I guess I never considered the distinction between casual and collector when it came to Elvis. Men tend to be more likely a collector when it comes to Elvis, and women are more apt to buy a commemorative plate than a box set. To me what would be the point of owning a random Elvis album if you could own them ALL? So I am definitely biased. I did not even start buying other artists' albums UNTIL I had ALL of Elvis'! Once I had all of them, I went hog wild buying up albums from such a variety of artists it shocked my best friend the breadth of my tastes. (when you don't smoke, drink or take drugs, you have a LOT of discretionary income that make your peers wonder if you are rich!) To me the 60s box was a very logical and very complete within its given parameters. Let's face it the casual fan ALREADY HAD some form of the many greatest hits collections by this time. (discounting new fans at the time this box came out, who would have probably bought a hits collection instead of this box anyway). Heck his first hits collection came out in 1958! And they have never stopped making them even to this day. Sure many kids got a Camden from their granny for a birthday present but that is another story. (here's a quarter, go buy yourself something nice).
You are correct in pointing out that the Elvis 50s box was (as far as I can recall) the first US major-label major-artist CD box set that was five discs long. Prior to that, the standard was three or four at most. So it was groundbreaking in that regard. My guess is that it took its inspiration largely from Bear Family, who by that time had released 5-CD chronological compilations by Johnny Cash and Carl Perkins among others. Another inspiration was probably the Australian Elvis The Legend LP series, which contained all his work from 1954-69 in four separate box sets. My understanding is that the 50s box sold a lot better than RCA expected, so you are probably correct that a lot of people who could be classified as casual fans bought it. At the same time, my point is that (regardless of who bought it) it was designed and compiled for hardcore fans. They embraced the Bear Family methodology of including everything within a specified time period in (more or less) chronological order. Such an approach is designed to specifically appeal to hardcore fans. The 60s box emulated that approach, again including everything within defined parameters in chronological order. Why do I feel it was aimed at hardcore fans and collectors? Because they certainly could have sold more copies if the box had included top-five hits like Can't Help Falling in Love, Return to Sender, and Crying in the Chapel, or well-known songs like Memories and If I Can Dream. And they likely would have sold more copies if the set had only three or four discs and a notably lower list price (IIRC, the Elvis boxes listed around $70 at the time). Yet they chose to omit those songs and to make the box five CDs long, specifically so it would meet the completeist parameters they wanted. I think what they'd learned from the 50s box is that they could market a fan-centric release to casual fans and have some success with that. But that doesn't change the fact that they deliberately made decisions regarding the compilation of this box that made it more appealing to hardcore fans and less appealing to casual fans. So in that regard, it's safe to conclude the box was aimed at hardcore fans, with the hope that some casual fans would pick it up too.
It should have been a bigger hit! The only reason I can come up with for a lot of Elvis' post-1962 stuff is that it got lost in the shuffle of what else was happening in music at the time.That goes back to my theory that Elvis' timing was off for the times. Music was changing very quickly and Elvis was keeping up but seemed to be on the tail end of things. If one were to theoretically move Elvis' career up just one year relative to everyone else, his 60s output would be almost universally revered. I wonder what folks like John Lennon would have thought if in 1967, while the psychedelic era was in full swing, here comes Elvis with Live A Little, Love A Little in theaters and finishes up the "year of love" in black leather doing the "1967" television special? His movies were fluff but compared to other movies of the time that were aiming at the same young audience, his movies were very well made although formulaic. Lots of people joke about some the worst movie songs but totally discount how many top notch songs are in those soundtracks.
Big Boss Man, Guitar Man and US Male should have been a top 10 trifecta. A Little Less Conversation and Clean Up Your Own Backyard should have been a top ten double play.
That may be true on average but my wife was a dedicated music fan when I met her. Heck, I had never even known a female that was big into Weird Al Yankovic until I met her. When she likes an artist, she looks for those deep cuts like lots of male music fans do. I'm the big Elvis and Beatles fan but she has a long list of artists that she has heavily collected their recordings.
If fans did criticize the set on those grounds, they were wrong. A lot of the tracks - particularly those from the earlier years - had previously been bootlegged. At the same time, many of the tracks (Farewell Angelina, for instance) came as a complete surprise to everyone, including the bootleggers. Back to Elvis.
I have noticed whenever someone makes a general statement on the internet, using terms like "most of the time" "on average" "tendency" (in my case "more apt to) etc, there seems to be a certain obligation for someone to point out exceptions. Women are more likely to have many shoes, while men are more likely to have many ties. I am now standing by for someone to tell me they have more shoes than their wife or more ties than their husband.
No offense was taken or meant by me. I started by saying that what you said was "true on average". Can I help it if I have a cool wife that deserves a shout out for being an exception when it comes to being a music fan on THIS forum of all places?
This Time/ I Can't Stop Loving You Whenever I hear this, it makes me wish that Elvis had done a version of This Time. One of the jams from American that got released.
In The Ghetto take 4 Now I have so many American FTD's this is a little redundant, but this was the first place I ever heard anything like this
Suspicious Minds take 6 I really enjoy a lot of these stripped back versions, and it leads me to understand why many prefer the undubbed masters.... I'm kind of glad both exist though.
Kentucky Rain take 9 With a version like this the individual instruments stand out a little more, and so you can hear for example, the cool little keyboard bit, how solid the bass is etc etc
A fantastic track - I wonder what Elvis' didn't like about it that made him redo it the following year?
As perverse as it sounds, this is one of my favourite American Sound tracks. I love the loose feel of it, and the way that it slowly settles into shape. It's definitely my favourite version of I Can't Stop Loving You, with much more emotion than the live versions.
This is one of those rare cases where I don't get much out of the outtakes. It's interesting to hear the different parts, but the song sounds empty without the string/horn/vocal overdubs. There's no sense of drama; there's no real tension. By contrast, I think that Suspicious Minds is still very effective without the overdubs. It has a sense of suppressed paranoia that makes for a very different listening experience when compared to the in-your-face attitude of the single. I love the single, don't get me wrong, but I probably do gravitate more towards the relative subtlety of the outtakes. My favourite has to be the version on the Memphis Sessions FTD. It stops and starts, and it's obvious that everyone is still feeling their way through the song, but somehow, this confusion makes the song even more powerful when it finally starts to come together. I also love the mix, with the drums centered and the organ (left channel) and guitar (right channel) providing the perfect backdrop to Elvis' slightly hoarse, beautifully evocative vocal.
