Elvis Presley: The Album Collection (60 CD Deluxe Box Set)

[TINML]

It's finally here! What a beauty, currently listening to Disc 1 I'm like a kid at Christmas.

FYI, I wouldn't buy from import CDs again, they did a horrible job of packaging, fortunately my box is dent free.

[skatterbrane]

Because I am astounded that people have not found songs here and there where the audio quality is not up to par, some are pretty terrible. It is hit or miss (except the two albums where it is mostly miss). And as more people get this set and listen to it closely, more and more people will discover this. The honeymoon phase will not last forever. I realize there will be a majority where sound quality is not an issue or concern, however.

[steve in SC]

I don't know if I should laugh or cry reading all this...for those of us who lived and purchased in the 80's the last 20 years have been all you could have hoped for as an Elvis fan.

In 1976 I fell in love with the music of Elvis Presley ....today my passion is stronger than ever....when I purchaed the TCM boxset I thought I had what I was wishing for my whole life......the truth is for me this box surpasses that in its format..I like the idea they all together and can be played per album as I see fit.....the sound is unbelievable and I have every HD album and iTunes version which are the exact same as this..........but to have that box.....those covers.....that sound......we are blessed.

I truly believe when the guys leave (E and R) looking after the Elvis catalogue and we reflect on these great releases and FTD's their true worth to all us fans will be recognised!!!!

Time to show some respect and appreciation for so much great product while having to deal with a 100 different opinions about every release.Im not saying everything is perfect but some positivity must be in there too to have a reflective balance.

Once again for me its all about the music and the music is very fine indeed.

Elvis you are still my hero and the king!!!.......thanks for the last 40yrs

Well said!! In the last 20 years we have heard everything possible and stuff we only dreamed of in the 80's and 90's. I finally purchased this set and am looking forward to enjoying it. I don't know enough to nitpick it but I do know I will be glad I got it.

[elvis-fan]

Because I am astounded that people have not found songs here and there where the audio quality is not up to par, some are pretty terrible. It is hit or miss (except the two albums where it is mostly miss). And as more people get this set and listen to it closely, more and more people will discover this. The honeymoon phase will not last forever. I realize there will be a majority where sound quality is not an issue or concern, however.

Save for some of the horrible sounding mid-late 60's movie soundtracks (that are in dire need of a remix) I'm glad I own TCM... the studio tracks sound excellent in this set.
I do substitute some of the tracks... SUN tracks (from TBFT) and I use the double features for the poor sounding soundtracks...
I may get The Album Collection at some point but I'm not shelling out $350 for it...

[jerrynodak]

I broke down and bought this set when the price dropped on Amazon.com. I was aware of the audio shortcomings before I bought the set. I knew I could live with them. I'd been doing so for years. I don't regret buying the set. The honeymoon continues. Of the LPs that are missing, the only one I miss is the Sun Sessions. I realize that the masters are included on the set, but it would have been nice to have them gathered together on one collection instead of having them scattered over several albums. Repetition be dammed.

[Harty]

I love the new album collection and have no problems with some bonus songs. It is a matter of "original" or some small update. I wasn't aware (or I forgot it ) that the original 74 memphis concert album doesn't
include the 2001 theme. The original album starts with the drums of CC Rider. Yesterday I loaded the CD into itunes and I was really shocked ! Where is "my Elvis Opening" ? Then I realized :
It was never on these album ! Elvis Presley was named as executive producer for this album in his hometown. There is also the technical story around with all the microphones in the audience. But the Album starts
with CC rider. Yes we all know the legacy and FTD edition with the "Elvis opening", but in this case: is it wrong to cut the opening within this release ?

[elvis71]

I broke down and bought this set when the price dropped on Amazon.com. I was aware of the audio shortcomings before I bought the set. I knew I could live with them. I'd been doing so for years. I don't regret buying the set. The honeymoon continues. Of the LPs that are missing, the only one I miss is the Sun Sessions. I realize that the masters are included on the set, but it would have been nice to have them gathered together on one collection instead of having them scattered over several albums. Repetition be dammed.

