An influential spirit in the early years of commercialised music, but then who wasn’t? You can throw out as many songs as you want and something would stick should it be given to the right radio station. The King of Rock and Roll is more a notable baron or some distinguished if limited jester who influenced a generation whose quality outlived his. Hip-shaking rock and roll from the early years and a wonderful voice which died off too early to truly affect the political arena. A film adaptation of his life may place Elvis Presley as a cultural commentator but he would go on record saying his opinions on the world didn’t matter, were a private affair. Elvis’ Greatest Shit!! feels enraged by this and as a result releases a compilation of his worst shlock. Much of it is from the Hollywood years, and a bulk of it is truly unlistenable. For ever Hound Dog and If I Can Dream, there is an entire soundtrack album filled with pathetic, phoned-in filler tracks. Compilations will rarely, if ever, note these songs.
Why would they? These are the dregs of The King. But all artists have rough patches, it can’t possibly be as bad as Elvis’ Greatest Shit!! makes it out. It’s far worse, in fact. Just considering the volume of these rough cuts is bad enough. But listening to them? There are torture methods with more humanity than the likes of Old MacDonald and Dominic the Impotent Bull. A bootleg is often a celebration of an artist and their unreleased works, but here is a protest of dressing up Presley as one of the untouchable greats. It’s not that these songs lessen his star power, everyone from Bob Dylan to The Beach Boys has a few underwhelming efforts. Not as many as Presley, is the point of this bootleg. They are truly awful moments, from the medium rare burgers of Old MacDonald to the nursery rhyme rot of Confidence.
No sense of novelty can defend the horrors of Presley spelling out “confidence” but giving up before the first “e”. Crucial to Elvis’ Greatest Shit!!, and this is not lost on the album, is proving Presley was human. It’s not a knock at his best works, some of which are still extremely exciting today, but that he was susceptible to the same studio shortcomings as anyone else. It’s a message which is backed by every song on the album. Presley has a sole song of interest, U.S. Male, though it’s a pandering, patriotic cover. But different to the dregs of Dylan’s discography or even that of Chuck Berry, is that Presley often sings with such contempt for his own work. It’s that lack of trying which cements these as awful songs, not just the brutally uninventive instrumentals backing him.
Songs of zodiac signs, others of bleak simplicity. Much of this would feature in Presley’s films, though they seem to be overlooked by those who want to keep this image of The King as a man who could do no wrong alive. He did much wrong, a lot of that in the studio. He may be a great influence on the songwriters of the generation to follow, but he wrote more shit than most, as Elvis’ Greatest Shit!! proves. Not only is this a compilation of worst-ever efforts, but it’s also a good-faith conversation needed for even the most beloved musicians. Can we find the depth in our hearts to love a musician despite their in-studio flaws? We must. Nobody is free of bad song, but acting as though they don’t exist is a far worse fate than mocking them as well as Elvis’ Greatest Shit!! does.
The songs on this are shit but this article is an insult to the greatness of the King.