Elvis Presley - The Albums and Singles Thread pt2 The Sixties

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by mark winstanley, Oct 7, 2018.

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  1. EPA4368

    EPA4368 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Sacramento CA
    It was after Elvis passed away, when the estate took Parker to court, they found out Parker was getting money from his side deals with both, RCA and William Morris.
     
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  2. czeskleba

    czeskleba Senior Member

    Location:
    Seattle
    When an album is certified gold or platinum depends on when the record company bothers to submit for the certification. It does not happen automatically, a record company has to petition to make it happen. Flaming Star almost certainly crossed the threshold for both gold and platinum sometime in the 70s, but RCA didn't bother to apply for the certifications until 1999 and 2004, respectively. I'll post the certification history of some other albums later to illustrate the point.
     
  3. czeskleba

    czeskleba Senior Member

    Location:
    Seattle
    It wasn't the estate per se, it was a guardian ad litem appointed to represent Lisa Marie's financial interests. Priscilla (who was running the estate by then) would have been happy to let the Colonel continue his mismanagement.
     
  4. Regardless of process, there's something wrong in a world where Elvis Sings Flaming Star is certified Platinum, and Elvis Is Back! only certified Gold.
     
  5. EPA4368

    EPA4368 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Sacramento CA
    From wiki... The case against Parker was settled out of court in '83, with the estate paying him $2m and the termination of his involvement in any Presley related earnings for five years. He was also ordered to hand over any Presley audio recordings or visual images that he owned.

    Keeping in mind, the estate needed money... so something had to have happened behind the scenes, to make this kind of settlement. And, it was more than Parker handing over his truck loads of Elvis memorabilia imo.
     
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  6. shanebrown

    shanebrown Forum Resident

    Location:
    Norfolk, UK
    The Fool album is around 25 minutes too - which makes it even stranger that they edited Don't Think Twice so much. And obviously a number of the Camdens are very short, too.
     
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  7. shanebrown

    shanebrown Forum Resident

    Location:
    Norfolk, UK
    As stated earlier when we were discussing Speedway, the interest in Elvis was growing again before the special was even made - and we see that through a series of important articles published in newspapers in 1968. It's also worth adding that it's really something of a myth that Elvis's films were panned by all of the major critics of the day. Sure, some were viewed as Turkeys, but relatively few compared to what we are led to believe. The mid-60s films got a much rougher time from the press in the UK than in America, for some reason.

    In many respects, the first Camden albums were almost sequels to Elvis for Everyone - a collection of songs going back a number of years that had never been on LP (and often anywhere) before pulled together on a (relatively short) album. Flaming Star, Almost in Love, and Let's Be Friends all fit that bill, and then the formula started changing to combining EPs on to albums (C'mon Everybody and I Got Lucky), and finally we get to Hits from the Movies and the bizarre Burning Love and Hits from the Movies (a coherent album in that all the movie songs were based on folk songs or classical music) where virtually everything had appeared on LP before.
     
  8. RSteven

    RSteven Forum Resident

    Location:
    Brookings, Oregon
    101 albums certified gold or platinum and that is not even counting his EP's. When you consider the fact that a current recording superstar like Justin Timberlake or Adele will probably only record about 20 albums in their entire recording career (They currently average about one album every four or five years), it is really a staggering accomplishment that may never be repeated, unless the current music business model is turned upside down by some new technology or format. Streaming may yield some impressive numbers for modern artists, but no current recording act may ever sell the number of hard copy albums that Elvis and The Beatles did in the past.
     
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  9. SKATTERBRANE

    SKATTERBRANE Forum Resident

    Location:
    Tucson, AZ
    As of last estimate in 2017, Elvis Is Back has sold 675,000 copies. It simply has not earned platinum yet. Nor has From Elvis In Memphis at 800,000. If there were awards based on merit (no not even Grammys are), then that would be a different story.

    Besides the Camden (and later Pickwick) albums were available at grocery store check outs. Many people did not even bother to note what songs were on them. They bought them because they could be had for $2 or $3. People are impulsive emotional chemical stew. They are not so logical and systematic as they should be.
     
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  10. SKATTERBRANE

    SKATTERBRANE Forum Resident

    Location:
    Tucson, AZ
    And I would think that even if the 60CD box set sold a million copies (which it won't). It would not elevate the individual sales of each title within. Same goes for similar sets like the two 20 CD sets and the 3CD and 5CD sets. Their sales accumulate as a separate title, the individual titles they contain do not get tallied towards those particular discs/albums.

    If they did, Elvis Is Back and From Elvis In Memphis would certainly achieve Platinum or even multi-Platinum status as they are featured in a few boxes.
     
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  11. RSteven

    RSteven Forum Resident

    Location:
    Brookings, Oregon
    It really is hysterical that Elvis's two greatest albums by my measure have not even reached platinum status, but than again, there is no accounting for taste by the general public.
     