This box has no audio short comings, it all sounds superb, the sun songs are not the Kevan Budd remasters, but older slighty less masters, but the rest of the box is sound wise out of this world , it amazes me everytime i hear it.

[TINML]

I broke down and bought this set when the price dropped on Amazon.com. I was aware of the audio shortcomings before I bought the set. I knew I could live with them. I'd been doing so for years. I don't regret buying the set. The honeymoon continues. Of the LPs that are missing, the only one I miss is the Sun Sessions. I realize that the masters are included on the set, but it would have been nice to have them gathered together on one collection instead of having them scattered over several albums. Repetition be dammed.

This box has no audio short comings, it all sounds superb, the sun songs are not the Kevan Budd remasters, but older slighty less masters, but the rest of the box is sound wise out of this world , it amazes me everytime i hear it.

That's good to know, reason 1,454 to hold onto the precious work of art that is Elvis At Sun.

[MikeFromHolland]

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Today a review appeared in the Los Angeles Times:

Every album Elvis ever made, and then some, the stars of new 60-CD box set. That's all right, indeed


Elvis Presley strikes a classic pose in concert. All his albums have been gathered into one huge box set. (Sony Legacy)

By Randy Lewis . Contact Reporter
April 6, 2016, 3:45 AM

Most people who know anything about Elvis Presley know that his career ignited in 1954 with his recording of the old Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup blues song "That's All Right." It became a signature number in his live shows, and it was something fans always waited for in the last years of his life during his seemingly endless stream of concerts in Las Vegas.

Yet it was several years before anyone living outside the vicinity of Memphis, Tenn., where he recorded that number at Sam Phillips' Sun Studio, knew anything about "That's All Right."

"'That's All Right' is widely acknowledged as the beginning of the explosion of his career," said John Jackson, senior vice president of A&R (artist development) for Sony's Legacy Recordings catalog division, which has just released "Elvis Presley — The Album Collection," a monstrous 60-CD box set containing all 57 albums released by his label, RCA Records, during Presley's lifetime. It also includes three CDs of rare tracks, alternate takes and other bonus material from the '50s, '60s and '70s.

"That's All Right," Jackson noted, "was released to the public originally as a single from the small Memphis label Sun Records. It sold about 20,000 copies. It didn't come out to the public at large until 1959, on [RCA's] 'Something for Everybody' album, a compilation the label put together because Elvis was in the Army and they thought, 'Hey, let's put something out.'

"It was on a compilation of singles that had already come out and sold millions, songs like 'Heartbreak Hotel' and Jailhouse Rock.' I can't imagine what impact it might have had as sort of a leftover dropped in among those huge hits."

The new box set follows Sony Legacy's release of every track Presley recorded officially — all 711 of them — on the 30-CD box set "The Complete Elvis Presley Masters" in 2010.

That project put his recording career into chronological order — a drastically different sequence compared to how those songs were originally released to the public. Several of the songs Presley recorded with Phillips at Sun in 1954 and 1955, for instance, were dribbled out on RCA albums for several years after the label bought his contract from Phillips — for the then astronomical price of $35,000 (plus a $5,000 signing bonus to Presley).



"We're pretty much constantly working on the Elvis catalog," said Jackson, who earned a college degree in rock music history and wrote his thesis on Presley's career. He had joined Legacy in 1998, at which point the label had nothing to do with Presley's music. But a corporate merger in 2004 brought the RCA catalog under the Sony umbrella, a serendipitous development that couldn't have made Jackson happier.

"His masters are well represented everywhere," Jackson said, "but the idea here was to have all the original albums in tip-top shape for digital, for downloading and for CD, rather than just doing a few at a time. This is the first time all the album masters have been up to the same quality at one time. We've gone back and done them all over again, from scratch, for this package for the hi-res audio providers, for the 'Mastered for iTunes' program, for Spotify and all the streaming services. This is not a piecemeal exercise."

