role of rhythm guitar in rockNroll?

Did the Beatles invent using the turntable as a musical instrument; like DJ's do now?

 

I think the Beatles AND Elvis are alive and well with young people. You cannot bury the classics, they will always be relevant. ALWAYS.

 

Per JohnLennonQuotes.net John Lennon Quotes about Elvis Presley

John Lennon Quotes About Elvis Presley

"Nothing really affected me until Elvis."

"Before Elvis there was nothing."

"When I first heard "Heartbreak Hotel," I could hardly make out what was being said. It was just the experience of hearing it and having my hair stand on end. We'd never heard American voices singing like that. They'd always sung like Sinatra who enunciated well. Suddenly, there's this hillbilly hiccupping with echo and all this bluesy background going on. We didn't know what the hell Presley was singing about or Little Richard or Chuck Berry. It took a long time to work out what was going on. To us, it just sounded like great noise."

"I always wanted to be this tough James Dean type, but Elvis was bigger than religion in my life. When I heard Heartbreak Hotel it was so great I couldn’t speak, I didn’t want to say anything against Elvis, not even in my mind."

"I’m an Elvis fan because it was Elvis who really got me out of Liverpool."

"There's only one person in the United States we ever wanted to meet ... not that he wanted us. And we met him last night. We can't tell you how we felt. We just idolised him so much. ... You can't imagine what a thrill that was last night. Nothing really affected me until I heard Elvis. If there hadn't been an Elvis, there wouldn't have been the Beatles."

"It was a load of rubbish. It was like meeting Engelbert Humperdinck."
John Lennon on meeting Elvis

“I didn’t have the nerve to tell Elvis this last night, but you see these sideburns? I almost got kicked out of school for trying to look like him. Tell Elvis that if it hadn’t been for him, I wouldn’t be here.’ ”
John Lennon to Jerry Schilling after meeting Elvis Presley (according to Schilling)

"It was very exciting, we were all nervous as hell, and we met him in his big house in L.A. - probably as big as the one we were staying in, but it still felt like "big house, big Elvis." He had lots of guys around him, all these guys that used to live near him (like we did from Liverpool, we always had thousands of Liverpool people around us, so I guess he was the same.) And he had pool tables! Maybe a lot of American houses are like that, but it seemed amazing to us. It was like a nightclub."

"He had his TV going all the time, which is what I do; we always have TV on. We never watch it - it's just there with no sound on, and we listen to records. In front of the TV, he had a massive amplifier with a bass plugged into it, and he was up playing bass all the time with the picture up on the TV. So we just got in there and played with him. We all plugged in whatever was around, and we played and sang. He had a jukebox, like I do, but I think he had all his hits on it. But if I'd made as many as him, maybe I'd have all mine on."

"At first we couldn't make him out. I asked him if he was preparing new ideas for his next film and he drawled, "Ah sure am. Ah play a country boy with a guitar who meets a few gals along the way, and ah sing a few songs." We all looked at one another. Finally Presley and Colonel Parker laughed and explained that the only time they departed from that formula - for Wild in the Country - they lost money."

"It was nice meeting Elvis. He was just Elvis, you know? He seemed normal to us, and we were asking about his making movies and not doing any personal appearances or TV. I think he enjoys making movies so much, We couldn't stand not doing personal appearances, we'd get bored - we get bored quickly. He says he misses it a bit.We never talked about anything else - we just played music. He wasn't bigger than us, but he was "the thing." He just wasn't articulate, that's all."

"Up until Elvis joined the army, I thought it was beautiful music and Elvis was for me and my generation what the Beatles were to the '60s. But after he went into the army, I think they cut "les bollocks" off. They not only shaved his hair off but I think they shaved between his legs, too. He played some good stuff after the army, but it was never quite the same, It was like something happened to him psychologically. Elvis really died the day he joined the army. That's when they killed him, and the rest was a living death."

 

I don't think so. 50th anniversary Pepper doing very well in the charts (not bad for a 50 year old album), two vinyl boxed sets in the last few years that sold very well, and the major push to get them on i-Tunes as well?? I don't see any fade in popularity there my friend.

The younger generations are finding the magic, just like we did. I'm sure the Beatles will be high up there in the charts and popularity long after I'm gone because their music is timeless! Elvis too, he's a classic!

 

Most of the Pepper 50th sales were physical.
Not that it didn't do great digitally but when the largest part is physical that tells you it's not the kids who don't own cd players.
Even digital sales are represented by a Gen X 40 something crowd and early Millennial 30 somethings who are not behind on technology.

 

With James Brown, we're going on the thirty years, twenty years minimum, though . . . And as per another thread, hip-hop just surpassed rock as the biggest "genre" on Billboard for the first time.

 

Kids are buying turntables these days. Plus there's streaming that, although I don't agree with that technology, I'm sure Pepper did very well there as well.

 

Not a cover, but:

 

He would have done very well in a modern day 'X Factor'-type show but not being able to write songs will always exclude him from the true greats

 

Lol yeah because Roger Daltrey, Whitney Houston, Aretha Franklin, Frank Sinatra, Barbara Streisand, Tony Bennett, Barry Manilow, Patsy Cline, George Strait, George Jones etc. aren't true greats.
Nice try but you failed miserably

 

I'm a troll because I don't think Elvis Presley was as talented, influential, diverse, important and retrospectively loved as The Beatles?

He could sing, and he could dance for a while, but he was just a singer.

 

In your opinion You're hugely outnumbered but always good that there are those who just don't understand

 

Josh Homme from Queens of the Stone Age too.

 

It did do well with streaming which I mentioned.
But the 50th Pepper demographic wasn't teens and and 20 somethings.
Elvis' philharmonic albums If I Can Dream and The Wonder of You have done extremely well too.