Elvis Presley: The Album Collection - 60th anniversary of Elvis' RCA contract (18th March 2016)

Yeah, when Confidence played, even my daughter went, what is this???!!??

 

Frankie and johnny starts off pretty good, but it kinda dies off
I like petunia lol

 

King Creole does a much better job of presenting Louisiana music than Frankie And Johnny did. As mentioned before Please Don't Stop Loving Me is pretty good and Hard Luck is a fascinating performance. The title cut isn't bad either.

 

Those are the 3 I like.

 

Harum Scarum has redeeming qualities too, like So Close Yet So Far and Wisdom Of The Ages. The trick was to make it to the end of the LP!

 

I actually REALLY liked Clambake. I was prepared for it to suck. It was a very fun listen, with several moments of greatness.

I’m so glad I bought this set. Amazon did a price adjustment, so I got it for the awesome low price of $166. Some of these albums I would *never* have listened to without getting them in the set.

 

When I first bought Clambake back in 1968 I was blown away by track 1. I liked ALL of side two .

 

As a lifelong Elvis fan, that makes me happy. Glad you're enjoying the set.

 

Yeah it does kind of warm the heart.

 

This is some GREAT music. I had never heard Elvis Is Back! before a week or two ago. Mind blown. Completely blown.

 

Oh man. What an album. Especially when you consider all the non album singles and B-sides. He came out of the Army ready to kick ass.

 

Elvis Is Back was all but ignored upon its release, initially only selling about 200K copies, slowly reaching 300K. It finally went gold in the 90s due to CD reissues. It is a shame, while GI Blues initially sold 700K copies! Makes no sense.

 

I got the AP SACD of Elvis Is Back! too. Can’t wait to listen to it. What I really need now is the FTD release. It looks great, and I know I love the material.

Is this how it starts?!

 

The FTD sounds great as does the Legacy Edition.

 

Short answer, yes.

The FTD version sounds great, even if with a decades hindsight the transfers are a bit more inconsistent than I would like (Sebastian's mastering holds it all together though). Really between Steve Hoffman's, Vic Anesini's and Sebastian Jeansson's masterings of this album you're assured great sound.

 

Taking into account the massive cross-promotion and marketing from the film, it is no surprise it outsold the “Elvis Is Back!” LP.

 

And that is why we ended up with insipid soundtrack LPs for a decade.

 

Ye$, it i$.

 

yes ... i have four FTD's on the way lol

 

I like the Clambake album but the Wikipedia recordings dates show how the best tracks (the bonus songs - that Parker bloke if it is he never stopped did he) were from September 67 and the movie songs from February of that year (I know many folk on this excellent thread know that but it helps me put these things in context). I have always liked the album cover and have an old 70s UK (I think) vinyl version. I have the FTD which is nicely done and the 2010 Music On Vinyl album reissue. I would be interested in what folk on here think of the MOV vinyl reissue which I assume uses the 2007 masters.
I love the cover photo of Elvis one of my favourites - he looks good.
Re folk on this thread asking about vinyl versions of this box I would say that certainly it would be nice if all of Elvis's albums in this cd box were available in their original vinyl versions again.

 

Like this tune from The Trouble With Girls movie.

 

It certainly does not make sense now but it does seem to be that the 3 post Army studio albums starting with Elvis Is Back sold poorly when measured against the soundtrack albums. I have that big FTD book Welcome Home Elvis and I do like the mono cd (partly why I bought it).

 

This reminded me I haven't got the AP Elvis is Back SACD, on order now so I'll chuck it on the heap with the std CD, box set CD, Legacy CD, DCC Gold CD and DCC LP.

Sigh...

 

It makes sense even now. Again, there was major cross-promotion and marketing generated for the initial soundtracks, particularly for "GI Blues" and "Blue Hawaii" that the traditional studio LPs "Elvis Is Back!" and "Something For Everybody" did not receive. Those films exposed Elvis' music to several hundreds of thousands if not millions of more consumers than the traditional studio albums, which relied solely on radio and print (and it did not help that singles were omitted from the albums). Once Parker realized the promotional tie-ins from the films generated more sales and interest in the soundtracks, he worked with RCA to focus on soundtrack recordings as a primary music product -- the failing element to all of it was that the quality of the films and associated soundtracks dipped significantly, leaving Elvis' recording career in tatters by the mid-1960's.