This guy wrote a terrible article on I Am an Elvis Fan cd. He calls it a review of the cd, are you kidding me. Just read the article, it will probably make you just as mad as it did me.
http://www.popmatters.com/pm/review/...-an-elvis-fan/
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This guy wrote a terrible article on I Am an Elvis Fan cd. He calls it a review of the cd, are you kidding me. Just read the article, it will probably make you just as mad as it did me.
http://www.popmatters.com/pm/review/...-an-elvis-fan/
http://images.popmatters.com/news_ar...ey-500x250.jpg
http://images.popmatters.com/news_ar...-elvis-fan.jpg
I Am an Elvis Fan
(RCA/Legacy; US: 31 Jul 2012)
Elvis Presley: I Am an Elvis Fan
By David Grossman 11 September 2012
Perhaps 100 years from now, there will be a section in Internet Studies on I Am an Elvis Fan. The new compilation for RCA/Legacy sits at the intersection of a thousand peculiarities — crowdsourcing and commerce, the passion of fandom and the messiness of history, the desire for relevance that sits at the heart of any Internet-based project.
Over 25,000 people voted online on for the songs that make up I Am an Elvis Fan. One has to assume the overlap with the 18,000 people who attended last year’s Elvis Week at Graceland is high. It’s also comparable with the number of voters in the now-somewhat infamous Pitchfork “People’s List”. While RCA/Legacy hasn’t released any statistics about who exactly did the voting, it’s fair to assume that these are all people who have in someway felt left behind. If the history of Western pop music is Elvis vs. The Beatles, The Beatles won. Groups beat out solo acts, experimentation beat rockabilly, “Imagine” beat gospel. Right or wrong, Elvis is the one to be rebelled against, the one who is truly seen as ‘old’. Cirque de Soleil made a show about him too, but who cares?
That dichotomy has left the people still trying to sell new Elvis records in a bind. Like those who voted in Pitchfork People’s List, Elvis fans strongly believe that their personal taste has the strength to become universally beloved, if only they could make everyone hear what they do. It’s an impossible task, considering how our lives shape the music we listen to, even if it often feels the other way around. But the closest you can get is with mixtapes. If you can tie a song not just to it’s tempo or lyrics but to an actual, breathing person, then it might have a fighting chance.
Once you get over the 20,000 mark, though, the oddities of your sample group will start to show themselves. That might mean thinking Radiohead has put out more than one good album, or in this case, that genius emerges out of a bubble. Listening to the tracks on Elvis Fan, you’d never know that Presley worshipped (and some would say stole from) so many African-American artists. “Big Mama” Thorton’s “Hound Dog” is shockingly missing from the collection, as is Elvis’ first single, Arthur “Big Boy” Crudup’s “That’s All Right”. Forget the fact that these are some of Elvis’ best songs: unpredictable, freewheeling, and in the case of “Hound Dog”, so full of sexual danger that it would get Elvis’ car firebombed after a performance. To ignore these songs is to buy into the myth Forrest Gump gave us, with it’s early scene of shucking and jiving: that one man could single-handedly create the entirety of rock ‘n’ roll in his free time. It was wrong then, and it’s wrong now.
What we’ve got here isn’t bad, though. There’s no point in describing many of these songs, as the straightening of the shoulders that comes from the pure guitar riff in the middle of “Heartbreak Hotel” and the ever-so-slightly-camp joys of “Burning Love” remain as present as they’ve ever been. Winks and nods mark the best Elvis songs, but Elvis Fan gets bogged down in the “Which Elvis Do You Like” debate that held our postal system hostage so many years ago. Fans voted in seven categories, forcing slow and staid duds like “Blue Hawaii” to sit at the table with gems like “Jailhouse Rock”.
The forgotten centerpiece of the Elvis Experience is the live performance, an electric magnetism and thighs so virile that The Ed Sullivan Show was pressured into showing him from the waist up. Here, though, we get the later stuff. For “Suspicious Minds” and “Burning Love”, this works great, with the King willing to wink and laugh at himself. Especially on “Suspicious Minds”, there’s a lightness in voice, a twinkle in his eye. “I hope this suit don’t tear up, baby”, he improvises. The horns whirl with background singers, and you can him woo-woo’ing right along with the audience. It’s a disarming performance, the type that lets you brush aside any mythology getting in the way of enjoying the music.
We’re also stuck with “The American Trilogy”. The only track on the compilation that reaches noxious levels, it features Elvis portentously and gravely weaving three Civil War standards together. Radically different than the original arrangement created by country legend Mickey Newbury, Elvis’ ignores Newbury’s attempts to personalize a vicious segment of American history and makes the “Trilogy” a straight line of nostalgia, as if “Dixie” and “Battle Hymn of the Republic” were talking about the same place. The horns and background singers used so effectively on “Suspicious Minds” feel forced and corny. The trick of cashing in is to make sure everyone forgets you’re doing it. Hearing Elvis sing “Dixie” belongs in Branson, Missouri with imitators, not the genuine artifact.
