For why?
The lad can’t do the endless product-on-product-on-product, year-on-year, routine as lesser artists (Neil Young, boringjoni, van…erm… the one who was in Them) do, ever-so-slightly often.
Anyway, I wanna tell you a story about Elvis COMPLETELY taking the piss out of the record industry in 2005… not a mean feat, given he died in 1977!
Can’t do it right now, too busy laughing at Arsenal.
Do it first thing tomorrow.
Happy Birthday to the Memphis Flash… I don’t know who is first or second in the world of Pop Music, but one is him and the other is The Beatles.
I wanna tell ya a story.
In 2005, pop music was rubbish and it had a pop chart to prove it… not that anyone had been anywhere near a pop chart for at least two decades. Indeed, it was so bad that there was no call for a flagship music programme (‘Top of the Pops’) to still exist. That had been finally put out of its misery in 2004 after years on a life support machine.
Anyway, in steps the most successful solo act of all time… Elvis Presley… the back page of the ‘Record Collector’ advising the public of a campaign to release an Elvis single a week for four months.
Bank Holiday Monday it was, I was off to the local football, but, dropping into my local HMV on the way, I picked up the CD of ‘Jailhouse Rock’.
Relatively cheap, the campaign was more about putting Elvis’s name back in the spotlight than making any serious folding-stuff. It was easy to spot in the shop because it was colourful and the guy on the front cover was good looking. ‘Colourful’ and ‘good looking’ were not the go-to characteristics of 2005 and so it stood out like a beacon.
Thought no more about it, until a news item says the Memphis Flash is at No. 1 in the Singles Chart. No way, they’d surely got this wrong… the release was limited to 22,500. But, yes, in 2005, much to everyone’s surprise – including, and most of all, the record company – getting yer mum, dad and brother to buy your single would get you next to Joe Strummer in the chart, get your extended family on board and you’d be in the Top 10. Who knew?
Amazingly, such a shock to Sony – or was it Universal – was this news, that there was no footage of the most photographed and filmed pop star of all time singing along to a song which had its own film named after it!!!
Oh well, get the seven days over with and move on… only, of course, seven days later the same problem came up again, 22,500 sales had got ‘One Night’ to No. 1.
Very embarrassing for the industry that likes to pile them high and big itself up.
Also, people like me were taking interest in just how woeful the situation had got.
The following week, however, they’d got their arse into gear and ‘A Fool Such As I’ didn’t make No. 1 but, perplexingly, instead of 22,500 sales, only something like 19,000 seemed to have been accounted for. Nine days after its release, I saw two copies in my local Woollies… they’d held them back!!! Hilarious. Elvis taking the piss out of the music industry 26 years after his death! Gotta love the guy.
Clearly if Elvis could do this – in all innocence and with initial good will – any number of other big acts – with manipulation the watch-word from the start – could as well. The Beatles had more class, obviously, but two acts looked ripe for it, both from the dire, Madonna and Michael Jackson.
Almost inevitably, it was Wacko J’s people who buckled, and the following year a similar set of releases came out under his name… only the shops couldn’t give them away and piled high, very very high, they were a serious Health & Safety hazard throughout the country.
I think the highest chart position any of them got was something like No. 12, and most were in the no-hits clash bracket.
The King of Flop.
Happy Birthday, Elvis. Thanks for Rock ‘n’ Roll and thanks for the first four months of 2005.
Yeah, most had given up buying those horrible plastic discs in horrible plastic cases by then
CD buyers were catered for (15,000), as were people who wanted to buy vinlys (7,500).
15,000 + 7,500 = 22,500.
It was very democratic and they were available on the local High Street.
Oh yeah, and the CDs weren’t in plastic cases…
The only Elvis fan I knew at school (’80-86) is currently residing at his Majesty’s pleasure, for causing a RTA and killing a pedestrian with his delivery van.
The only contemporary chart act he liked was Status Quo, In The Army Now being his favourite album.
How is Woolies not putting an Elvis single on the racks some form of chart manipulation? These are unsold copies, I think? Am I missing the point?
