jjhunsecker said:

PatrickS77 said:

It wasn't me, who brought him in.

As for the topic. I would say. Yes and no. Obviously he is one of the biggest stars and did many things first and broke records, so he's not overrated. But then again, what he did, looking at it with the knowledge of today, wasn't all that spectacular. So, yes, he is overrated. That said, I do love many of the songs Elvis sung. Especially some of his 70s songs. Suspicious minds is my favourite Elvis song. And probably one of my favourite songs ever. I got some great live CDs from the early 70s of his shows in Vegas. And some years ago, I visited Graceland, which was pretty amazing.

[Edited 10/7/21 14:35pm]

To say Elvis is overrated is like saying Hitchcock or Kubrick were overrated, or Hemingway or Steinbeck were overrated, or Van Gogh or Picasso were overrated

That's why I said. Yes and no. And well, to some Hitchcock and Kubrick are overrated. Especially with the knowledge of now.

MickyDolenz said:

PatrickS77 said:

And yet the Jacksons left Motown because they wouldn't let them write their own songs.

Jermaine stayed behind and he did write some songs on his own albums and for others on Motown like Switch & Syreeta. Also the majority of the brothers 1st 2 albums on CBS were written by Gamble & Huff and their other staff writers. The majority of recording artists in the entire history of the recording business did not write their own songs. So the Jacksons wanting to write at Motown has nothing to do with what I said or that Rolling Stone popularized self-writing with their readers.

The Jacksons wanting to write their own stuff has to do with why they wanted to leave and not follow the path of the artists who had songs written for them.

I've never understood this term "over-rated"...

Judging this artist by today's standards is - he has a place in music history and pop culture.

Popularity and money earned are the defining benchmarks (as opposed to what people think) and Elvis has the numbers that speak for themselves.

Agree that he was a showman/entertainer first and an artist second. Of course he had his demons and ripped off others but the list of musicians from the past that have also done this is a long one.

EmmaMcG said:

PatrickS77 said:

S2DG said:

I've never understood this term "over-rated"...

The only time I see this is when a person does not like something that is really popular (ig. MCU movies, Black Panther in particular since it is the 1st superhero movie nominated for a Best Picture Oscar). Like I see the term "underrated" when something is not that popular and the person thinks that it should be over the popular thing. Overrated/underrated seems to be social media terms to me like "cancel culture" & "woke". I never seen them before recent years.

PatrickS77 said:

PatrickS77 said:

MickyDolenz said:

S2DG said:

I've never understood this term "over-rated"...

The only time I see this is when a person does not like something that is really popular (ig. MCU movies, Black Panther in particular since it is the 1st superhero movie nominated for a Best Picture Oscar). Like I see the term "underrated" when something is not that popular and the person thinks that it should be over the popular thing. Overrated/underrated seems to be social media terms to me like "cancel culture" & "woke". I never seen them before recent years.

Thx Micky

PatrickS77 said:

Free2BMe said:

EmmaMcG said:

Free2BMe said:

Of course, he had co-writers and ALWAYS gave them credit.

Mike did take Greg Phillinganes name off of Don't Stop. Greg talked about it in interviews

alphastreet said:

Yes he’s the world famous appropriator.

Are Marian Anderson & Katleen Battle appropriators? How about Wu Tang Clan? Since their entire thing including some of their names like Method Man & Old' Dirty Bastard comes from 1970s Hong Kong martial arts movies.

EmmaMcG said:

Free2BMe said:

He wrote Billie Jean, Beat It, Wanna Be Startin Something, Don’t Stop TIL You Get Enough, Bad, TWYMMF, Smooth Criminal, Dirty Diana, Heartbreak Hotel, Earth Song, Black or White, The Girl Is Mine, They Don’t Care About Us, Stranger In Moscow, and many more SOLEL by himself. At least 7 of those songs went Number 1 on the charts. To compare Elvis as a songwriter to Michael is truly disresptful. Michael wrote the majority of his BIGGEST hits as the SOLE songwriter. I don’t think Elvis wrote even ONE song of his own. Just wondering why some fans and non- fans try to dismiss or diminish Michael’s songwriting ability.🤔

And I wonder why people can't read all of another person's posts on a subject before jumping to conclusions about "disrespect". Read Reply #20 in this thread to get a better idea of what I'm getting at by comparing the two artists IN RELATION TO THE QUESTION OF "IS ELVIS OVERRATED". [Edited 10/8/21 2:46am]

I think the miscommunication is you said: "neither of them were the sole songwriters of most of their songs." Mj is a writer of his biggest hits, Elvis wasn't. It has nothing to do with disrespect, but its weird to say that the guy who wrote Billy Jean, Beat It, Bad, Black and White, Smooth criminal and more isn't the sole songwriter...

