Elvis Presley - The Albums and Singles Thread pt3 The Seventies

I am sorry to hear this. I once knew someone with Eating disorders. Coming from a family ravaged by alcohol and/or drug addiction-I remember finding myself trying to “save” them. I avoided the addiction problems my family had because I spent most of my time in hospitals with Crohns from 13-22. I like to think my illness saved-and even sheltered me.
Anyway, thanks for sharing. This entire thread (I arrived late and catching up one album and single at a time)is just full of goodness. The strong feelings for Elvis and one another is a picker upper. The all around lack of trolling and great music analysis is icing. Cheers.

 

The Live albums, Gold/en records and the rest

Elvis Presley - The best albums (poll) + best versions to get (3)

 

Listening to this one as I read this. I agree with you. This is a good one.

 

That's my opinion, too. The box set looks very nice (with a ca 1970 Elvis for a set of 1973 sessions) and on first sight it screams for soul/ funk/ R&B/ sexy lyrics/ new, rough pumping musicians etc- but in the end to me it's just another MOR country/ ballads Elvis set with lots of depressing lyrics and much too slow typical mid 70s country songs à la Conway Twitty or Narvel Felts.
People are interested in this because it says "STAX" and Elvis- but I bet in the end most listeners (who are not diehard Elvis fans) won't come back to this set very often.

 

@DirkM 's opinion on the "fool" record is surprising, at least for me. My own views about it are quite the contrary: the Dylan jam is terribly edited (some of the best parts are simply missing but fortunately, Ernst J. did show us ), IT'S STILL HERE (a wonderful solo-piano performance) is cut short for no reason at all, IT'S IMPOSSIBLE fits as well as STEPPIN' OUT OF LINE on "Pot Luck with Elvis" - those people did not seem to learn from their own mistakes - and the "duet" PADRE / LOVE ME LOVE THE LIFE I LEAD should be remembered as some of Presley's worst vocals in a studio setting. Ever. There is no reasoning in this release, no care, no logic, no nothing. Just nonsense. "Where do I go from here?", indeed.[/QUOTE]

That's my point of view, too. The "Fool" album might be my personal least favorite Elvis album beside "Raised On Rock" or "Good Times". For me those album cuts sound depressing, too slow and weary and lead nowhere. There is zero electrifying song and peole really must have been very disappointed after "Aloha From Hawaii" when this came out.

 

Same with Johnny Tillotson and Brian Hyland in the mid 60s.

 

I'm still shocked when I think about all the fantastic and great sung cuts from the 1970 Nashville marathon sessions (Funny How Time Slips Away/ A Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On etc.) and that he did more or less just one year later corny easy listening tracks like this. This to me is a major quality lack and this and songs like Spanish Eyes, Fairytale or belted songs like Hurt or Honky Tonk Angel are the reasons why 70's Elvis sometimes horrifys me.

 

Absolutely not, lots of his 60s soundtrack albums were even shorter. I think "It Happened At The World's Fair" may be his shortest album.

 

Roustabout wins the honour of being his shortest studio album at just 20 minutes.....IHATWF comes a close second at 21 minutes with Paradise next at around 22 minutes. Certainly not value for money releases as far as the buyer was concerned and Elvis should have been ashamed at putting out such releases or put his foot down and demanded that at least, they needed to included a couple of bonus tracks from unreleased stuff that were still sitting on the shelves from the May 63 sessions, obviously not for IHATWF although there was probably one or two unreleased songs from earlier sessions that could have been used to pad it out

Of course if they had used those remaining songs from May ‘63, it makes you wonder what they would have done with an album like Double Trouble as by then, they would have exhausted the leftovers for bonus tracks.

There should have been some kind of stipulation that when Elvis recorded soundtrack songs, he was required to record a few more songs at the time if the soundtrack produced less than 12 songs.

There were certainly some bad decisions being made via Elvis, management and RCA during the 60s.

 

At least with Roustabout its mostly a good 20 minutes

 

Well that’s questionable. The opening track which is meant to be a reflection of a guy who has a chip on his shoulder and is not too friendly at the outset comes across as a happy go lucky kind of sing a long pop song...it’s just pleasant but has no real guts in the song. Even RCA decided there was nothing strong enough on the album to warrant a single. As for It’s Carnival Time and Carny Town, it’s difficult to believe that 6 years early, this same guy was singing On Night of Sin.

