Another year has passed with the music catalogue of one of the greatest talents and figures in contemporary music history in total and complete disarray. From the time Elvis became a major recording artist in the late-50’s, RCA flooded the market with excessive amounts of product. For a time, it made economic sense, but once the mid-60’s arrived, that old business philosophy was outdated and ultimately counterproductive on all levels.
Throughout the late-60’s and into the late-70’s up until Elvis’ death, he was contracted to release 2-3 albums of new material PER YEAR. It is clear that Elvis was badly mismanaged by Colonel Tom Parker during that era, but that sums it up if there was ever any doubt. What other mainstream superstar was contracted to release multiple albums of NEW material in one calendar year? That was an era when labels released one album at the most by many of the top performers per year and in many cases, a couple of years could pass between projects. Obviously Elvis’ studio work suffered from this unrealistic release schedule in addition to his inhibiting publishing arrangements.
Because of this insane contract he had with RCA, the market was flooded with loads of product consisting of haphazardly thrown-together studio albums of mediocre tracks, compilations, and live albums. Think about it; Elvis’ last huge hit “Burning Love” was released on an RCA budget album with reissued soundtrack material from the 60’s. That should have been the lead-off single on a rock album. A year later in 1973, Elvis hit number one on the album charts with his “Aloha From Hawaii” soundtrack album during the first quarter of the year. Instead of marketing and promoting it like other labels had done with big live albums, RCA rushed out a substandard studio album in the second quarter of the year leaving the live album that had so much sales potential to fade away with little fanfare. Talk about horrible A&R representation. Between Tom Parker and Joan Deary at RCA, Elvis’ recording career didn’t have a chance during the last decade of his life.
The madness never stopped. After Elvis’ passing (unless you believe he faked his death and is driving an 18 wheeler and living in a doublewide in Kalamazoo), RCA continued to roll out compilations and reissues endlessly. The market has been flooded with excessive product for over 30 years. There have been countless misguided reissue campaigns during the past 15 years that have been aborted and not completed.
Elvis’ catalogue is a mess. For the general consumer, it is a daunting and impossible task to find a proper starting place if they are interested in checking out Elvis’ music. What compilation should they start with? 2003’s “ELV1S 30 Number 1 Hits” was an attempt to create the one big hits album everyone had to have in their collection, and it sold nearly 10 million copies, but it was ultimately relegated behind newer compilations. BMG finally had a huge Elvis hit on their hands and they quickly moved on leaving the future sales potential behind once again.
There is a reason why The Eagles’ “Greatest Hits Vol. 1” is the biggest selling album in U.S. history (not only because the music is of high quality). There hasn’t been a flood of Eagles’ compilations issued annually for decades. One doesn’t come across Eagles titles like: “Eagles Love Songs,” “The Eagles Sing Country,” “The Eagles – An American Band,” “The Eagles Live In The 70’s,” “The Eagles – The Henley & Frey Songbook,” “The Eagles – A Taste Of America,” “The Eagles Sing All Kinds,” “The Essential Eagles,” etc. For years, the consumer had essentially two options if they wanted an Eagles compilation and ultimately “Greatest Hits Vol. 1” sold massive amounts. Clear the shelves of endless Presley compilations and focus on one or two, and the sales would be massive. It isn’t a complicated concept. “ELV1S 30 Number 1 Hits” could still be a huge selling album, but it is now just one of many choices of Elvis compilations.
Aside from endless compilations, there hasn’t been a focus to market and promote key albums from Elvis’ catalogue. As pointed out, there was always loads of product on the shelves, but Elvis still released some very high quality studio albums and live albums. BMG (now Sony/BMG) could have spent some time addressing this, but they never really did. In the late-90’s, some classic Presley titles were reissued with soft liner notes, remastering and bonus tracks (they weren’t really bonuses consisting of outtakes, but rather extra songs already available on many other releases) – but that reissue campaign was aborted. There is no reason why one of Elvis’ greatest studio achievements, “Elvis Is Back!,” should be out of print on the mainstream Sony/BMG catalogue. So what if it doesn’t sell huge units? There has to be a need for some sort of artistic integrity and desire to present the recording legacy of Elvis Presley in a historically accurate fashion.
