Having sold more than a billion units Elvis Presley is regarded the most successful act in the music industry so far. To the younger ones that sounds like a joke, because today's stars are streamed two or three times as much with a single track. But one stream doesn't eqal the sale of a physical unit like a vinyl record or a compact disc of the old days. The physical sale of a track translates to 100 streams, so each sold vinyl single with two tracks corresponds to 200 streams. Billboard and Nielsen Sound Scan translate a physical album with 12 to 13 tracks to 1,250 streams. If you stream for free you even need 3,750 streams to equal a physical unit. The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) translates a physical single to 150 paid streams and an album to 1,500 paid streams to calculate their awards. To sum it up: It's not easy to compare the old times to the present and everybody seems to try it in a different way.
Past vs. Present
Elvis Presley lived in the middle of the previous century and the things very vastly different compared to the present. There was no internet and if one wanted to listen to music other than from the radio one had to buy physical sound carriers made of vinyl. They were produced in large factories and sent to the local stores. Because of the politics of the labels, the limited space of the stores and the individual tastes and calculations of the owners not every track was available at every record shop. Besides that the procedure was quite expensive. Today a monthly flatrate enables you to listen to millions and millions of tracks, but in the old days this amount of money was barely enough for a single longplayer. For the artists it was great, because they were paid as soon as the album was sold and needn't have to care whether the buyer listened to it 24/7 or threw it in the trash bin right after leaving the shop. And because a track could be released on several records and in several formats it was a nice opportunity to cash in many times. So to an artist they were really the good ol' days!
Formats
Potential hits were released on singles, vinyl discs with a diameter of 17.5cm that were played at 45 rpm (rounds per minute). Each side of the disc contained one track, the great one was considered to be the a-side, the other was some kind of a bonus and was -that's the surprise- on the b-side. Today the format is out of business, there are no singles anymore. The longplayers (lp) are still around and have a market share of ca. 10%. The vinyl discs are played at 33.3 rpm and have a diameter of 30cm. Because the younger audience had too much money for a single but to little to afford an album the industry served them with an extended player (ep). Just like the singles they were played at 45 rpm, but they were a little bigger and contained 4 to 6 tracks. In the 1950s the format was extremely popular, there was even a special chart for it. But all that fizzled out soon and by the mid-sixties the ep was as dead as the singer with the same initials would be a decade later.
As written before, these three formats of vinyl offered a great opportunity to cash in. Two songs were released on a single, one of them became a hit. Both tracks could be used again on an ep or a lp. The extended players and long players could also be filled with a string of popular songs and some turkeys as fillers. If a fan wanted to hear the few previously unreleased tracks, the whole album had to be bought. Besides that, the information on the vinyl discs were read out mechanically with a needle and the quality lowered each time the record was played. So the fans had to buy new discs from time to time and made the artists even more money. It was beautiful!
Charts
The charts were calculated in a completely different way, too. Now it's quite simple: The streams of each track are counted and assorted according to the number of streams. In the 1990s and 2000s the sold physical units were counted with scanners. But in the middle of the last century the owners of the usually small record shops had to count and report the sold units by hand. In most cases it was no more than pure guesswork. To make it worse, airplay was another major factor. If the radiostations played a song on a regular basis, it could chart higher than a song that sold much better, but was ignored by the djs. In the old days fraud was no problem. Radiostations were connected to record labels (and therefore favored certain tracks) and companies bought their own records. Today people are paid to stream certain tracks, so there are still some contradictions. But in total the charts are far more realistic now. Popular songs are keeping high positions for months and some old tracks suddenly return because of certain events like Christmas or the use in popular movies or shows.
Awards
Of course the awards are also not what they once used to be. The RIAA (Recording Industry Association Of America) introduced the Gold Award in 1958 to honor the sales of a million units. In 1976 the Platinum Award took its place and a record just needed 500,000 sales to be awarded with Gold. For Elvis Presley this was pretty bad, because when the Gold Award was introduced, he already had sold 20 million records and when Platinum emerged he could not trade his many Gold Awards for Platinum. Shit happens!
