No. But it was not a failed session in the single department. Million dollar selling hits aren't a dime a dozen for a short session. It was marathon though.
The point is, there is not one well-known, marquee single or song tie-in for a Nashville sessions box set. Elvis' cover of You Don't Have To Say You Love Me is irrelevant in 2020. The Stax set was able to get around having commercially relevant material because Sony promoted the "Stax" moniker as a marketing tool.
My thought is this set will sell the exact same numbers whether there was a ‘hit’ tied to it or not. Guessing 5,000 copies for a first run, more if needed.
Elvis was the first artist that I remember listening to as a child. My mom and older cousins loved him. I remember the early RCA singles. Great music. In my collection I believe after Zappa, I have more Elvis than anyone else.
In the context of the day, Elvis scored a couple of minor hits out of the sessions. But we're talking about a set 50 years later. Dusty's song is still Dusty's song, Elvis didn't take her crown. It's easy to build a sales pitch in 2020 around sessions that resulted in signature work like an In The Ghetto or a Suspicious Minds, or a session that produced a load of hit singles like Are You Lonesome Tonight, It's Now Or Never, etc. So without any lasting hits to hang a banner on, plus the fact That's The Way It Is (album and movie) already got mined and promoted around in recent years, they'll have to work real hard to build an argument for why people should want to dive into this work. Elvis Country? It kinda got lost in the slip-stream at the time didn't it? Came out way too soon after That's The Way It Is and for some reason never broke out on its own. That album ought to have been a spring or summer release in 1971. I'm intrigued to see what Sony comes up with. And in fact, beyond the article noting work was underway on the recordings we really don't know what the makeup of the set will be. Maybe Sony will ignore 2014's release entirely and create something from the ground up again - this time with Blu-Rays!
If Sony goes this route, makes it expansive with TTWII live material and Blu-rays, plus a thorough overview of the Nashville session work, the price-tag will be very high, guaranteeing limited sales to a select group of existing Elvis enthusiasts. If they pare it down to the 5 disc range, they can realistically sell it around the $50 retail price point and potentially appeal to a broader range of consumers (like the Stax set did).
Right. We're assuming a complete sessions set, maybe it will be. Maybe it'll be a 1970 celebration in general, covering the whole year. Maybe it'll have a TTWII focus again, but this time more on the session work rather than the live and movie work. Who knows.
The casual fan is NOT going to be swayed to box a box set just because it has one or two hits on it. That casual fan probably already has at least ONE hits album anyway. There ARE hits from the June 1970 sessions. Although they are typically 500,000+ sellers: I've Lost You/The Next Step Is Love I Really Don't Want To Know/There Goes My Everything You Don't Have To Say You Love Me/Patch It Up
It is not like someone is going to buy any box set just because it has one recognizable hit on it. I don't think there are many "casual" Elvis fans anyway. Most people who buy these boxes are completists.
Minor hits of the time, but hits that never settled into the wider consciousness. I'd suggest in 2020 there are three main categories of buyers Sony would be wanting to reach: casual buyers, music enthusiasts, Elvis enthusiasts. The latter two are those buying box-sets, the question is how many music enthusiasts jump on board, the sorts of buyers that line up around music stores on RSD around the world and come out with hoards of releases from multiple artists and bands. On that note, I'm surprised to see there doesn't appear to be a Sony release lined up for Record Store Day next month, to get the ball rolling on marketing the box-set.
If I had to guess, Sony may go with a marketing strategy like "these sessions may be the equal to the 1969 sessions, but weren't given a fair chance at retail due to RCA flooding the market with Elvis product at the time."
That should not surprise anyone. Not only was it a very pricey box set, but it is the sort of product that only appeals to a niche group of consumers at retail, in an era of diminishing physical sales.
FTD is now in the business of recycling material, so it is doubtful the label cares about reissuing all of the content from the classic album series editions. A lot will depend on white this upcoming Sony box set consists of.
It's happening because no one is interested in Dylan mumbled wax cylinders but we're very interested in those fantastic 1970 sessions set. He's the artist of the century damn it.
Well, I am not convinced this box set is in the works because Sony thinks the fan base is very interested. The managers of the Elvis catalogue tend to focus on "anniversaries" and like last year (with the 1969 recordings), they are focusing on 1970, likely hoping that anniversary tie-ins still have some traction at retail like they did 20-30 years ago. Also, there is the added benefit of protecting the copyright for any additional unreleased tracks. Rob Santos likes the 1970's and has prioritized those recordings at retail over the past several years. The live recordings from That's The Way It Is were just done a few years back, so the focus will likely be on the studio work. Sony tries to produce one viable, larger-scale project every year to continue to promote the legacy of Elvis Presley, and this year for obvious reasons, Nashville 1970 gets the nod.