 

If I Were You....I like the melody and Elvis` voice on this song but the piano playing on this track is poorly done

 

That's how soundtracks are....but for whatever reason, when Elvis did soundtracks folks expected something different. South Pacific was a huge soundtrack, plenty of songs on there that would have been considered lightweight rubbish if Elvis had sung them. The Sound Of Music, Mary Poppins etc etc ... Soundtracks have always contained songs that aren't exactly at the height of musical forward thinking.
Obviously everyone has their own take on what is good or what isn't, but to me Roustabout is a strong soundtrack album.

 

I agree - it's a long way from being the worse, and certainly in the top 50%.

 

Oh c'mon on...talk about clutching at straws in defence of Elvis. Elvis was an iconic popstar who released albums based around a film but did not have to release albums in the style of a conventional soundtrack album. Loving You, Jailhouse Rock, King Creole were all soundtrack albums but were well above the quality of recordings for Roustabout - I have all those soundtrack albums you mention and they play for well over 30 minutes. Elvis' Blue Hawaii gave some great music and there was probably only one duff track on it - Ito Eats, but it offered good value for money at 32 minutes. Even GI Blues that had 11 tracks played for 27 minutes. The Beatles released two albums based around soundtracks even though it was only 50% of each album that contained material based around the film, but there wasn't one track that fell to the low standards that Elvis was producing in 1964.
I could have forgiven the inclusion of throw away songs like Carny Town etc had the album included some additional decent material to push the playing time up, but five of the eleven songs were under two minutes with two of them just over one minute. That really is quite pathetic from someone of Elvis' stature. No wonder it was the first Elvis album in the UK that failed to reach the Top 10, topping out at 12 and only lasting in the charts for just 4 weeks. As for it hitting #1 for one week in the US, even RCA were perplexed at how it did that - they or Elvis certainly got a lucky break when Capitol delayed the release of Beatles 65 by a couple of weeks.

 

That's all just your subjective opinion.
A movie, is a movie .... the sixties was the sixties.
If you don't like the stuff, that's fine, don't tell me what I should like based on your personal rationalizations though.
Even movies now, based on using pop artists still have some crap songs.

Most Elvis movies were by default musicals, very few musicals are going to compete with a regular band/artist album, because that isn't their purpose.

It has nothing to do with being in defense of Elvis, and everything to do with a clear view of what we are looking at.
Sure I would have preferred Elvis to make several different decisions in his career, but we have what we have.
Perhaps you hate all the soundtracks, I don't

 

I am not telling you what to like....where have I actually told you that....you can make your own decision, but to me, this is about value for money and I remember when this album was first released at the end of ‘64 that it’s playing time was very disappointing and a few friends who took a generally favourable approach to Elvis’ albums frowned on Roustabout. And yes, I know the sixties were the sixties....I was there at the time and had it not been for the loyal fanbase creating the ready made sales platform, Elvis would have done a lot worse in the charts - it certainly was not the quality of the records that was getting him those chart appearances.

And no, I do not hate all the soundtracks...I find them quite enjoyable, but that is not to say I would not have preferred songs that lasted longer or the inclusion of bonus songs to increase that overall playing time. Girl Happy is a prime example of an album that also had a short playing time although four minutes longer than Roustabout - it did have the benefit of one bonus song even though it did not quite fit in like some other bonus songs did , yet for some bizarre reason, they found it necessary to edit out verses on certain songs that were already short.

When One Broken Heart For Sale was released, for some bizarre reason, a whole verse was either edited out or Elvis missed out that particular verse on the take chosen as the master for whatever reason, but once again the public took a pretty dim view of a single coming from someone like Elvis that lasted just over one minute and thirty seconds. And people voted by keeping their money in their pocket resulting in Elvis’ first single to fail to reach the Top 10 in the U.K. Luckily, things were restored with the superb Devil in Disguise, but the writing was in the wall regarding the lack of quality singles that were to come going forward.

But we should be able to recognise the shortcomings of what Elvis did rather than take the "it is what it is" kind of dismissive attitude otherwise there would be little point in this thread or ones like it. Elvis was surrounded with too many "yes" people during his career and his loyal fanbase probably did not help either. Of course you are certainly entitled to like whatever turns you on, but to suggest that Roustabout is a solid soundtrack album to me is questionable based on the fact that it contains too many throwaway very short songs, it’s overall playing time is ridiculously short and that it’s value for money is poor. And when you bring up other soundtrack albums, even Orbison’s album from the box office flop The Fastest Guitar Alive played for 28 minutes.

 

Until this forum, I have never considered the LENGTH of an album to equate to value for the money. And upon further consideration, I still don't.