I love Elvis by the way.
Alas, yes you are.
Ebay etc. was awash with people paying £50 for these releases… there is no way the 22,500 would not have sold out… so, erm, yes, you are missing the point.
Don’t get me wrong, PPE contracts during Covid and the Post Office Scandal and Hillsbrough are the bigger issues, but this is funnier.
Got it. Ok.
There is a bright side, on 15th January 2005, (that’s ‘2005’, no really), there was a really brilliant No. 1 in the U.K. Singles Chart… there’s yer ‘Pointless’ answer right there!
Pity the thing disappeared before my ‘Hillsborough’ correction was added.
In 1992 The Wedding Present released 12 singles, 1 a month all limited to 10,000 copies. All 12 singles made the top 40, 1 made the top 10. At the time this was the most different hits in one year tied with ….. Elvis Presley. All theirs were original songs rather than reissues though
And the b-sides were all covers, just like both sides of Elvis’.
The collected As & Bs is/are my favourite Weddoes album(s), after the mighty George Best.
I collected as many as I could when they were issued, some cracking cover versions on those b sides. The collected A&Bs album is brilliant
Re: Wedding Present… there’s a thread there of sorts, but no-hits clash chart positions c. 1992 (in fairness, better than the no-hits clash achieved themselves) does ‘NOT’ equate to… erm… Elvis Presley.
Honestly, he is quite famous.
Those singles by The Wedding Present were compiled into an album jocularly called The Hit Parade.
Years after 1992 I read an interview with their singer David Gedge who noted limiting the available copies of a single each month to 10,000 copies all selling in the first week of release somewhat embarrassed “the record industry” by publicly revealing by that year hardly anyone was selling large quantities of singles yet were still being regarded as chart topping stars.
Unsurprising in that context that subsequently selling 22,500 copies of a single in a week by Elvis Presley or anyone else in 2005 would get a song to Number 1. The singles game was sadly well and truly over by then.
The beginning of the end of The Hit Parade in the UK, even before streaming and the decline of physical releases being bought by the general public.
I always thought it was common knowledge that it didn’t take all that many sales to get to the top during most weeks. I think even back to the early 80s.
Indeed it was although think this was the first time it was publicly quantified as being so low? When there’s a benchmark of 10,000 copies and a specific chart position it’s easier to extrapolate and figure out how much roughly other bands and artists sold in any given week i.e. not much really.
And I like The Wedding Present’s music! And Elvis Presley’s.
Which was my point actually and the similarity of the two cases, naturally ignored by DD who just says the same thing over and over again and never admits to being wrong about anything. He must be a real charmer in person.
I think 80s were peak sales times as I said so you might have needed 50 to 100K in any given week to make no. 1 then. January normally your best bet
Ah yeah. January! Ha! Now I also remember desperate music labels releasing songs by bands desperate for a hit first week in January when overall sales even lower. It worked for a while until they all started doing this crowding out each other’s efforts for an elusive Top 10 hit.
The other thing about January is that loads of kids would have got record tokens for Xmas
For what little it’s worth (and that’s really very little indeed) at the time Jailhouse Rock went to number one it was the lowest selling number 1 single in the entire history of the UK charts.
By 2005 CD single sales had gone off a cliff – most people had already found their way to Napster, Kazaa or Itunes, and CD singles were becoming the preserve of record collectors and the elderly, hence the reissue.
Apropos of this discussion, if anyone wants to get a sense of how popular various legacy acts are right now, you can do worse than take a look at the link below, which shows the most streamed artists in the history of Spotify (so, the last 16 years). Probably gives as good a sense of anything of the music people are actually listening to of their own volition.
https://kworb.net/spotify/artists.html
Notable legacy acts:
#7 – Eminem
#22 – Coldplay
#51 – Queen
#67 – The Beatles
#92 – Red Hot Chilli Peppers(!)