Sony keeps a lot of Miles Davis’ albums in print, and more than a handful cannot be moving big units. Yes, there are plenty of Miles Davis compilations, but for consumers looking to explore his catalogue and body of work in a more extensive way once they graduate past compilations, they can locate a vast majority of his catalogue titles. In Elvis’ case, good luck finding anything.
There is an Elvis Presley collector’s label run out of Sony/BMG Denmark by longtime Elvis producer and archivist Ernst Jorgensen called Follow That Dream. A lot of Elvis’ catalogue albums are available in deluxe form from this collector’s label, but at a very high price. Why should one of music’s most influential and greatest artists have the gems from his catalogue available through fan club outlets and as Amazon imports at excessively high prices?
Now with the end of the CD era in sight and Sony/BMG facing some serious problems, it is hard to imagine the Elvis Presley catalogue will get the much needed attention it deserves. What would be the label’s incentive to try to organize Elvis’ catalogue and shape it with some artistic integrity? They have run his catalogue like used car salesmen and the result speaks for itself. Ultimately, Sony/BMG will focus on moving Elvis’ catalogue online and a lot of special performances will be ignored and forgotten while the hits will be recycled over and over with no direction or historic representation.
Anyone remotely interested in Elvis and not sure where to start, try to find any of these titles of interest before they are gone:
*Elvis At Sun
*Elvis Presley
Elvis Presley [deluxe edition] (Follow That Dream release)
Elvis
Loving You
*Elvis Is Back!
Elvis Is Back! [deluxe edition] (Follow That Dream release)
Something For Everybody
Tomorrow Is A Long Time
*Memories: The 68 Comeback Special
*Tiger Man
*From Elvis In Memphis
Suspicious Minds – The Memphis 1969 Anthology
*Elvis At The International (Follow That Dream release)
All Shook Up (Follow That Dream release)
*That’s The Way It Is [special edition]
One Night In Vegas (Follow That Dream release)
*Elvis Country
An Afternoon At The Garden
Burning Love
On Tour Rehearsals (Follow That Dream release)
Aloha From Hawaii
Raised On Rock [deluxe edition] (Follow That Dream release)
Today [deluxe edition] (Follow That Dream release)
The Jungle Room Sessions (Follow That Dream release)
Elvis At The Movies
Platinum [boxset]
*Essential Titles
Throughout the late-60’s and into the late-70’s up until Elvis’ death, he was contracted to release 2-3 albums of new material PER YEAR. It is clear that Elvis was badly mismanaged by Colonel Tom Parker during that era, but that sums it up if there was ever any doubt. What other mainstream superstar was contracted to release multiple albums of NEW material in one calendar year? That was an era when labels released one album at the most by many of the top performers per year and in many cases, a couple of years could pass between projects. Obviously Elvis’ studio work suffered from this unrealistic release schedule in addition to his inhibiting publishing arrangements.
Because of this insane contract he had with RCA, the market was flooded with loads of product consisting of haphazardly thrown-together studio albums of mediocre tracks, compilations, and live albums. Think about it; Elvis’ last huge hit “Burning Love” was released on an RCA budget album with reissued soundtrack material from the 60’s. That should have been the lead-off single on a rock album. A year later in 1973, Elvis hit number one on the album charts with his “Aloha From Hawaii” soundtrack album during the first quarter of the year. Instead of marketing and promoting it like other labels had done with big live albums, RCA rushed out a substandard studio album in the second quarter of the year leaving the live album that had so much sales potential to fade away with little fanfare. Talk about horrible A&R representation. Between Tom Parker and Joan Deary at RCA, Elvis’ recording career didn’t have a chance during the last decade of his life.
The madness never stopped. After Elvis’ passing (unless you believe he faked his death and is driving an 18 wheeler and living in a doublewide in Kalamazoo), RCA continued to roll out compilations and reissues endlessly. The market has been flooded with excessive product for over 30 years. There have been countless misguided reissue campaigns during the past 15 years that have been aborted and not completed.
Elvis’ catalogue is a mess. For the general consumer, it is a daunting and impossible task to find a proper starting place if they are interested in checking out Elvis’ music. What compilation should they start with? 2003’s “ELV1S 30 Number 1 Hits” was an attempt to create the one big hits album everyone had to have in their collection, and it sold nearly 10 million copies, but it was ultimately relegated behind newer compilations. BMG finally had a huge Elvis hit on their hands and they quickly moved on leaving the future sales potential behind once again.
