I like him.
Like most music fans I favour the early stuff and the '68 comeback.

We're of an age where we mostly meet Elvis second hand. By which I mean, while you do hear his music, at the same time you see an awful lot of kitsch, impersonators etc which can take a while to cut through. At least it took me a while. I don't think I "got" Elvis till I heard Aloha From Hawaii. And what I loved about that album was its sincerity. When faced with Elvis tat, the sincerity of his actual music isn't all that apparent.

and like Adman cherish the brilliance of his early stuff and his '68 comeback the live version of "I Just Can't Help Believing" is a perennial.

However, like Gangle above - I find it hard to divorce the music from the kitsch, the black comedy of his demise and the unfortunate associations with some of the worst aspects of Americana.

I do "get" Elvis - and can see his monumental importance in the scheme of things but prefer to listen to others from the classic Rock and Roll period - particularly Chuck Berry and Buddy Holly.

Because of all the kitsch/right-wing associations (not to mention several years of unbelievably bad film soundtracks) he’s been under-appreciated. The box set of his 70's work 'Walk a Mile in My Shoes' was a revelation to me.

When he was good he was unsurpassed for bringing excitement, drama, emotion and sincerity to the most average of material.

I'm sure he'll come back into fashion as is the way with these things. A 'real fan' archival DVD compilation along the lines of The Who's 'The Kids are Alright' would help. A carefully curated 'best of the best' instead of the endless biographical detail, (admittedly plentiful) dreck and over-exposed clips would blow minds!

...is also some of the best pop music ever. I was born (shortly) after he died, and throughout the Eighties it was difficult to find anyone prepared to speak his name without laughing, it seems to me.

I honestly, fully and without a shred of irony ADORE a lot of his output. Like any big pop star, though, he had off years, and his descent towards elephantine, monged-out self-parody is best forgotten. Although I do sort of love that he apparently got a quote for a contract killing on Priscilla's lover (not the actual fact of it; just that he got a quote, like he was having his bathroom done).

I suspect that if I'd been an active music fan starting in the seventies and through the eighties, I wouldn't be remotely interested. People my age and younger are at more of a remove. We don't remember him actually releasing shit records, or dying. He's always had credibility for as long as I've been seriously listening to music, so I never felt there was a stigma - he is what he is. The King.

once described the sensation of hearing Heartbreak Hotel for the first time when it came out. He was walking home from school when he heard its utterly bizarre and intoxicating sound coming out of his sister's open bedroom window. He told me it was as if the aliens had landed... his life exploded into technicolor in that very instant.

I think those of us born too late to have experienced Elvis first time around should try to imagine what it must have been like.

From "Hot Diggity (Dog Ziggity Boom)"...

...to "Hound Dog"...

When I was a child, in the 60's & 70's my only exposure to EP was his films during the morning during school holidays and they really weren't that good, and certainly not aimed at a ten year old. When I first started listening to pop music properly, the first Elvis record that I encountered was American Trilogy which I still think is dreadful. As a result, when he died I really didn't care, "No Elvis, Beatles or the Rolling Stones" was the order of the day anyway.
The first time I visited Memphis (in 1992) I went to Graceland (well, you have to don't you?) and realised how little I knew about the music of one of the most famous men in history.
I really enjoyed the television series of his early years on Channel 4 (I'd like to see it repeated sometime) but I don't think I really got into his music until I got a best of CD. I still think that's all I really need and even then it needs to be stopped well before it finishes (fortunately it's in chronological order!).

...what I said the last time this question came up.

http://www.wordmagazine.co.uk/content/has-elvis-left-building

Elvis is far too easy, compared to The Beatles, to ridicule or pass off as irrelevant. In a career that spanned about three times the lifespan of The Beatles, he never wrote his own material, he made an awful lot of rubbish, he was a gross victim of fame before there really was such a thing, he spent rather a lot of time giving mediocre live performances in Las Vegas and he died bloated and well past his best.

I love his music. Not all of it. But the good stuff, of which there is a great deal, will be with me for the rest of my life. I'm far too old to be bothered with trying to convince anyone else that they have to feel the same way.

Growing up as a lad in the mid 70's, my main exposure to Elvis were his godawful movies that they always seemed to screen on TV during the school summer holidays.

I remember loving The Beatles back then for their songs and humour (and the Monkees of course), but just couldn't get Presley. I recall that the night he died, our tv had broken so all the family sat in the living room doing a giant jigsaw together, and listening to Radio Luxembourg. They kept playing Elvis songs as way of tribute, and if you've ever listened to Radio Luxembourg you'll know the signal keeps fading in and out, which made the Presley songs sound very ghostly indeed. Weird.

Bizarrely, I only eventually began to appreciate Elvis's merits from being a teenage Smiths fan. After hearing The Smiths cover His Latest Flame, I checked out the original which I loved, and grew to like and appreciate The King's legacy from there.

(oh to have a Tardis and go back to maybe '59 and rescue Elvis by shooting Colonel Parker)

Has everyone who champions the '68 Comeback ever heard what he did next? Because it's his greatest album.

http://open.spotify.com/album/4k2rriJGUVzAILDyOURuaG

That is all.

The later ballads he did are as great to me as the early rock n roll stuff. It is the sound of someone falling apart and unable to do anything about it whilst having the world in his hands. I too have been to Gracelands and found it a very moving experience even though in the scheme of things Elvis isn't one of my greats. He was a simple lad led astray by vultures. At heart he was a home loving boy. For example he created a grave for his born dead twin brother in the grounds. Excuse me, I have something in my eye.

It seems that I don't read as many posts on here as I thought I did - thanks Lucas for linking me to Dave's post and apologies for revisiting a subject so soon after it had been, erm, visited.

Cheers to all for sharing your thoughts. Despite my lack of enthusiasm for the man's work I'm strangely pleased to find that he's got so many admirers on the board - no idea why and I'm too tired to give it much thought.

Right I'm off to create a thread about The Fall, they haven't been mentioned on here for ages...oh, hang on.

I am always up for talking about Elvis.