#97 – Michael Jackson
#103 – Elton John
#116 – Metallica
#126 – Daft Punk
#131 – AC/DC
#142 – Usher
#156 – Nirvana
#158 – Britney
#168 – Green Day
#173 – Fleetwood Mac
#181 – Bob Marley
#202 – Mariah Carey
#203 – Tupac
#208 – Guns n Roses
#210 – Pink Floyd
#211 – Radiohead
#214 – The Rolling Stones
#241 – ABBA
#242 – System of a Down
#251 – Elvis Presley
Madonna is at 265, behind Blink 182, but ahead of David Bowie. Go figure.
I read some hair-raising (or dull) stats about Spotify in my 2025 Radio Listener’s Guide. I’ll dig them out and post them here.
In summary – spoiler alert – based upon teenager vs my listening habits, I am getting old. I don’t think the AW will need to exist in another 40 or so years.
That’s depressing Fents. Where am I going to spend my valuable leisure time when I’m 108?
It’s quite impressive really that 50 year old acts are as big as they are. I’m still hanging in there near the top with Taylor, Billie and Lana. Thanks for the post of sanity re. 2005 singles.
It is genuinely impressive that these acts are still being played in such volume after all these years.
I expect most of them will ultimately fall away over time, but it’s interesting to look at the acts at the very top of the list and wonder which will still be popular to this extent in 2075. It might not be the ones we’d expect.
Looking at that list, I’m starting to feel like the same distinctly queasy feeling Dorian Gray must have felt when he first cast his eyes on his portrait.
There’s a video on YouTube showing every FA Cup final goal from 1953 to 2024 which, apart from being ace just for that, allows you to see where you came in (as if you’d forget your first cup final as it was also the first live game you ever saw on TV), the point where you started to really believe this was the biggest game of the year (actually only one year later for me) and the point where you stopped regarding the game’s showpiece event as all that important (around 1992 for me – I wonder what could have brought that about?). Even though that’s my own personal journey I feel, somewhere along the way, nearly all of us fell in and eventually, to some degree, out of love with the cup final. And the same was true about the charts.
I became aware of the hit parade in 1972, by 1978 it was easily the most important thing in the world (I almost killed myself breaking into our house to catch the top 40 countdown after school – no Radio 1, we got it from the pirates at 4pm – in 1979) and then there came the day when I didn’t care about the charts anymore (hard to be precise about this, but I think around 99/2000). And, again, I think everyone has a similar tale and I’m willing to bet almost everybody outside the music industry (the odd transcending chart topper or Christmas number one culture fight apart) had got past caring about the charts by 2005.
Which is not to knock Elvis’ significance as an artist or the power of his enduring appeal or what a smart campaign that was, in its way, to try to energise a pretty defunct entity..
Funny thing is, it wasn’t really a campaign to get to No. 1… they didn’t know! The amazing thing is that the record industry itself didn’t ‘do the numbers’.
Well…. maybe not a specific tilt at the top, but releasing a limited number for a week is an attack on first week sales in a chart which, by then, had been turned on its head by a decade of marketing where records peaked in their first week, then usually dropped away, rather in the manner nowadays that they decide a film is a flop based on the box office from the first weekend (before the people who have actually gone to see it have the opportunity to tell all their friends to give it a swerve). A series of such singles over a series of weeks? I’m comfortable with the word “campaign”..
‘Campaign’, yada yada, but the whole point is they did get to the top, and I didn’t expect that to happen when I saw that ‘Record Collector’ advert in December 2004, would you have?
And, with no back up for TV companies to cover the fall out, you think they did?
I grew up with Elvis, had no choice as my dad loved him. Back then everyone else’s dads loved him too; dressed and styled their hair in imitation of their hero; we knew all the records, the soundtrack to our lives.
It was inevitable that we’d turn: Poke fun at all those Elvis lookalikes; laugh when reports of how fat he’d become, surfaced; time moved on, we had our own music; Elvis died and his cronies got older and fewer.
In the shopping centre last month and a singer was doing Dusty and those Ronettes numbers. Then she started on Can’t Help Falling in Love. I had to leave; I was sorry to, has I hadn’t wanted to give the impression I wasn’t enjoying the performance.