There is a reason why The Eagles’ “Greatest Hits Vol. 1” is the biggest selling album in U.S. history (not only because the music is of high quality). There hasn’t been a flood of Eagles’ compilations issued annually for decades. One doesn’t come across Eagles titles like: “Eagles Love Songs,” “The Eagles Sing Country,” “The Eagles – An American Band,” “The Eagles Live In The 70’s,” “The Eagles – The Henley & Frey Songbook,” “The Eagles – A Taste Of America,” “The Eagles Sing All Kinds,” “The Essential Eagles,” etc. For years, the consumer had essentially two options if they wanted an Eagles compilation and ultimately “Greatest Hits Vol. 1” sold massive amounts. Clear the shelves of endless Presley compilations and focus on one or two, and the sales would be massive. It isn’t a complicated concept. “ELV1S 30 Number 1 Hits” could still be a huge selling album, but it is now just one of many choices of Elvis compilations.
Aside from endless compilations, there hasn’t been a focus to market and promote key albums from Elvis’ catalogue. As pointed out, there was always loads of product on the shelves, but Elvis still released some very high quality studio albums and live albums. BMG (now Sony/BMG) could have spent some time addressing this, but they never really did. In the late-90’s, some classic Presley titles were reissued with soft liner notes, remastering and bonus tracks (they weren’t really bonuses consisting of outtakes, but rather extra songs already available on many other releases) – but that reissue campaign was aborted. There is no reason why one of Elvis’ greatest studio achievements, “Elvis Is Back!,” should be out of print on the mainstream Sony/BMG catalogue. So what if it doesn’t sell huge units? There has to be a need for some sort of artistic integrity and desire to present the recording legacy of Elvis Presley in a historically accurate fashion.
Sony keeps a lot of Miles Davis’ albums in print, and more than a handful cannot be moving big units. Yes, there are plenty of Miles Davis compilations, but for consumers looking to explore his catalogue and body of work in a more extensive way once they graduate past compilations, they can locate a vast majority of his catalogue titles. In Elvis’ case, good luck finding anything.
There is an Elvis Presley collector’s label run out of Sony/BMG Denmark by longtime Elvis producer and archivist Ernst Jorgensen called Follow That Dream. A lot of Elvis’ catalogue albums are available in deluxe form from this collector’s label, but at a very high price. Why should one of music’s most influential and greatest artists have the gems from his catalogue available through fan club outlets and as Amazon imports at excessively high prices?
Now with the end of the CD era in sight and Sony/BMG facing some serious problems, it is hard to imagine the Elvis Presley catalogue will get the much needed attention it deserves. What would be the label’s incentive to try to organize Elvis’ catalogue and shape it with some artistic integrity? They have run his catalogue like used car salesmen and the result speaks for itself. Ultimately, Sony/BMG will focus on moving Elvis’ catalogue online and a lot of special performances will be ignored and forgotten while the hits will be recycled over and over with no direction or historic representation.
Anyone remotely interested in Elvis and not sure where to start, try to find any of these titles of interest before they are gone:
*Elvis At Sun
*Elvis Presley
Elvis Presley [deluxe edition] (Follow That Dream release)
Elvis
Loving You
*Elvis Is Back!
Elvis Is Back! [deluxe edition] (Follow That Dream release)
Something For Everybody
Tomorrow Is A Long Time
*Memories: The 68 Comeback Special
*Tiger Man
*From Elvis In Memphis
Suspicious Minds – The Memphis 1969 Anthology
*Elvis At The International (Follow That Dream release)
All Shook Up (Follow That Dream release)
*That’s The Way It Is [special edition]
One Night In Vegas (Follow That Dream release)
*Elvis Country
An Afternoon At The Garden
Burning Love
On Tour Rehearsals (Follow That Dream release)
Aloha From Hawaii
Raised On Rock [deluxe edition] (Follow That Dream release)
Today [deluxe edition] (Follow That Dream release)
The Jungle Room Sessions (Follow That Dream release)
Elvis At The Movies
Platinum [boxset]
*Essential Titles
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