funkpill said:

I really dug Elvis but he is NO king of anything except maybe OVERDOSING.

Ok, confession time. Thought I'd get through life without ever having to admit this, damn peer pressure! Anyhoo, here goes...


I like Elvis movies. There I said it! Yes, whenever there's an Elvis movie marthon on cable, I watch and enjoy them.

I think he was cool at best. His greatness to me has always been over exaggerated.

Would I buy an Elvis record? Hell naw! Would I take one if it were giving to me? Depends on the condition it's in, my mama didn't raise no fool!

Graycap23 said:

..and OVEREATING.

uPtoWnNY said:

Lol.....that 2.

SexyBeautifulOne said:

I really liked his movies too...when I was about 10.

WildStyle said:

HA!

Uncle Tomming to the EXTREME effect, gotta love some of my people, man

Ok, I get the fact that your fake ass LOVES the dust out of his shoe-shine, thats your own take to live with. But to say that "every black solo entertainer copied his stage mannerisms/had an influence on everybody with his musical approach/and influenced everyone in the business/there would have been no end to his inventiveness".

??? ???

Get-The-Black-&-Blue-Fuck-Out-Of-Here

Good lord, my blood boiled from reading all that token-ish mess.

Harlepolis said:

uPtoWnNY said:

According to Elvis' cook, he loved fried peanut-butter and banana sandwiches - dayum, no wonder that bloated hillbilly died on the toilet.

The best was when Nixon made Elvis the drug czar, meanwhile Elvis was a walking drugstore. Dude was out of control.

funkpill said:

Yea.. The only people I hear call him the King of Rock and Roll are white folks.

Harlepolis said:

It's funny because obviously I know what you're saying, but Elvis doesn't sound a thing like Chuck, Richard, or Jackie Wilson to me.

And (for better or worse) that rock & roll thing was just a small part of Elvis' career. I don't think Little Richard & Chuck Berry influenced "It's Now or Never or "Viva Las Vegas" or "If I Can Dream" or "Suspicious Minds" or the cape & rhinestone karate thing--like I say for better or worse--Elvis had a lot of his own style.

NDRU said:

Yep, he got his own style, alright. His own style of snatching up,,,,and apparently, he was good at it.

Look, more power to whoever digs him(for the SAME reason folks dig Justin Temberfake).

EVERYBODY knows the real deal, some except it and some block it out. All fine by me.

Harlepolis said:

Yep, everyone knows he didn't invent rock & roll, but you're right, he was good at it. Good enough to have his own take on it.

If Justin was good, would that be wrong to like him just because he didn't invent R&B?
[Edited 9/12/06 10:44am]

NDRU said:

There, my dear

Harlepolis said:

I FEEL THE POWER!!!!!

I don't own any of his songs, but the songs that I do like, I like the songs and not particularly his interpretation of them. If you know what I mean.

Having said that, I'd rather listen to Elvis than say... Pat Boone.

In any case, Ike Turner invented rock n' roll.

http://arts.guardian.co.u...58,00.html

Justin1972UK said:

Hound Dog was one he really got wrong. It's sounds fine, but totally misses any meaning the song has.

not an elvis fan. i think he's been made to be more than what he really is, and with that it makes me slightly angry. my opinion is more along the lines of what thready and harlie said.

No one person invented rock&roll, Blues, Bebop, Hip Hop or Jazz. All this music is the music of our ancestors calling to us. We have had the advantage in the modern age to record these musical feelings,so many often point to certain points in recorded history and say this is the root of so and so. It is difficult for me to party in Brazil, Mexico and Cuba and believe that we in America started R&R without some help. Elvis gave white girls and their mothers a sex symbol they could cling to. That's how he blew up.

brownsugar said:

I totally understand this, but I wonder if he'd never been a star, would you feel differently about his singing?

To be fair to Elvis I do think he had a great voice.

i agree with harlepolis. elvis ripped off black musicians and opened the way
for more fakes like the rolling stones or led zepplin. white people need white
entertainers, i dont know why... eminem is supposed to be the greatest rapper...
ha!

lofimofo said:

You cannot deny every white musician to do the music they like.

calldapplwondery83 said:

i just prefer the real originators...

WildStyle said:

Wellll, I do like "A Little Less Conversation"...though not that god-awful remix.

whatsgoingon said:

Haha, when was this?

I am a white girl who not only doesn't believe Elvis is the true King Of Rock 'N' Roll, but doesn't listen to his music.

Yet I'm not understanding all the intense dislike up in here. I am much more a fan of Little Richard than I ever could be of Elvis, but it's as if some people can't even recognize him as a great talent and ENORMOUS influence in his own right due to his "stealing".

Just because some idiots (crit-types, the general public, or otherwise) think he invented rock 'n' roll doesn't mean we should listen to them. Us folks with a bit of real musical knowledge know the truth.

lofimofo said:

I think society ripped off black musicians, but Elvis & Eminem (& even Justin) just do the music they love. What should they have done? Sing classical music?

NDRU said:

it is just a shame that the music business needs white people to market black music.
(excuse the simplification) same thing with techno... here many people think belgians
or germans invented techno or house or whatever... another problem is the original
material is sooooo much better. i dont like elvis because he represents this kind of fraud...

squiddyren said:

That's where my dislike of Elvis comes from - so many people making him out to be bigger than he was.

lofimofo said:

Never thought of it that way but I dig where u r coming from.