But even by today's standards the outcome of Mr. Presley is impressive. In the US no less than 185 albums, singles and extended players are awarded with Gold, Platinum or Diamond. And there are a lot more awards from other countries, because 40% of the King's records were sold abroad.
Today
In 2016 the complete catalogue of Presley tracks was scanned with high resolution equipment, repaired and remastered. As a result all master recordings can be graced with the Hi-Res logo. Of course nothing can turn an analogue recording into true high resolution and even the good old compact disc of the 1980s with its 44.1 kHz/16 bit exceeds the human auditory sense by far. But hey, a little marketing scam is no crime and I am happy to have all the relevant tracks available on the streaming platforms in the best quality possible. The tracks certainly sound a lot better than they did when Elvis was alive.
Since 1999 there is also an official collector's label called Follow That Dream Records. It releases live recordings, outtakes and even complete recording sessions. The only letdown is, that they stick to the extincted cd format and refuse to distribute their releases through the streaming platforms. WTF!?!
But in general the Presley fan of the present is treated well. All master recordings are available in good quality and Sony Music Entertainment even cleaned up the catalogue. As written before, in the old days one or two unreleased tracks were used to get the fans to buy an album full of otherwise well known material. So the label scrapped releases like "Burning Love And Hits From His Movies" (1972) and added the important stuff to other albums of the period. The same was done with songs that were released exclusively on singles. So everything is available and there is not too much dublication. Besides that Sony Music Entertainment uses their label RCA Legacy Records to issue sets of live recordings or newly created remixes. In total there is lots of interesting stuff available.
The Classic Catalogue
After all the explanations and pipsqueak you finally made it to the essential stuff: The US releases by SUN, RCA Victor and CAMDEN during Elvis' lifetime. OK, I'll go a little beyond that, because I also include the stuff connected to the "Elvis In Concert" tv special. It was issued after the master passsed away, but it was the last project he worked on and therefore I decided to include it, too. All releases are reviewed and rated, of course I also mention the availability on streaming platforms and special editions released by Sony's own collector's label Follow That Dream Records.
As written before, it's not easy to translate the sales of the old days into the present. To make it as easy as possible I simply use the factors of the RIAA and multiply each sold single by the factor of 150. Because the organization assumes an album to include 10 tracks and therefore calculates it with 1,500 paid streams, I do the same. If an album sold a million times I assume the complete album would have been streamed 150 million times respectively a total of 1,500 individually streamed tracks. Of course that's not an elaborate way, but at least it sets the physical sales of the past and the steams (via paid subscriptions) of today into perspective.
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The Compilations
Back in the days of physical sound carriers compilations were a great business. In fact, the majority of the king's sales were generated with albums of this kind. Some of them featured the best known songs, others were composed by themes like "Christmas" or certain musical styles. Even though today's music lovers don't need to buy physical products of this kind, the idea behind these releases is alive and as lucrative as ever. Streaming platforms create playlists of all kinds and most of the money is made through these lists. I won't review many compilation albums here, because they are simply filled with the stuff from the classic catalogue. However, there are some releases, that are commercially important or belong to my personal favorites. Being from Germany, I'd like to start with an album from the early 1980s, called "Elvis In Germany".
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ReMixes And ReMakes
To keep the music interesting and up-to-date RCA and their various legal successors constantly came up with remixes and remakes of the king's music. At times they tried to sell the "pure" Presley sound and removed whatever they thought was superfluous, on other occasions they just took Elvis' vocals and recorded new music tracks to make him sound more contemporary. His original recordings were remixed or mashed-up with other artist's tracks.
Some fans regard these productions as pure blasphemy, others don't care as long as the original recordings are available and even like some of these remixes and remakes.
But whatever one's personal oppinion might be, it's undeniable, that some of these albums and singles sold very well and brought the king back to the spotlight. In 2002 "Elvis vs. JXL: A Little Less Conversation" created a whole new generation of fans, in 2016 "The Wonder Of You" became a number one album in the UK and in 2022 the movie "Elvis" and the accordant soundtrack album (which included several remixes and remakes) even doubled the number of streams.
Of course I will not look at each and every remake album here, simply because the copyright of the tracks runs out after 50 years and each and everyone is free to mess with these songs. But I hope to present the most important ones and give you an overview about these productions.
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