Elvis

[LeedsRhinos]

Living in New Zealand I am puzzled why there are a lot of Elvis songs suddenly in the UK top 40.  Can someone please enlighten me?

Thanks in advance

[TEAK36]

I read that it was because the 50 year copyright was soon to expire on many of his songs. His record company are planning to release all of Elvis' number one hits at the rate of one per week.

[5029]

because our charts were approaching the 1000th no. 1 and they wanted elvis to be no 1 so to ensure this they had to release one a week

[corganiser]

More to the point, Robert Sillerman of CKX Inc. bought the rights to Elvis' music (and Graceland income) from Lisa Marie Presley in December 2004. It seems the new owners are wringing the life out of their new asset.

[OBonio]

Isn't it the 30th Anniversary of his death this year or something?  Either way, it goes to show what a state the singles charts are in for one artist to have 6 singles in there at the same time (I'm not dissing the King here, I like him.... but come on!  How stupid are these kids buying these CDs?  Buy one of the many 'best of's and save yourself a bit of pocket money!).

[ludwig]

Obonio, there are alot of people who just collect the records, so they feel an obligation to buy anything that's released - even though they may already have the same song on many other discs. I think that's what's driving the sales. As someone stated above, they are 'wringing the life out of their asset'.

[lookslikemik]

What's "driving the sales" is a clever ploy of limiting the number of copies of each single released to just enough to ensure a number one, but not so many that the demand for instant purchase slips off.  A lot of advance orders will be placed from either serious Elvis fans, or people wanting to ensure they have a complete set of these reissues.  Various historical landmarks are being approached as well: we've had the 50th anniversary of his first release (and hence the copyright lapse approaching), the 1000th number 1 and all the others.

Just seen than Eminem has kept "Are You Lonesome Tonight" off the top spot this week.  This isn't a new tactic either: when the Jam split, all of their singles were reissued, and I think 15 of them were in the Top 75 one week.

[littleoldme]

The other reason the Elvis singles are going to number 1 or 2 is because you don't need to sell anywhere near as many copies of a single now to reach number 1 as you did when these songs first came out. If you did, they'd probably only be scraping the Top 20.

The thing that annoys me about it is radio presenters saying "Well, that's Elvis's 19th/20th/21st etc number one". Not in my book, it isn't. They've all already been number one before, so I don't think it's fair for them to count twice.

So there.;-)

[SC00BY]

Its to coincide with what would of been his 70th birthday. They also did a computer image to show what he would look like now.

[lodekka]

The 30th anniversary of his death will occur in August 2007 so expect still more re-releases at that time.

 

Just before Christmas there was a CD released that came complete with a presentation box in which the current series of eighteen or so Number Ones can be placed, so a fair few weekly purchasers will be collecting the set.

 

Anyway, Morrissey puts this more eloquently that I ever will - http://www.compsoc.man.ac.uk/~moz/lyrics/strangew/painta vu.htm