Elvis Presley Vs. The Beatles

[Guest Len B'stard]

So Elvis is better than the Beatles because Lennon happened to hear his cover of a song?

All Elvis ever was was a glorified cover artist. Sure, his voice was great, but he was basically another manufactured pop star. Only difference is this popstar was seen as cool and edgy.

Elvis was not manufactured. He was the genuine article. He was genuine when he walked into Sam Phillips' studio in 1953. You have to remember that this kid completely absorbed the roots of American music: blues, country, folk, easy listening, gospel - Elvis absorbed it all. This was the time of racial divide. Black people only listened to black music and white people only listened to white music. (Black music was merely filed under the title, 'race music', by whites.) Elvis bridged this gap and, in fact, revolutionised music. He attended black congregations and saw gospel music first hand; he listened to old black bluesman; and he also had his white influence (i.e. 'hick' music and easy listening). Elvis put it all in the pot and shook it all around. And this was the kid who walked into Sam Phillips' studio. He had his musical background and the talent the day he walked into that studio.

In what way is Elvis manufactured? In the '50s he was a proper working musician. He cut songs (unlike Axl) at Sun Studios and later RCA and played the Louisiana Hayride and the Ole Opry. He had to compete (it was not a forgone conclusion that he would suceed). Elvis, Bill Black, Scotty and Fontana would be all packed in in a car with their instruments and driving to shows at three in the morning. Elvis was a proper working musician. In what way was he manufactured? manufactured entails someone talent spotting, morphing and selecting material (a la X Factor). Elvis already had the musical knowledge, had to put in his shift as a proper musican and was in fact so individual that he could not be manufactured. You have to remember that there was a trajectory here. A manufactured artist tends to be thrown at the mainstream for an, already pre-existing market. How does this square with Elvis, a poor white kid from Tupelo who plays 'race music' and 'sings funny' and is sexually provocative in a way that no other entertainer had ever been. The mainstream hated him. Sinatra, Milton Bern et all hated him. But before this, Elvis had to capture the local markets (Nashville etc) before capturing the national and worldwide market. He had to plug himself as a working musician - just like GN'R in 1985-6 in the clubs.

You could not manufacture Elvis Presley even if you wished to. You could not tell Elvis how to throw his voice out in such odd way. You could not tell a teenage Elvis to listen to 'race music'. And it also begs the question, who is doing the manufacturing here? Certainly not Sam Phillips here, the producer. And so long as Tom Parker kept out of the studio, not him either. Who is manufacturing here barcardi?

PS

You could make an argument that The Beatles were more manufactured than Elvis. What did Lennon do when Epstein told him to wear a gay looking suit and cut his hair in a stupid fashion? John Lennon merely put on the suit and cut his hair in a silly moptop. Lennon was the rebel need I point out (Lennon was always envious of the Stones for putting up a resistance to the suit thing in the early 60s). In contrast, Elvis was bullied at school for wearing sport jackets and styling his hair in such an unique fashion when all the other kids wore jeans and crew cuts.

We've had this conversation with Cardi before if you recall. And Epstein didn't bring about the mop top haircut, they had those even in Hamburg, they came from Astrid Kirshner and Klaus Voorman.

Edited January 1, 2014 by sugaraylen

[Iron MikeyJ]

Hey Diesil, your ok in my book.

I was replying to barcadi by the way with my above remark.

I knew you were. I just thought it was funny, the whole destroy you when i'm sober part.

[Guest Len B'stard]

Orignal Rudeboy!

[DieselDaisy]

Yes, true but Lennon looked much cooler with a ted look like on the front cover of the rock n' roll album where he is standing in the doorway of some shithole in Hamburg, The Beatles simply looked, homosexual, when Epstein got them into the suits. In contrast, Presley always looked cool.

[Guest Len B'stard]

Why, cuz they had suits on? Thats a lot of rubbish man. I agree with you on Elvis being the bollocks and that, I am firmly on your side with that and an Elvis afficiando to like, mental levels but 'they looked like homosexuals in suits?', God, how much of a four year olds attitude is that? If you take it on that fuckin' blue and boden shit shoveller level every pop star in the world looks a bit of a poof but because they were in suits instead of leathers made them look like poofs, come onnn

That is honestly like, a 4 yr olds level of like…associative thinking. Leather jackets and quaffed hair means 'hard nut' and suit means 'poof', shame no one told Bugsy Siegel eh? Suits looked smart man, sharp, classy…not fuckin' bent Elvis, in accordance to his era looked a bit of a poof, you know that right? Long (for the time) hair, very effeminate in terms of his features and that. If anything, the leathers and the quiff stuff looks poofy.