The CD set, which is selling for around $250 on Amazon — about $4 per CD — is timed to coincide with the 60th anniversary of the original release of Presley's first RCA album, "Elvis Presley." It includes a 300-page small-format book with pages devoted to each release, including song titles, songwriter and musician credits and other relevant archival information.

"What really comes across, more than just the music," Jackson said, "is the marketing and the promotion of Elvis as a famous person. You see how sometimes they would include a new poster: Here's a picture of what he's up to in Germany [during his two-year stint in the Army], here's a fold-down calendar with the date circled of when he's coming home from Germany, here's a picture of him in concert for all the people around the world who couldn't go see him perform live.

"Everything was one large idea to the colonel [Presley's manager, Col. Tom Parker] and RCA Records. Sometimes the music wound up suffering, but he continued to come back by recording great tracks along the way."

One intriguing example: 10 songs into the soundtrack for Presley's 1966 car-racing movie "Spinout," lurking among pedestrian numbers such as "Adam and Evil," "Beach Shack" and "Smorgasbord," is his version of Bob Dylan's "Tomorrow Is a Long Time."

Among the book's 52 pages of session information detailing each of his stints in a recording studio, it shows that during three days in 1957, amid recording songs for "Elvis' Christmas Album," he also knocked out two soon-to-be hit singles, "Treat Me Nice" and "Don't."

"He was always looking to record songs he liked," Jackson said, even though, especially early on, the fare offered to Presley was drastically limited by Parker's insistence that songwriters share their publishing royalties with Presley and Parker's music publishing firm.

In some cases, signature tracks that weren't included on studio albums — a practice common in the 1950s and even through much of the '60s — have been added to the appropriate records. The original studio recording of Presley's 1969 hit "Suspicious Minds," for instance, didn't appear on an album until the "Elvis Gold Records, Volume 5" compilation in 1984, seven years after his death at age 42.

Jackson is part of a team that also includes producer-engineer Ernst Jorgensen, who has done much to restore order to the chaos RCA subjected Presley's recorded legacy to in the years immediately after his death, and Roger Seamon.

During the '70s, Jackson notes, "It must have been genuinely confusing for fans. There are more than a dozen albums where the cover shows him in a white jumpsuit against a black background. Is it new studio stuff, is it live stuff, is it a mixture — what is this stuff? At the time, I don't think it bothered them, but I think it would have been very confusing to people."



Twitter: @RandyLewis2

Copyright © 2016, Los Angeles Times

Source: http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/music/la-et-ms-elvis-presley-20160406-story.html

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[bpmod]

Gee, it's too bad the writer couldn't take a few more minutes to get the facts straight.

Brian

[elvis71]

I broke down and bought this set when the price dropped on Amazon.com. I was aware of the audio shortcomings before I bought the set. I knew I could live with them. I'd been doing so for years. I don't regret buying the set. The honeymoon continues. Of the LPs that are missing, the only one I miss is the Sun Sessions. I realize that the masters are included on the set, but it would have been nice to have them gathered together on one collection instead of having them scattered over several albums. Repetition be dammed.

This box has no audio short comings, it all sounds superb, the sun songs are not the Kevan Budd remasters, but older slighty less masters, but the rest of the box is sound wise out of this world , it amazes me everytime i hear it.

That's good to know, reason 1,454 to hold onto the precious work of art that is Elvis At Sun.

Yes ! i agree, funny thing i did not even know i had this cd, until yesterday...it was still in shrink wrap ..go figure, but yes i'm glad i have it too

[skatterbrane]

Yes ! i agree, funny thing i did not even know i had this cd, until yesterday...it was still in shrink wrap ..go figure, but yes i'm glad i have it too

Well open it and play it, unless you have TCM or Boy From Tupelo, you've probably never heard the Sun material sound so good!

[elvis71]

Yes ! i agree, funny thing i did not even know i had this cd, until yesterday...it was still in shrink wrap ..go figure, but yes i'm glad i have it too

Well open it and play it, unless you have TCM or Boy From Tupelo, you've probably never heard the Sun material sound so good!