I’m picking on “Trilogy” so much because, like the other songs here, it doesn’t have to be. All of Elvis Fan is stuck between the fun and the serious, and Elvis did the former way better than the latter. But there’s no point in telling that to the people who voted on Elvis Fan. Any critique of track choices on a compilation like this is part of a debate pre-approved by RCA/Legacy, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. No one will ever stop trying to put the round circles of song into the square pegs of numeric value, and the press materials for Elvis Fan note that it is “BY Elvis fans” and “FOR Elvis fans”. A lot of the songs here feel like they hadn’t made the cut for previous best-ofs, and the collectors who have them all finally got a chance to give their ignored tracks the respect they thought they deserved. It’s a great idea, one that could be applied to many bands (It’ll be a shame if the eventual Animal Collective best-of is complied any other way). I Am An Elvis Fan is a collection for the die-hards. For the rest of us, not so much.
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:doh:..........................................Tha nk you so much my friend for letting us know about this article. :blink: What does he know.
Its a pity they couldnt mix it up better, a few hits with a few rarer tracks / alternates to please us "diehards" and maybe entice a few newer fans !
Or maybe unveil the new JXL Duet remix as a bonus track ?
A collection for the diehards? Er no, I don't think so David Grossman. There are a couple of songs on here that I loathe with a passion and skip them if they ever play on any Elvis CD I listen to. This could've been a spectacular release had the choice really been given to the fans.
I agree. I just think the guy that wrote the article had it out for Elvis. More than half of the article is bashing Elvis' songs, not just giving his opinion about the CD and how they could have made it better.Quote:
Originally Posted by Snake Eyes
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Originally Posted by Snake Eyes
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Originally Posted by King Of The Whole World
yep, quite agree
I don't like the article but I don't blame him. Its a lousy release. They overhyped it, yet the final result is another of the same old story, a repacking of the usual thing. Sure, the hits are great tracks, even this guy has to aknowledge some of that, but really, another one?
I don't believe this is really the track list of the fans, either RCA faked the whole thing or we are plain *****s for choosing the same thing. Another thing is the list of songs to choose from was so limited and manipulative. There was already a clear direction for it, there was already a limited menu of the usual "popular" tracks to choose your "truly favourites".
In the days 0f the dead of the CD this could have been a great proyect, and if they had provide with the whole Elvis catalogue to choose from, in at least 3 stages of voting, the ending tack list, believe me, it would have been way better than these, the whole making of it, if longer and more dedicated, would have been a great vehicle to promote lesser known Elvis material to the overal public. But its simple, they weren't going to risk to release something like this without at least 12 of the usual greatest hits. So again, it was a big fake, and there you go the results.
From the Fans for the Fans, yet, I don't see anybody exited about this proyect here or in any other forum, not now not in the making. From the casual fans to the casual fans might be.
Die Hard fans are excited about A Boy From Tupelo and Prince from Another Planet, aren't we? I didn't even remembered about this one!!!!
Nicely put and all I have to add to this is yes I'm excited for the Prince release, roll on October (y)Quote:
Originally Posted by Raised on Rock
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Originally Posted by Raised on Rock
we certainly are......lol
I didn't buy it.......just happened to win it whilst in Memphis
You jammy moo :lol: How did this come about, was it a raffle?Quote:
Originally Posted by debtdbruno
only the Elvis fan cd Jen......nothing more exciting....hahaha
just based on the number on your 'all access pass'. won a bottle of red wine too, gave that away wasn't going to risk it in the suitcase.....lol
What a result though, I bet you get yours before I get mine lolQuote:
Originally Posted by debtdbruno
That's funny!!! I was at that conference waiting anxiously for my number to be called. That is funny that it was you that won the prize, if I would have only known. Was that at the one where Jamie Aron Kelly held up The Boy from Tupelo?Quote:
Originally Posted by debtdbruno
I don't know if it was 'that particular' one...they were giving prizes all week. On another day I won a bottle of red wine. I did see Jamie hold The Boy from Tupelo set up, he was just in front of me (off to the right).....I was intending fetching my set for Ernst to sign....cant believe it, I forgot it!!!!!!!Quote:
Originally Posted by King Of The Whole World
I dont think this pathetic release deserved any better than this . By Elvis fans for Elvis fans , please give me a break . Yes of course we are going to choose songs we have at least 20 times on any number of compilations . Sure doesnt everyone know Elvis fans are very rich people with loads of money to throw away & waste . Oh sorry i got carried awy there its just Sony that think that:angry::angry: