#25 Elvis Is Back! by Elvis Presley

The phrase ‘comeback’ is thrown around rather liberally nowadays. If you have been touring for 2 years and then release an album a year after you are done it’s labelled as some great comeback. For me the casing point is I’m Not Dead by Pink who took great offence to having her fourth album being called a comeback as in her opinion she had never really been away.

So when I label Elvis Is Back! as a true comeback album consider that this was his first album since he finished his military service. I mean OK I am not sure if he really had much to do much apart from be garrisoned at some army station in Germany but he wasn’t touring or recording any new material while he was away so this really was time off for him. Also this ‘respite’ from his musical career marked the death of Elvis’s mother which was really the catalyst for his spiralling into sex, drugs and obesity.

So how does Elvis Is Back! measure up as a comeback album? Well he’s back there is no denying that. Apart from that the majority of this offering is the same stuff he had been recording back in the mid fifties. You would feel that when attempting to break your way to the top the charts after a long break the tactic would be to release something more revolutionary instead of more of the same shtick. Instead you get him crooning along to songs like The Thrill of Your Love which just leaves me cold and the sickly Soldier Boy that frankly leaves me with a slight uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach. Not butterflies, the bad sort of uneasy feeling.

The shame is that, like his eponymous debut, Elvis Is Back! starts with a bang and I was feeling very hopeful that this would be a swinging good fun time album as promised by the titles exclamation mark. Make Me Know It is a toe-tapping winner of a song with so much promise that you can not wait for the next track. Next comes a cover of Fever that is so deliciously sultry that I actually believed that I had the first 10 on my hands. Third comes The Girl of My Best Friend, ok a slight decrease in quality but after the opening two tracks is forgivable. But still, two knock-out tracks in a row. Fantastic!

Then what does he do!? Croon after croon after croon. And this is how the album progresses apart from Such A Night and Girl Next Door Went A ‘Walking where the bopping of the shoulders returns once more. Maybe I was expecting too much but in the end this album is probably on-par with his debut. However, the wasting of Fever and Make Me Know It just made me plain angry. It is also true that there was a slight improvement in the latter half of the album. However, too high a proportion of the tracks in my eyes are so insufferable that as ratings go you have a perfect balance of the sublime and the ridiculous to give a middling rating. Sorry Elvis, I’ll see you again in Memphis.

5.0/10

Fab Four:
Make Me Know It
Fever
The Girl Of My Best Friend
Such A Night

#2 Elvis Presley by Elvis Presley

Elvis Presley’s eponymous debut truly hit’s the ground running with the catchy and upbeat Blue Suede Shoes loses a bit of momentum on the next track (don’t get me wrong it’s still good) but just fails to keep up the pace and falls completely flat at the next track along. This pattern does repeat itself very often as the album goes along with the latter half of the album really being more miss than hit. This is a real pity as when it is good it is VERY good with foot-tapping music that you just can not help but bop along to. But this is very quickly extinguished by some of the schmaltz that makes you want to reach for the next track.

While there are exceptions to the rule (such as Suspicious Minds, In The Ghetto and, from this album I'm Counting On You) Elvis truly does sound at his best when the songs are more upbeat and are better to swing-dance to. Songs like Tutti Frutti just conjure up the images of teens in diner’s sharing vanilla malts listening to the new music. Okay maybe I’ve watched Pleasantville one too many times but that’s just an opinion I am venturing

Historically speaking there is no question that this album does belong on a list of albums that you need to listen to, just because of what this album did. Firstly, it launched the career of arguably the most famous singer of all time (I would happily argue more than John Lennon or Michael Jackson) and for that this album is truly impressive. Secondly this has the great distinction of being the first truly successful rock ‘n roll album. So again this album has some historical value.

However, being a purely preferential escapade of mine I am probably unlikely to listen to the whole album again, with the exception of the highlights. Other than that it is a tad disappointing.

5.0/10

Fab Four:

Blue Suede Shoes
I’m Counting On You
One Sided-Love Affair
Tutti Frutti