There was a lot more going on with Elvis becoming an icon than just talent. It had a lot to do with timing and image. He was the first white artist to bring black music to the white world and be so successful at it that it would change the sound of music forever. Yeah, previous to him, there were people like the goodie two shoes Pat Boone...who would steal Little Richard songs, slow them down, and make them sound rhythmless and dorky...but Elvis (young Elvis...not the ridiculous cape wearing Captain Marvel Elvis that he later became), kept the rhythm up as best as he could, and unlike Pat Boone, he didn't sing them in a way that sounded like a white Sunday School teacher leading the class in a song. He was a handsome, sharp dressed, hip swinging, cool motherfucker. Elvis the Pelvis honey. In others, something the white world had never seen before in music....a badass.

.

A lot of parents didn't like him, a lot of radio didn't like him, and I've seen clips of radio DJs smashing rock and roll records claiming they were not going to let them corrupt the minds of their children with this....and yes, they actually say the racial slur over the air...of the group of people that rock and roll music actually belonged to. I think that's what gets on my nerves the most when I hear people today who refuse to admit that today's music actually does suck and make statements like.... "Every generation hated the new generation's music and thought it sucked.".... Oh no honey, they hated it for completely different reasons than we hate current music.

.

Anyway, regardless of the opposition, the kids picked up on it and it grew into a huge mainstream genre. Actually, I think the opposition may have even helped it grow because when kids reach their rebellious age, if parents and society tell them not to do something, that makes it more mysterious and appealing to them and they're going to do it.

If u are called a King.........but U are not much more than a court jester........U are overrated.

paisleypark4 said:

Get mad at the teen girls for buying all his music not his own fault. He had some good songs though gotta admit.

You got that right honey. I have never understood why people get mad at Elvis for influencing people to put rhythm into white music but don't get mad at Shitney Houston for influencing people to take rhythm out of black music.

vainandy said:

I have never understood why people get mad at Elvis for influencing people to put rhythm into white music but don't get mad at Shitney Houston for influencing people to take rhythm out of black music.

Wouldn't that really be Narada Michael Walden since he produced a lot of Whitney's 1980s hits?

nextedition said:

MickyDolenz said:

vainandy said:

I have never understood why people get mad at Elvis for influencing people to put rhythm into white music but don't get mad at Shitney Houston for influencing people to take rhythm out of black music.

Wouldn't that really be Narada Michael Walden since he produced a lot of Whitney's 1980s hits?

I never bought even one of her records so I have no idea who produced them. She's the one whose name is on the records though and the one that toured, promoted, and had people to send them out to radio though so she's responsible, not him. As for Narada, he's got a lot of funky stuff himself. Everyone has a dorky side too. Hell, I like several songs by The Carpenters. I wouldn't send them out to R&B stations though and try to get them to play the songs. They should have sent her shit to nothing but Adult Contemporary stations where she could have been the biggest Debby Boone she wanted to be without doing any damage to other genres.

Free2BMe said:

vainandy said:

I never bought even one of her records so I have no idea who produced them. She's the one whose name is on the records though and the one that toured, promoted, and had people to send them out to radio though so she's responsible, not him. As for Narada, he's got a lot of funky stuff himself. Everyone has a dorky side too. Hell, I like several songs by The Carpenters. I wouldn't send them out to R&B stations though and try to get them to play the songs. They should have sent her shit to nothing but Adult Contemporary stations where she could have been the biggest Debby Boone she wanted to be without doing any damage to other genres.

What was Whitney doing that Lionel Richie, Jeffrey Osborne, & Dionne Warwick wasn't doing before her? Lionel got more promotion than Rick James and they were both on Motown. Lionel & Jeffrey was played on R&B and adult contemporary stations. Lionel's videos were on MTV. Rick not so much other than Superfreak.

MickyDolenz said:

vainandy said:

I never bought even one of her records so I have no idea who produced them. She's the one whose name is on the records though and the one that toured, promoted, and had people to send them out to radio though so she's responsible, not him. As for Narada, he's got a lot of funky stuff himself. Everyone has a dorky side too. Hell, I like several songs by The Carpenters. I wouldn't send them out to R&B stations though and try to get them to play the songs. They should have sent her shit to nothing but Adult Contemporary stations where she could have been the biggest Debby Boone she wanted to be without doing any damage to other genres.

What was Whitney doing that Lionel Richie, Jeffrey Osborne, & Dionne Warwick wasn't doing before her? Lionel got more promotion than Rick James and they were both on Motown. Lionel & Jeffrey was played on R&B and adult contemporary stations. Lionel's videos were on MTV. Rick not so much other than Superfreak.