I always liked this version
How does a one-month campaign that ran 20 years ago equate to “getting greater” today?
And The Beatles were first. They re-released all their singles throughout the 80s on the 20th anniversary of original release. Because of lots of publicity the first one Love Me Do was a huge hit, but diminishing returns soon set in and of course the 80s was probably peak record buying time for singles.
Two questions:
1. The biggest solo artist ever is Elvis Presley – was 20 years ago, is today – and…
2. No offence, Dai, but did you get your Maths O Level? We’re talking top 5 hits all the way, not No. 4 and diminishing returns. If you want that, I point you to the no-hits clash (without the No. 4, obs.) but, I suspect you’re already there. No-hits Dai!!!
This was a single every ‘week’… completely different ball-game. Do keep up. Wedding Present – not the same. Beatles – not the same.
I was not saying that The Beatles are bigger or better than Elvis as a being or a thing or whatever he is, but I said what I said and it was wrong or taken wrong. And now it’s all this…
It’s ok, it can be a bit like arguing with an ancient Ted outside a chip shop, next to a tramp on one side, and a pile of sick the other side. We all agree but somehow not in the right way. If it’s true that shops were holding back copies and then putting them on the secondary market, that’s pretty funny, and I guess probably happens with the hated (by DD) Record Store Day. Ironically of all the bands who probably would love Elvis, it’s the no-hits Clash.
I think DD has excellent taste though: introduced me to Chills and Fever by Tom Jones over on another thread, so I will carry on outside the chip shop, maybe I will get a chip again instead of a load of scallops.
Indeed.
The Clash loved EP so much they even paid homage to one of his early records on the sleeve of London Calling
And Joe Strummer basically updated Elvis’ look and hairstyle.
I enjoyed your clever reference to Lennon’s famous press conference Dai.
Thank you
Give me the Clash over Elvis Presley every single time. Having hits is no guarantee of anything other than an ability to sell/market somebody or something. Look at sone of the big ticket items that sell well – McDonalds, KFC, Michael McIntyre, Ed Sheeran, Kenny G, Michael Bublé, Europop, Schlager music from Germany – easily digestible, forgettable, unpalatable pap.
Presley might have been exciting when he first started, but how many country, easy listening, gospel and Christmas albums did he release? How much schmaltz would you like poured into your ears?
it’s possible there are some great songs in his canon, but I’m willing to bet there’s a large amount of schlock as well. Canon is appropriate as he was canonised a long time ago, and seems to be an untouchable sacred cow, the image of who he was – a preserved icon, not a real musician.
As John Lennon said when asked for a quote after EP’s death:
“Elvis died the day he went into the Army”
In a private email Elvis tells me “John Lennon died just after Magical Mystery Tour was released”.
Pop stars sh*t talking other pop stars for clicks was a thing decades before there were clicks. JL would know as well as you that – while it’s not the rock n roll that stirs Deram’s blood and inspired Paul and himself – there’s a very satisfying playlist to be had of post-army Elvis material.
We, having cool heads and perspective and not being loudmouth rockstars, have no need to tell the world we are bisexual men who have never had a homosexual experience and, yes, we would prefer sex to a cup of tea, however nice it might be..
His voice was always great, the material less so:
I can’t recall whether we’ve had a thread about artists who have achieved greatness but also a mountain of cack. I remember when Pet Shop Boys were at the peak of their powers trying to convince friends to give them a proper listen and, right on cue, they’d release a tossed off gap filling single and me and the boulder would be back at the bottom of the hill again..
Arf
The Ab Fab single perhaps? Completists only. But they were on the whole an excellent singles band.
I am having a discussion with a friend that revolves around the assertions by myself that:
1. The last genuinely essential pSB album is Fundamental and everything since is nice, but lesser – like REM after Bill left.
2. In almost every case the best tracks on the albums are the singles..
1. I think Electric is the best of the later albums. Best album after Nightlife.
2. I think most pop acts are like this and I don’t hold it against them. I’m working my way through the Madonna back catalogue at the moment, and the albums are always entertaining, but yeah, the best tracks are the singles.
I think PSB are an example of extraordinary consistency, all the albums up to Very (maybe Nightlife) are excellent (leaving out the Disco remix ones). Not hearing too many bad singles at least in the first 30 or so.
From a run of genuinely jaw-dropping and era defining songs to a “satisfying playlist of post-army material” is a pretty big drop
From a run of genuinely jaw-dropping and era defining songs to a “satisfying playlist of post-army material” is a pretty big drop
Well, now you’re weaponising my otherwise endearing inclination to understatement against me like the master debater you are.
Elvis recorded more ace tunes during that period than many of the artists beloved by the AW have managed . And a very sizeable heap of cack.
And yes 95% of his music in my possession is pre-58. Thanks to our chum DD starting this thread I’ve been playing the old crotch waggler for the first time in a while.
(That and the singing of Wes from Brigitte Calls Me Baby turning my thoughts Elviswards)
Much though we might chortle at DD’s attempts to keep the King on his throne (oo-er missus not that one). There’s no question here that I never really ‘got’ Elvis. Getting into music in the late seventies Elvis was about as uncool as it was possible to be. A has-been even before his death. Absorbing the dozen hits that everyone knows by osmosis, I managed to avoid seriously considering the King until the late nineties. Gradually I acquired a Elvis Vol 1 greatest hits CD, an mp3 of the first album…and there it stayed.
I will never be an ‘Elvis fan’ but I can now say that I have completely got him, down to Peter Guralnick’s quite extra-ordinary biography. I spent most of the autumn immersed in Part One of his magnum opus, Last Train to Memphis, which ends with Elvis sailing to Europe during his army days.
Guralnick is forensic in his bringing to life the unique music culture of Tupelo and Memphis in the early fifties – from Red Skelton to Louis Jordan, The Carter Family to Ike Turner. Guralnick turns Elvis’ rise into a thriller unfolding across the streets of Mempis and Tupelo, then the stages of Tennesse, Arkansaw and Oklahoma, and finally the televisions of the country. Nothing about the story as Guralnick tells it is inevitable or foreshadowing of tragedy. And it’s an entirely new story: the original rags to riches, singing at the hop to national television, lighting in a bottle rock and roll rise. Is it an entirely new story – yes, in its scale. No musician (and again Guralnick is really good on Elvis the musician, as well as just Elvis the singer) had ever been so famous so quickly so widely.
Ahead in part two lies the ‘unmaking’, but I’m enjoying currently the greatest ever literary playlist, 200 tracks of bluegrass, rock and roll, croon and country. Pick up Guralnick’s book, and you should, you’ll be compiling that playlist from page one.
Caught a bit of this in the morning in the car, may be worth a listen. Guralnick is mentioned.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/b007vzrt?partner=uk.co.bbc&origin=share-mobile
Both books are superb. The second one is as heartbreaking as the first is a joy ride.
FWIW the early Elvis is obviously brilliant but I have a compilation of the latter stuff and it’s terrific in its own way too. Obviously he did a lot of cack too but what comes across in the books is what a ground breaker he was. No one had been this famous and successful before – there were no maps and if he got lost occasionally, that’s understandable.,
Wonder if Neil Y will win over Deram by playing this heartfelt tribute to Elvis at Glastonbury
Probably not – it was recorded after 1969.
Wonder if Neil Y will win over Deram by playing this heartfelt tribute to Elvis at Glastonbury
Now why did I know someone was eventually going to mention Neil Young?
Oh yeah. This is the AW, isn’t it.
Beatles mention several replies up.
I think Elvis could have done a nice version of this:
Never mind Elvis, when are we going to get some new from Jim Brown?
I would venture that the ’68 Comeback Special soundtrack and the following Memphis albums are at least the musical equal of the pre-Army material, though obviously not having the same cultural impact.
I spotted it’s on iPlayer at the moment.