The leather look has by far more homosexual connotations that a nicely fitted suit, by a long chalk. There's been a thematic homoerotic thread through the entire history of that thing. So John Lennon looks more gay with a chesterfield suit on at the Palladium that he does kitted out in leathers with slicked back hair standing in a door way in one of the europes biggest red light districts? Think about it man

Edited January 1, 2014 by sugaraylen

[DieselDaisy]

It is the type of suit. Epstein had the Beatles in the same type of suits that a junior clark at a stationary company would wear. They looked total fags - I am sorry. Until they started modin it up a bit around the Help period.

[Guest Len B'stard]

You realise Elvis is almost a gay icon right? And whats gay about a Chesterfield suit?!?! Seriously, explain that to me, explain to me how a Chesterfield suit makes a person look gay? You're having a Karl Pilkington moment here

Explain how thats gay? As suits go they're actually pretty plain. You could wear that to pretty much any office job in England today.

Edited January 1, 2014 by sugaraylen

[Snake-Pit]

Orignal Rudeboy!

[DieselDaisy]

You are meant to be a punk. You are meant to agree with me.

I merely prefer my rock bands to not look like they work in a junior-division of a sales company. If The Beatles still put some grease in their hair it would perhaps have been a slightly better look but as it is it looks staid and - yes a bit gay.

[Guest Len B'stard]

You are meant to be a punk. You are meant to agree with me.

I merely prefer my rock bands to not look like they work in a junior-division of a sales company. If The Beatles still put some grease in their hair it would perhaps have been a slightly better look but as it is it looks staid and - yes a bit gay.

But staid is the opposite of gay in that sense Do you mean gay in that broader schoolyard sense of the word 'shit' or gay as in poofy? Cuz if it's the latter i think you'd do well to perhaps gather some life experience or something because i think you'll find there is a lot more gay iconography in the leathers and DA haircut look than there is in the staid junior sales clerk look, I mean it's one of the classic gay looks, the leathers and 50s rocker look.

Edited January 2, 2014 by sugaraylen

[DieselDaisy]

Look at that. Enough grease to fuel a train

[Guest Len B'stard]

You realise that that very picture, along with a few others of Elvis in that period, also James Dean and even Brando are like…some of the key images of 20th Century gay culture iconography?

Edited January 2, 2014 by sugaraylen

[DieselDaisy]

Those suits simply look homosexual. I wear Italian suits. There is something faintly, Harold Macmillan, about the Beatles circa 1963-64 (although he was not in office then).

[Guest Len B'stard]

I think you have ABSOLUTELY no idea what you're talking about, to the point of it being hilarious

[DieselDaisy]

They simply do not look cool circa 1963-4. It is a horrible look, it really is. It is establishment and middle class and cacky, post war British staidness. The Beatles were a proper bunch of drunken leather clad rockers in Hamburg before Epstein got them into the gay suits. The only one with any sense was Pete Best who was sacked because he refused to ditch his teddy boy cut. The rest, like good little manufactured girls, complied.

Are you going to pretend that Lennon was not envious on the Stones here in the late 60s?

[Guest Len B'stard]

They don't look cool then, OK, but gay Dies'? Thats what my contention is, not your overall point, that may or may not be accurate (i think it is to a point) it's the gay association I'm talking about.

Also, i dunno if this has occurred to you or not but by 1963 the whole leather look had long since passed into like, acceptability, it weren't no anti-establishment thing, it was old hat even by then. Mccartney said as much in an interview around the time of The Anthology and he was right, The Beatles would've looked hokey and like a bunch of try-hards in all that leather kit, they would've been impossible to take seriously, The Beatles as we know em would never've been.

Establishment and middle class, again, are really things that are the opposite of gay. If anything, gay back then was about as anti establishment, counter/sub-culturey as you could get.

Quite frankly, this idea that young boys kitted out in leathers meant they were some kind of working class counter culture thing is a bit of a middle class wank as it is…what working class lads could afford leather jackets? It was your middle class soft lads that took that shit on in the first place, despite what they might tell ya.

And yes, I am saying that Lennon wasn't envious of The Stones in the late 60s, chiefly because by the late 60s no fucker was telling The Beatles what to wear anyway. There was a bit of annoyance on Lennons part that these soft lads The Stones were getting the bad boy image in the EARLY 60s, when The Beatles were the real working class jack the lads and Keef and Mick were actually just posh boys from Richmond, other than that Lennon envious of them in the late 60s, God, why? The Stones did everything after The Beatles and, at least when they began, were nothing more than a mickey mouse answer to The Beatles that never quite cut it.

Edited January 2, 2014 by sugaraylen

[DieselDaisy]

Listen, you are talking wank.

Fact, The Stones never donned the suit. They tried them but as Wyman said in an interview, ''various members just lost bits so we never looked the same anyways''.

Lennon, circa 69-73, now the 'working class hero' (despite being middle class but that is besides the point) resented the Stones on this. He wished he snubbed the suits also.

[Guest Len B'stard]

Nah, never donned the matching suits, did they? Fuck me, Richards whinges about it in his auto-bio. They make out this bullshit like they never did the same shit but they did, oh what cuz one time Keith turned his collar up or Mick wore a sweater while the rest wore suits suddenly it means The Stones were vailliantly raging against the machine, do me a favour!

And Pete Best weren't fired cuz of a haircut, he was fired cuz he couldn't cut it, you seriously think someone could get fired cuz of a haircut? Thats like The Pistols thing when they say Glenn was fired cuz he liked The Beatles, thats rubbish, he was fired cuz him and Rotten couldn't get along.

Edited January 2, 2014 by sugaraylen

[DieselDaisy]

They do not look very happy do they? Not much of a Ringoesque - cheeky chappy lad from liverpool - grin there.

[Guest Len B'stard]

Translation: You were right Len, I stand corrected

[DieselDaisy]

You are not right at all as I have freely said the Stones were in suits for a - very brief- period. The point is, they ditched them, ditched them very early. Lennon, mr 'working class rebel' excepted Epstein's suit like a good boy and always resented that fact in later life.

[Guest Len B'stard]

Well you said a couple of contradicting things didn't you?

Fact, The Stones never donned the suit.

Then the immediately next sentence was:

They tried them but as Wyman said in an interview, ''various members just lost bits so we never looked the same anyways''.

A quote which illuminates nothing except the fact that they did wear em but one member of the other sometimes was wearing an article or so less than the whole ensemble, well thats still wearing them, isn't it, I mean there was times when one of the other member of The Beatles didn't have the tie on etc too.

And anyway, they were hardly going about in leathers either sooo

Edited January 2, 2014 by sugaraylen

[DieselDaisy]

Well they started off by ditching one article (i.e. the tie or the jacket) before ditching them completely. By 1964 (quite early) Jagger was already wearing scruffy looking sweaters. The one thing it signifies, is, The Stones did not conform in the way the Beatles did. And Lennon resented this later on as he wished he had resisted the suit - it is the 'Lennonesque' behaviour which he was famous for (returning the MBE etc). This was when Lennon made some bitchy remarks about the The Stones copying The Beatles all the time.

[Guest Len B'stard]

Well they started off by ditching one article (i.e. the tie or the jacket) before ditching them completely. By 1964 (quite early) Jagger was already wearing scruffy looking sweaters. The one thing it signifies, is, The Stones did not conform in the way the Beatles did.

No, clearly they fought the power...by way of 'sweater' by 65 The Beatles weren't really wearing the suits neither. Quite frankly The Stones always dressed smart too, right up until the late 60s. Somehow tight fitting trousers and sweaters is like, REALLY hardcore and suits are staid and poofy, do me a favour And you can go on about looks and all that shit too all day long if you like but The Stones weren't no jack the lads, not compared to The Beatles and they never could be, regardless of whether they wore suits or not. Mick and Keef were good little RIchmond boys, well bought up, Jagger went to the LSE and Keef sang for the fuckin' Queen, thats how much Jack the lads they were, compare that to The Beatles going as teenagers from Liverpool to a place like Hamburg and roughin' it. The fact is The Stones pretty much openly admit that their 'bad boy' image was just a fuckin' joke and a piss take and really just a load of cynical PR bollocks, i'd take The Beatles characters over that any day.

And Lennon resented this later on as he wished he had resisted the suit - it is the 'Lennonesque' behaviour which he was famous for (returning the MBE etc). This was when Lennon made some bitchy remarks about the The Stones copying The Beatles all the time.

bitchy ACCURATE remarks

[DieselDaisy]

Ahh the class thing rears its head. Listen, Lennon was middle class; he lived in a semi-detatched; his family were doctors etc.; he had an uncle who gave him, I think it was £100 which was a fortune, and John and Paul went to Paris; he even had a spinsterish patrician in Mimi, who used to complain when he associated with working class kids like Paul and George. 'Working Class Hero' my arse.