 

I cannot say the length of a record bothered me either. As long as the diameter was the right size to fit onto the record deck, and the lid would close without catching the edges, then no problem.

 

I understand your perspective. There are plenty of songs and albums across the course of these threads that I have stated that I didn't like, or I felt they could have been done in a different manner or whatever. When you throw out a term like Elvis apologist or whatever at me, it doesn't sit well with me, so I respond... pretty simple really.

I would rather a 24 minute album that I like, rather than a 79.5 minute album that is 50 minutes of padding. To me personally, the length of an album isn't really that relevant. I see a lot of folks that have an opinion on some mechanised, systematic idea that an album should be 35-45 minutes.... and it is fine for people to think that, but to me that is a nonsense.
An album should be the length it needs to be, to present the music the artist feels works, to the aim the album had... ie a masterful 3hr prog epic with little to no padding, or a 25 minute soundtrack, which yes, has songs, but is essentially a musical memento, or whatever, of a movie.

There are very few movie soundtracks that are as solid as Led Zep IV, Stones Sticky Fingers, Cold Chisel's Circus Animals, Pink Floyd's Dark Side Of The Moon, Elvis's From Elvis In Memphis, or whatever.... that is just never how soundtracks have worked.
Grease is probably one of the most solid movie soundtracks going, and it has plenty of dreck, it is fun, but has dreck nonetheless. Queen Flash Gordon, a fun exercise, but essentially 2 songs. Saturday Night Fever, some great tracks, but plenty of crud.
Sure one could say The Beatles Hard Days Night is a great album, but it isn't really a soundtrack album, and the movie was essentially a sort of comical, exaggerated day in the life of the Beatles, so it is more a promotional film than a movie anyhow.
We can turn this in circles as much as anyone wants to, but they are pretty much my opinion on these matters.

In the sixties, whether rightly or wrongly (and to some degree, I feel wrongly, although I must say I like a lot of the movies and the soundtracks) Elvis focused on a movie career. This essentially meant regular albums would take a back seat. To me this was a bad management decision, but Elvis decided that's what he wanted to pursue, so that's what happened..... I would probably have recommended shorter contract lengths, and more input about the music, and style of music, if any at all...
I think if Elvis had gotten his way, there would have been a lot less music in the sixties, and Elvis wouldn't have been singing in his movies anyway.....

I know the sixties/soundtrack years are a bone of contention for many Elvis fans, I like too much material from the era to be that bothered about it. Sure I would have loved a series of albums that were movements on from Elvis Is Back, but that was never going to happen, so it seems futile to be annoyed about it..... frankly I would have liked Elvis to explore some of the other styles in/from the sixties, but again, that was never going to happen.

 

I strongly agree. Length does not matter. If I've told my wife once, I've told her a thousand times!!

 

Lol

 

My guess is that there was an audiophile at RCA who kept the length of the LPs down substantially as they knew it would increase the sound quality.

Just kidding of course. But - while I personally would like to have incidental music included - I’d be in the vast minority on that (perhaps only me and @RSteven out of all the Elvis fans!) and don’t think it would have worked. Not that I want to bring The Beatles in to this but the incidental music really hurt their two US soundtracks, based on accounts I’ve read.

 

Incidental music would have been interesting, but as you say, would not have worked - I would simply have preferred a few decent bonus tracks not only to get the numbers up but to help gloss over the poorer material - Spinout has three top quality bonus tracks which to a certain extent were TOO good to be hidden away as bonus songs on a soundtrack album but apparently, word of mouth that Elvis had recorded a Dylan song helped sales..

Regarding those two Beatles albums, I think they did pretty okay, but got caught up in problems that were not encountered in the UK. A Hard Day's Night due to contractual reasons went out on the United Artists label and did include four pieces of incidental music by George Martin, whilst the other non soundtrack songs were picked up on Something New.

But regardless, the album had advanced orders of over 2 million and spent 14 weeks at #1, and had a run of 56 weeks on the Billboard album chart, the longest run of any album that year. By the end of '64, sales had exceeded 2.4 million copies. Help in '65 likewise got caught up in the issues that manifested themselves via Capitol Records where some of the tracks got off loaded to Beatles IV and Rubber Soul. However, the Help album did not do too bad either, spending 9 weeks at #1 and 46 weeks on the chart. Within 5 months, sales were approaching 1.5 million.

 

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@ClausH 's Elvis album thread from 2007 + Part II + Revisited