There's a plethora of Elvis Presley albums on the market, most of them compilations and box sets, each focusing on certain hits, eras, and/or styles. Meanwhile, the plague of Elvis impersonators who haunt our cultural stage, not to mention those millions of fans who can't be wrong, serves as a constant reminder that the King is never really dead.
Elvis 75: Good Rockin' Tonight is, at first glance, just another product of the never-ending Elvis mill: a four-CD box set conveniently tied to coincide with the 75th anniversary of Presley's birth. But it's also the first box set to survey the entirety of his 24-year career, covering hits and deep cuts alike.
From the seminal Sun Records sessions and salad days at RCA to the post-washed-up artistic rebounds and the unadulterated thrill of the TCB band, Elvis 75 serves up Presley both trim and bloated, high and low, a man who was always successful even when he was desperately grasping for something new. Put all that enduring idolatry and marketing aside and it's not even an argument as to whether the dude made four discs of killer music in his lifetime. Get this and you'll never need to hem and haw over another Elvis comp again.
