Elvis Presley. The King. Burger guzzling, pill popping, jump suited cultural atrocity. Impersonated, idolised, revered. Heart stopping beauty, hip thrusting iconoclast. Elvis. How easy to forget that under the smothering legend there was also a singer.
This collection therefore offers an ideal opportunity to take a hard look at the musical legacy and ask whether it still bears scrutiny. To many Elvis seems the preserve of the aged, ridiculous and irrelevant, but this record makes it clear that Elvis is one of the major ghosts haunting pop music, as powerful and potent a presence as The Beatles, Bowie and Dylan.
'Number Ones' brilliantly kicks off with Presley's voice, raw, whooping 'well, since my baby left me', and leading into the bluesy boogie of 'Heartbreak Hotel'. It's a stark reminder of Presley's charisma and just how earth shattering this feral music must have felt, crashing into the polite world of the post war fifties. It also reminds how apt a phrase rock and roll was: this music really does rock with sexual energy and roll with lecherous intent.
Speaking of sexual energy, 'Hound Dog' is unbelievably lewd, a thunderous slice of carnality that makes Prince sound like a eunuch. 'All Shook Up' is as fresh and irresistible as ever, and 'Jailhouse Rock' is a thrilling, charged rock masterpiece. Strangely, the recent remix of 'A Little Less Conversation' sits quite happily amongst these tracks, similarly virile and brash. For the gusto and potency Elvis brought to rock, we are forever in his debt.
Presley the balladeer is as influential, though this is more an accusation than a plaudit. Though Presley's technical performances on melodramas such as 'Are You Lonesome Tonight' are spectacular, there is something manipulative in these songs, the sheer sugariness of the sentiments appearing to hide a fatal insincerity. Its an insincerity that has been one of pop's direst and most persistent maladies, today found in its purest, tritest form in Gareth Gates' soulless confections, not a word of which any sane person could believe.
Why did Presley eclipse more sincere songwriting contemporaries, such as the idiosyncratic Buddy Holly or the heartbreaking balladeer Roy Orbison? Partly its due to his skill as an all rounder, switching from swagger to sentiment with chart-teasing ease. But surely the real answer lies in one word: SEX. All pop pretty boys follow in the footsteps of this pouting momma's boy.
Few, however, can boast a back catalogue as fine as this. The spurious 'number one' theme means the sad omission of 'Always On My Mind' and the sadder inclusion of second raters such as 'Wooden Heart' and the nauseatingly camp 'Teddy Bear'.
But 'Can't Help Falling In Love' is a dreamy, seductive wonder, whilst 'In The Ghetto' overcomes its potentially hypocritical sentimentality to become a truly moving cry for the dispossessed of the world. And 'Suspicious Minds' is simply perfect; bitter, intense and harrowing, all wrapped up in one of the loveliest melodies of the last century. Even if Elvis hadn't been Elvis he would deserve remembering for this.
