Thursday · November 18 2004
100,000,000 Bon Jovi Fans Can't Be Wrong
What is going on with the cover art? This is the sort of gift you don't ask for. This is.
The "This" link didn't work. It sent me to some Amazon recommendations based on my cookies.
Also, please don't tell me you've never seen the cover of the Elvis Presley album "50,000,000 Elvis Fans Can't Be Wrong" with the famous solid gold lamme suit.
The "This" link is fixed. It's a link to "The Office" Christmas special.
As horrifying as it may seem, I don't listen to Elvis and I've always had an ignorant distaste for Elvis because my mom liked him SO much. It's a kid/parent music thing.
I've seen that cover before, but didn't make the connection. Go ahead and stick me in the pillory, but I'm dumb when it comes to Elvis. I feel requisite shame or something I guess.
Don't worry. I'll back you on that. Elvis is vastly overrated. He did some good stuff early on, but it was all pretty derivative of equally good, if not better, stuff by black artists. The real genius of that era of rock and roll was Buddy Holly.
My first response to the title was, "oh yes they can."
I think I was supposed to feel bad, though, because the cover is an icon like the cover to Sticky Fingers or Dark Side of the Moon. Or maybe it's not, I dunno.
You guys are too smart to grasp the primal truth that is Elvis. He was the coolest human being who ever lived. And I don't blame you at all for not getting it. I thought he was a joke until I saw that great documentary "This Is Elvis" when it came to the theater in Crystal Lake in 1981. If you've seen that, or read the Greil Marcus essay "Presliad" and you still think he's overrated, I give.
I'd be willing to give it a try, but I doubt I'll ever get Elvis. My mom has an Elvis brand bottle of wine that she's saving for God knows what. It's a generation gap thing, I think.