Elvis (2022) - The Official Movie Soundtrack

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The official soundtrack album to the Elvis (2022) movie is a proper soundtrack album in the true sense of the title. All of the tracks are contained within the movie at some point and it is sometimes a game in itself to try an place each title and it’s place in the movie.
The album is extremely good and contains some excellent tracks which broadens it’s appeal. However, considering that many of th tracks are originals written purely for the movie as opposed to covers of Elvis’ own renditions then it is difficult to see how it benefits Elvis’ musical legacy.
Personally I have never been an advocate of reworking any of the Elvis’ masters but the album does show some original and innovative thinking in that regard. The versions of “Product of The Ghetto” are powerful, “Power of My Love” is intriguing and “Edge of Reality”, “Crawfever” and “I Got A Feeling In My Body” are extremely clever. However, the “new song”, “Don’t Fly Away” which is a fusion of “Suspicious Minds” and “Any Day Now” shows that some considerable thought was used in the process and has the potential to be another posthumous hit for Elvis.
However, all of that being said, the album is geared more towards a new audience of casual Elvis listener rather than the seasoned fan and there is nothing contained therein that I would listen to before the original. As a result, it is likely to be a part of my collection which will become nothing more than a nostalgic listen through in the future.
Although only three of the tracks contained on the album are actually the original RCA masters, it is nonetheless a superb accompaniment to the movie. However, a few observations on tracks actually featuring Elvis which are far more obvious on listening to the soundtrack album that might at first have been apparent when watching the movie.
In no particular order:
The live version of “That’s All Right” used in the split screen montage is actually from Elvis’ evening show in Madison Square Garden on 10 June 1972. However, it is depicted in the movie as being in Las Vegas!
“Burning Love” is a hybrid of the vocal from the studio master and the backing from his 12 January 1973 show in Honolulu.
The most obvious one is that the live version of “Suspicous Minds” has been taken straight from the soundtrack of the 2001 version of “That’s The Way It Is”. The giveaway is the interaction mid-song with “The Sweet Inspirations”, this was taken from Elvis’ 11 August 1970 dinner show but the rest of the performance was from 24 hours earlier. Unless Sony edited the live tracks of these show in a similar way to the 2001 version of the movie, it must have been lifted from the soundtrack.
The 12 August 1970 midnight show version of “Polk Salad Annie” is similar in that it is edited and does not contain the army reference.
“Unchained Melody” is listed as being the RCA live master from Ann Arbor on 24 April 1977 when it is in fact the version depicted in the movie from Rapid City on 21 June 1977. However, it is the overdubbed version that is used both on the soundtrack and the movie.
The only original unaltered RCA masters on the album are “Any Day Now”, “If I Can Dream” and “It’s Only Love”.