Generally I think it’s whether it generates a positive emotional response. Elvis doesn’t do that for you so you can’t see how it can be true for others. That’s fine, but I’m not ashamed to say that Suspicious Minds can make me cry if I’m feeling lonely.
This is true for most musicians, imagine the Beatles playing sappy garbage like Please Please Me or Love Me Do in 1977, they’re never going to stick around long enough to get to Sgt Pepper.
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Fair point. The Beatles evolved from boring pop crap to important musicians though. Elvis evolved into a Vegas joke.
Elvis was a better singer than all those guys. It doesn’t make much sense to compare him to Dylan or Springsteen, that’s apples and oranges. It’s fine if you dont like Elvis, but I wouldn’t make the jump to assume thst means one of the most famous and beloved recording artists of all time is Actually Bad. It’s just a matter of taste.
Elvis and Stones hating in the same day, smh, what a display
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I will sing Elvis songs at karaoke. I will listen to Elvis before I would listen to solo John Lennon.
That’s just horrifying.
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Someone tell Clovis why the Tragically Hip actually sucked.
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elvis is at least as relevant to us americans, as gordon lightfoot to canadian americans.
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So not at all
Elvis would be more recognizable than John Lennon to the average person around the world by an enormous margin.
If you gave me the option of a world where Elvis dies halfway through the '60s and Mark David Chapman misses, I would pick the world we have right now AINEC.
i was told gordon lightfoot is very important to those north of the wall. top-3 are like lightfoot, dryden, celine dion. are you calling my canadian friends liars?
Couldn’t tell you one person under 40 who cares about Lightfoot.
I’m more on Clovis side than not, although his phrasing/arguments aren’t perfect. Would be curious how many people who are defending Elvis are over 40. Seems slightly generational. Get Back was a huge cultural thing that was the thing in pop culture for a week. I dont think a similar Elvis documentary gets 1/10th the viewership or talk, despite his record sales.
Calling Elvis the most popular artist of all time by sales is like calling the Canadiens the most successful NHL team of all time. While true, they were playing against 5 other teams for those Stanley cups and half those guys could barely skate backwards.
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It’s no Metropolis.
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Pretty impressive for a 25-year-old’s first directorial effort
I was told the Canadian top three was Anne Murray, Broken Social Scene, and Drake.
i’m being facetious obviously. my american songbook guitar class hypes up lightfoot a lot. then at beer trivia we had a round on canadian musicians, and i was the only person who pulled that one. of course i struck out on virtually everyone else. i can probably still pick out biebs, but zero chance i could recognize any music by the weeknd.
just goes to show you everything is generational. elvis was quite fresh at his time, and actually reinvented himself at a time when that wasn’t really a thing performers did.
although tbf to clolvis, if you are not exposed to a lot of country and oldies stations, you might be under the impression that the beatles had a ton of hits and elvis had none. whereas in reality, beatles had a more, but elvis still pwned every solo artist for decades.