ALBUM REVIEW: Elvis Presley - Elvis Presley

    Pinpointing the first proper rock and roll album is a bizarre and imperfect art form, and one nearly as difficult as pinning down the start of the genre in the first place - of course, at the end of 1955 was the Rock Around the Clock album by Bill Haley and His Comets, which arguably qualifies, and there are plenty of stragglers that one could point and apply the label to. Of course, one of these options lies with The King. Elvis had been bought out of his Sun Records contract by RCA for a record-setting amount at the time, which meant he had a new home to release his recordings; Presley would stay on the label until his death, and his very first album on the record marks a historical moment in the face of rock music. Elvis was not the first person to make a rock and roll album - he arguably wasn't even the first to make a big rock and roll album, but this March 1956 release remains a historic touchstone of the genre, and finds Elvis shifting slightly from rockabilly into moments of more pure rocking energy to much success. A combination of new RCA recordings with some old (but certainly quality) Sun recordings made for a galvanizing release that still holds up surprisingly well in the face of the genre's continuous change. Presley helped light the world on fire with this record, whether or not he was the first to do it.

     Generally, you can split up the album into two types of songs, and it's not based on the label he recorded with. You have your rock numbers, fast-paced and hot songs with punching vocals and equally punching instrumentation, and you have your ballads, which are much more subdued and restrained by nature. On this album, the rockers outnumber the ballads at a rate of around 3 to 2. Genreally, the ballads have slightly less to offer purely because they aren't as immediately exciting, but that isn't to say there is nothing to like about them - quite the opposite. For one, these songs showcase that Elvis is a fairly versatile performer. Second, they serve as decent, if perhaps a bit underwhelming, respite from the nonstop vitality of Elvis' rocking ability. Still, three of the four ballads here are leftovers from the Sun era, including "I Love You Because", the first song Elvis officially recorded with the label - it's not bad, but you'd certainly be able to tell that this was one of the first things he did. "I'll Never Let You Go (Little Darlin')" and "Blue Moon" are also both leftovers, but frankly they have much more to offer just because they are better performances - I quite like the former, actually, and "Blue Moon" is a classic Elvis moment in some respect. Out of all the ballads, only "I'm Counting on You" is a new recording, and it's not half bad. Presley's voice is as good as usual, as is the instrumental work - Scotty Moore and Bill Black stick around as Elvis' backing musicians, but with the new addition of the fantastic drummer D.J. Fontana, a steady drummer who is an effective and lively addition to Presley's music, giving it that push from rockabilly into bonafide rock and roll music.

     The ballads are well and good, but it's the rock numbers that not only make up a majority of the album's meat, but where the music really soars. It's not all a perfect hit - Elvis' rendition of Little Richard's "Tutti Frutti" doesn't hold a candle to the unfiltered electricity of the original tune - but nearly every other moment is setting the joint ablaze. Two other Sun leftovers fit into this category in "Just Because" and "Tryin' to Get to You", although the latter is much stronger than the former; the album even opens with a cover of "Blue Suede Shoes", originally a song from Sun Records' own Carl Perkins, who debuted on the label not long before Elvis left. On the topic of "Blue Suede Shoes", there are seldom early rock and roll numbers as immediately capturing of the atmosphere and new genre as this one. It's not only a killer album opener, but a fantastic introduction to the music of Elvis. He doesn't just stop there, of course, as his rendition of Ray Charles' "I Got a Woman" is roaring in its own right, even if I do still prefer Charles' soulful original - Elvis' version also has a very neat bluesy end to it, which is an ending he will utilize many more times throughout his career. "One-Sided Love Affair" is a surprisingly enduring number, and one that I liked even during my days of Elvis skepticism. "I'm Gonna Sit Right Down and Cry (Over You)" is a decent enough rock number, but one that's blown out the water by the closing track "Money Honey", which is every bit as killer and fun as the opening track. It's these moments here that make Elvis shine.

    A couple months before this album's release, Presley released "Heartbreak Hotel" as his debut single for RCA - by April, it was at the top of the charts, smashing Elvis onto a national scale. The King, as we know him, as emerging, and there is no better glimpse of this emerging force in music than his debut record. Everything that helped make Elvis big is on this album - it's catchy, exciting, and carries that same heir of edge and danger that helped make him admirable to the youth and deplorable to the old. Today, it's easy to call this a poorly aged product of the time - that's exactly what I deemed when I first heard it - but I think that doesn't do it justice. Presley's debut can still send shockwaves years after the fact, and that is the real testament to the power of the music he played.

RATING: ✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯

Listen to Elvis Presley.