I had a recordable of " Elvis At Sun " at first ( FLAC) , and played it numerous times in the past and recently , i just found the original cd of " Elvis At Sun " yesterday between cd's i inherited from my mother who past away a few years ago... and yes i do have Boy From Tupelo it sounds amazing on that one too ( it's my favorite FTD)

[steve in SC]

I have just received this set today. I haven't even opened it yet. Those of you that have opened it, are you affixing the stickers to the appropriate cover? I think I will unless someone can tell me a good reason not.to,

[Chris Roberts]

I have just received this set today. I haven't even opened it yet. Those of you that have opened it, are you affixing the stickers to the appropriate cover? I think I will unless someone can tell me a good reason not.to,

Hi Steve, I haven't put my stickers on as yet, no good reason not to, just haven't got around to it. Just a personal choice I suppose if you do or you don't.

[Will]

I have just received this set today. I haven't even opened it yet. Those of you that have opened it, are you affixing the stickers to the appropriate cover? I think I will unless someone can tell me a good reason not.to,

I put mine on the inside of the lid......looks great!

[The Pirate]

I don't know if I, a 54 and soon to be 55 year old man, am comfortable talking about, "stickers". It's all a bit Panini for me.

[chop983]

I don't know if I, a 54 and soon to be 55 year old man, am comfortable talking about, "stickers". It's all a bit Panini for me.

Got any swaps?

[dennyelvis]

I don't know if I, a 54 and soon to be 55 year old man, am comfortable talking about, "stickers". It's all a bit Panini for me.

I hear u brother I still can't stick em on, can't get em straight first time, might be a crease or air bubbles, NOOO! Now I just leave em on the sheet ....

[Squire Smart]

I don't know if I, a 54 and soon to be 55 year old man, am comfortable talking about, "stickers". It's all a bit Panini for me.

Hee! Until very recently I still had my Football '87 sticker album. I nearly had the full team for Tottenham but was missing Gary Stevens....

[King Volcano]

I don't know if I, a 54 and soon to be 55 year old man, am comfortable talking about, "stickers". It's all a bit Panini for me.

I hear u brother I still can't stick em on, can't get em straight first time, might be a crease or air bubbles, NOOO! Now I just leave em on the sheet ....

They shouldn't air bubble or crease denny, they're pretty good quality and "papery", not "plasticky" like those stickers that do bubble easily. Most of them weren't straight when on the original LPs so you don't have to worry about that either

I consulted https://www.elvisrecords.com to see where to put some of the stickers! It's all quite a nice novelty at least for me as a fan who never saw / owned many of the original LPs.

[TINML]

I haven't but I'm afraid of placing them wrong and ruining the covers!

[L Ray]

I have just received this set today. I haven't even opened it yet. Those of you that have opened it, are you affixing the stickers to the appropriate cover? I think I will unless someone can tell me a good reason not.to,

Hi Steve, I haven't put my stickers on as yet, no good reason not to, just haven't got around to it. Just a personal choice I suppose if you do or you don't.

Put the one for A Date With Elvis on today. It is not a problem. It can be removed easily and put back on the sheet if I want to.

[King Volcano]

I don't know if I, a 54 and soon to be 55 year old man, am comfortable talking about, "stickers". It's all a bit Panini for me.

I hear u brother I still can't stick em on, can't get em straight first time, might be a crease or air bubbles, NOOO! Now I just leave em on the sheet ....

They shouldn't air bubble or crease denny, they're pretty good quality and "papery", not "plasticky" like those stickers that do bubble easily. Most of them weren't straight when on the original LPs so you don't have to worry about that either

I consulted https://www.elvisrecords.com to see where to put some of the stickers! It's all quite a nice novelty at least for me as a fan who never saw / owned many of the original LPs

Edited to add correct website https://www.elvisrecords.com

[James27]

Hey.. that picture of Elvis would be perfect for printing on a summer T-shirt...

Of course you want it...

The RCA Album Collection.jpg

How could you not?