1,001 Albums [I] Must Hear before [I] Die: 2

Elvis Presley - Elvis Presley

Before I write this post, I should inform you of a personal bias: I don't care much for Elvis Presley.

Was it because he was a thief that stole the music of much more talented black artists, watered them down, and made tons of money off of the lifted material (which he did)? Believe it or not, no. As the quote goes, "a good artist borrows, but a great artist steals". It was through Elvis' musical thievery that the mainstream came to know of a lot of these artists who otherwise would have remained in complete obscurity. It's simply that I don't think he wasn't nearly as good as his contemporaries. Every time I hear an Elvis Presley song, all I can think is how I would much rather be listening to Johnny Cash or Carl Perkins.

Speaking of Johnny Cash and Carl Perkins, the opening track to Elvis' self-titled record is "Blue Suede Shoes", a song written by Carl Perkins, based on a story told to him by Johnny Cash, about a war buddy of Cash's. This song was initially supposed to be Perkins' breakthrough single, but thanks to his apparent knack for drinking, driving, and crashing into things, causing himself considerable bodily harm, Mr. Perkins was unable to promote the single... so now the public recognizes it as an Elvis hit.

While the album certainly wasn't horrible, I can't admit to liking it very much. It was Elvis, being Elvis, and, for the reasons stated above, I simply don't care for it. It was okay, but I'm not going to recommend it, except for its historical importance.