Elvis Presley – 30 #1 Hits (2002)

Elvis Presley is one of the most famous singers of all times. Even if you haven't specifically tried to listen to any of his music, you are familiar with many of his songs. This was the case for me for a long time. I knew many of Elvis' classic songs before, but it was only when I was about 18 years old, I started to intentionally listen to Elvis. Elvis became quite popular again after the release of this compilation album, at least in Finland. I guess the main reason for it was the new remix of Little Less Conversation that appeared on this compilation album because it had made an old Elvis song into a number one single decades later. Also, some of my friends started listening to Elvis in a kind of "ironic" way, so I became interested in the King of rock n' roll at the same time and bought this compilation album on a CD. I think it's a fairly good overall introduction to Elvis' music even if it is just a collection of his number 1 hits.



The condition of the CD case of this album is the main reason why I basically don't buy jewel case CDs anymore. I had an accident where my CD towers fell over and all of the CDs fell on the floor. Most of the jewel cases broke and none of them broke as badly as this one. I know you can buy new empty covers to fix the problem, but it seems like the covers break all the time, so it's put me off this CD case format. Also, I really don't like how it looks. It's just an overly commercial looking piece of plastic. I still like CDs, but I want them wrapped in cardboard packaging that gives them a similar appearance as the vinyls, but only in a miniature scale.

Elvis wasn't only an idol in music, he also influenced a generation of teddy boys who wanted to dress like Elvis. This thing lives on even now at the time when the youth cultures have been fragmented based on individual interests. You can still see rockabilly fans who wear their hair like Elvis did and they wear similar kinds of clothes.

When I bought this album, my favourite songs were the more melodic songs from the late Elvis era, such as (You're the) Devil in Disguise, Suspicious Minds, Burning Love and indeed Little Less Conversation. I was also kind of fond of some of his ballads even if I recognised that some of them were very cheesy. Are You Lonesome Tonight?, Can't Help Falling In Love and It's Now or Never were already familiar songs to me from my childhood from various tv shows and movies, so they were nice to listen to.

More recently I have found myself liking the early rock n' roll classics more and more. I guess it has something to do with me being more aware of rock history and as a consequence I've become more purist when it comes to genres. I like to hear where a certain genre started from rather than hearing people who have made similar sounding songs decades later. Don't Be Cruel, All Shook Up and Jailhouse Rock all sound great even today.

Elvis lived in the ear of single releases, so I've never really been impressed by his whole albums, so in a way, having only compilation albums by him, is surprisingly fine. I usually prefer full albums, but in this case I think I'm more interested in the individual songs.

I don't listen to Elvis that regularly, but I do think he made a great job in bringing rock n' roll to mainstream. It's a shame that we needed a white man to do this for originally black music genre, but I'm still glad it happened, because of all the great music that was inspired by this early phase in pop music history.

Listen to the album on Spotify.