 Elvis Presley Anytime 50 million people are involved in anything they're bound to be at least a little wrong. The second volume of the five-disc series compiling all of the King's gold records takes an immediate dip in quality from the preceding volume, which had featured all of Elvis's early classics. This volume collects the hits from 1957-58, and it is a pretty wholeheartedly second-rate hodgepodge from start to finish, despite having the most memorable cover (the famous multiple-Elvises-in-gold-lamé). Though there are some great songs ("I Beg of You," "Don't," "One Night," "Hard Hearted Woman," "Peace in the Valley"), there are a whole lot of 'em that just aren't ("Party," "Doncha' Think It's Time," "Got a Lot O' Livin' to Do!"), and some that seem like they are classics, but close inspection reveals them to be pretty limp ("I Need Your Love," "I Got Stung," "My Wish Came True," "Wear My Ring Around Your Neck"). Most of these were big hits, but even some of the biggest ones suffer from terrible background vocal arrangements ("A Fool Such as I" immediately leaps to mind). And because the CD collects a-sides as well as b-sides, you ultimately are face to face with songs like "Paralyzed," which is about as unmemorable as an Elvis song gets. Not bad, mind you – he really didn't record much truly bad material, contrary to conventional wisdom – but come on, Elvis b-sides? Very "oldies." This was the period of Elvis's most obvious repetition of formulae – "I Beg of You" is pretty much an exact rewrite of "All Shook Up," for example, and "Playing For Keeps" is "I Want You, I Need, You, I Love You" – so in general these songs just don't stand up as much as the ones that came before and after. Elvis was pretty much coasting on his enormous popularity and RCA was stretching things out while he was in the army. Even the two Christmas songs don't really stick out – and you'd think that two Christmas songs stuck squarely in the middle of a regular old CD would stick out like a sore thumb, but you hardly even notice they're there. It would be great to say that there are some undiscovered gems here ("King Creole" may be the closest thing) but mainly, this is holding-pattern Elvis, at best. Even so, it's still eminently listenable Elvis, and furthermore, it is not allowed that one should own a Volume 1 and a Volume 3 without the requisite Volume 2 sitting betwixt the two.
Review by Ian Pampon |