She was being much more extremely successful than they were to the point that if influenced others to do it. Funk still dominated when they did it and the adult contemporary artists were the minority. When she came along, more and more adult contemporary R&B came out of the woodwork to the point that they took over and put funk in the minority. Hell, so many of them came out that they eventually started new stations for the genre and called it Urban Adult Contemporary. Those stations didn't exist before because there wasn't enough of it being made to start stations with the format.

vainandy said:

She was being much more extremely successful than they were to the point that if influenced others to do it. Funk still dominated when they did it and the adult contemporary artists were the minority. When she came along, more and more adult contemporary R&B came out of the woodwork to the point that they took over and put funk in the minority. Hell, so many of them came out that they eventually started new stations for the genre and called it Urban Adult Contemporary. Those stations didn't exist before because there wasn't enough of it being made to start stations with the format.

But hip hop has way more influence on modern R&B & Top 40 pop than Whitney's music. New Jack Swing was R&B singing with hip hop beats. Rap breaks replaced the guitar & sax solos in popular R&B music. There's even hip hop sounds in current mainstream country music. The "adult R&B" of Whitney, Freddie Jackson, Anita Baker, René & Angela, Luther Vandross, etc. was counter-programming for the middle aged black audience who did not dig rap which was on the rise in the 1980s with teens & young adults. Really, it was Smokey Robinson that started that, not Whitney. He released the Quiet Storm single in the mid-1970s and then a radio show and later format was created around it. Quiet Storm was the origins of the "adult R&B" format and also the popularity of smooth jazz (George Benson, Al Jarreau, Kenny G., Najee) in the 1970s & 1980s.

MickyDolenz said:

vainandy said:

She was being much more extremely successful than they were to the point that if influenced others to do it. Funk still dominated when they did it and the adult contemporary artists were the minority. When she came along, more and more adult contemporary R&B came out of the woodwork to the point that they took over and put funk in the minority. Hell, so many of them came out that they eventually started new stations for the genre and called it Urban Adult Contemporary. Those stations didn't exist before because there wasn't enough of it being made to start stations with the format.

But hip hop has way more influence on modern R&B & Top 40 pop than Whitney's music. New Jack Swing was R&B singing with hip hop beats. Rap breaks replaced the guitar & sax solos in popular R&B music. There's even hip hop sounds in current mainstream country music. The "adult R&B" of Whitney, Freddie Jackson, Anita Baker, René & Angela, Luther Vandross, etc. was counter-programming for the middle aged black audience who did not dig rap which was on the rise in the 1980s with teens & young adults. Really, it was Smokey Robinson that started that, not Whitney. He released the Quiet Storm single in the mid-1970s and then a radio show and later format was created around it. Quiet Storm was the origins of the "adult R&B" format and also the popularity of smooth jazz (George Benson, Al Jarreau, Kenny G., Najee) in the 1970s & 1980s.

You got that right!!!!! And with the flooding of the airwaves of adult contemporary driving the funk out of style, what was left to fill the void for a badass rebelious form of R&B? Absolutely nothing. The doors were wide open for bullshit to take over. And look at rap of the 1980s compared to rap of the 1990s. I'm talking about the stuff that the radio was playing, not the underground stuff. Most 1980s rap on the radio was a faster tempo because it was being played right alongside disco and funk. Once the 1990s kicked, once funk was gone, and the electro and house styles of rap eventually fizzed out, what took over? Stripped down, slow to midtempo, "talking over a Fisher Price sounding beat" type of rap....in other words, what I remaned as shit hop because I loved a lot of rap in the 1980s so I didn't want the later rap confused with it. But look at the stuff that wasn't rap on R&B radio in the 1990s when dance, house, electro, etc. finally fizzled out. The majority of the singers were making slow to midtempo stuff which had been influenced by the adult contemporary stuff that had dominated. Naturally, rap was going to do the same thing and go with that tempo and become shit hop. And then shit hop even turned around and influenced the adult contemporary artists to use the same type of Fisher Price toys they use in their music. But no, it all started with Shitney because rap was funky back when funk was still dominating.

.

It all makes me wonder if Elvis was mean to Cissy Houston. I mean, the man that brought rhythm to the mainstream masses and the daughter of one of his background singers takes the rhythm back out years later. Cissy, whatever Elvis might have done to you, you got your revenge honey.....and then some!

jjhunsecker said:

PatrickS77 said:

No. It's not. What is a singer without songs? Much less than a guitarist without dance or an RnB/Funk singer without opera.

Elvis had songs, he just didn’t write them himself. But through his extraordinary talent, he made them his own... just like Sinatra and Billie Holiday and Etta James and Tony Bennett had done

You're a bit thick, are you?? A singer needs songs, but a guitarist doesn't need dance, a soul/rnb singer doesn't need opera. So your earlier comparison is total bullshit and irrelevant.

jjhunsecker said:

PatrickS77 said:

That's why I said. Yes and no. And well, to some Hitchcock and Kubrick are overrated. Especially with the knowledge of now.

Kubrick and Hitchcock were artists working at the highest levels in their chosen medium. Of course, they had occasional missteps and even failures... just like Elvis. But they were at the pinnacle of their art.... again like Elvis as a SINGER

Once again. Totally irrelevant. Point is, there are people who think they are overrated.