  12. PacificOceanBlue

    PacificOceanBlue Senior Member

    Location:
    The Southwest
    I would be shocked if those sales figures are accurate. With respect to From Elvis In Memphis, does anyone really think that over the past 50 years, after all of the reissues, and with millions of fans actively consuming Elvis product, that this album has not moved at least one million units worldwide?
     
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  13. SKATTERBRANE

    SKATTERBRANE Forum Resident

    Location:
    Tucson, AZ
    Ah but the awards are not for worldwide. The RIAA awards are for US sales only. RCA did some inhouse awards based on worldwide sales however.
     
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  14. czeskleba

    czeskleba Senior Member

    Location:
    Seattle
    I imagine price point and more extensive distribution were factors in the sales of Flaming Star.

    As Shane noted, Flaming Star is essentially Elvis for Everyone Volume 2: a collection of outtakes and movie songs unreleased on record. The one odd exception is "Flaming Star" which had come out on EP already. I wonder why it was included, and even more I wonder why they decided to designate it as the title song and package the album in artwork that makes it look like it's a soundtrack from that movie. Flaming Star was an eight-year-old film and hadn't even been that successful relative to other Elvis films, so why did they think it was a strong marketing point for the record? If they were going to use a movie song from an EP why not select one that had been more successful or better know (such as "Viva Las Vegas")?
     
  15. PacificOceanBlue

    PacificOceanBlue Senior Member

    Location:
    The Southwest
    If you are looking for logic behind RCA's product conceptions, you will likely never find a reasonable explanation. It is difficult to find worse catalogue mismanagement by an artist of Elvis' stature in recorded music history.
     
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  16. I believe the RIAA awards are based on US sales only. But yes, I always question these figures.
     
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  17. SKATTERBRANE

    SKATTERBRANE Forum Resident

    Location:
    Tucson, AZ
    Interestingly enough Elvis For Everyone also include one previously released song, also from the Flaming Star EP. There was a certain demand for the song Flaming Star that resulted in both the EP and the LP.
     
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  18. SKATTERBRANE

    SKATTERBRANE Forum Resident

    Location:
    Tucson, AZ
    I really do not question the figures as much as some do.
     
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  19. PacificOceanBlue

    PacificOceanBlue Senior Member

    Location:
    The Southwest
    I hear you, but even if we are looking at U.S. figures, the region where Elvis has likely had his largest sales success at retail, one suspects after 50 years, countless reissues, and a strong and active consumer-base, that From Elvis In Memphis has sold a million copies. Perhaps it is all hits and thematic compilations that have moved the most units over the past few decades, but I would be surprised if this particular album remains under the one million threshold.
     
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  20. As PacificOceanBlue noted, it's nearly impossible to figure out what the heck RCA was thinking throughout Elvis' lifetime, and post. But I'm wondering if maybe Flaming Star had good TV syndication #'s so they thought an LP titled with the title track would be a good marketing move? Oh to be a fly on the wall during the Elvis LP album release discussions at RCA...
     
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  21. czeskleba

    czeskleba Senior Member

    Location:
    Seattle
    Again, it's important to remember that RIAA certifications don't necessarily reflect total sales, they reflect whether a label has bothered to pursue certification. Elvis is Back may well have sales to justify higher certification yet Sony hasn't bothered to pursue it yet.

    Here's the certification history for Led Zeppelin's fourth album, by way of example:
    23x Multi-Platinum | January 30, 2006
    22x Multi-Platinum | November 15, 1999
    21x Multi-Platinum | May 3, 1999
    17x Multi-Platinum | November 25, 1997
    16x Multi-Platinum | January 26, 1996
    11x Multi-Platinum | December 18, 1992
    10x Multi-Platinum | December 11, 1990
    Platinum | December 11, 1990
    Gold | November 16, 1971

    Obviously, in this case the record company did not bother pursuing certifications at all until the 90s. And even then, I think it's unlikely that over half of the album's total sales occurred between 1990 and 2006, because that would mean the album was selling roughly a million a year in the 90s but only half a million a year in the 70s and 80s, which seems very unlikely. These are simply the dates when certification was pursued, not the dates when each particular sales threshold was crossed.
     
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  22. czeskleba

    czeskleba Senior Member

    Location:
    Seattle
    Oh, I know. I just think this was an exceptionally bizarre choice, even by RCA standards.
     
  23. PacificOceanBlue

    PacificOceanBlue Senior Member

    Location:
    The Southwest
    Agreed.
     
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  24. This is so circumstantial it's only an anecdote, but in my decades of collecting Elvis albums, I see gazillions of Blue Hawaii, GI Blues and Moody Blue LPs. But I rarely see From Elvis in Memphis.
     
  25. RSteven

    RSteven Forum Resident

    Location:
    Brookings, Oregon
    I am not so sure about that issue. I think you are right about the latter, but I'm not so sure about the way the RIAA counts a box set made up of complete single albums. I am going by sheer memory here, but I thought some of Garth Brooks box sets that had his complete single albums within them helped push his individual RIAA album totals higher. I could be wrong about this, but that is the way I am remembering it.
     
    Last edited: Apr 17, 2019
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