Popular Music Blog - Intro - Elvis' Golden Records Vol.1

Popular Music Blog

William Vessey

What is Popular Music??

Despite pop music often being an abbreviation for 'popular music' it's important to understand the difference. Pop music is one of the many genres of music that fits under popular music. Pop Music as a genre dates back to the 1950s, originating from 'Rock and Roll' and working it's way up to what we hear now on our televisions, radios and so on, it's whats commercially selling.

In this day and age pop music is very electric based; using layers of different synthesisers, a universal electric drum beat and some smooth clean auto-tuned vocal. To create a typically three to four minute length song with a verse/chorus structure filled with repetitive melodies, hooks and most of all repeated choruses with the same lyrics to make it easier for the listener to understand and sing to. This repetitiveness gives their songs catchy elements which in turn gives the songs their sales, commonly to today's youth.

Popular Music is much more than this, it belongs to any genre of music with a wide appeal spread across a wide audience, its constantly changing with the times. We identify popular music as being what was popular in the charts at that specific time in history. And whatever genre of music was popular at the time influenced the culture, shaping the people; the way in which they, talk, dress and live their life.

The Development of Popular Music through the Decades

Elvis' Golden Records – Elvis Presley - 1958

Greatest hit albums to me are used to put a lot of things into perspective and with this being the case the songs on this album are looked at being arguably the greatest rock and roll songs of the decade, maybe all time. This album was also believed to be the first 'greatest hits album in rock and roll history'.

To me this album is exactly how I visualise Elvis Presley, the songs on this album are how I hear him and as 'the King' its how I characterise Rock and Roll altogether. What I enjoy most about this album and find most fascinating is his voice; the way he could turn his naturally deep smooth voice used on tracks such as 'Heartbreak Hotel and 'Don't Be Cruel' into a hard, raspy vocal quality used on 'Jailhouse Rock' and 'Hound Dog'. In that aspect the album consists of variety and that's why I enjoy it so much and has inspired me to being able to sing in various styles and pitches like the man himself. 

Production

In these times everything was MONO, no mixing. It was all just a live recording and if they messed up or the band wasn't happ they would just do it again. For the track 'Hound Dog' Elvis and the band did 30 takes before Elvis decided to go with take 28. 

All the recordings of this album, and the decade were done onto tape and the balance you got during the recording was the balance you got on the tape. Effects weren't around yet, so if an instrument wanted to be louder on the tape, the microphone would simply just have to be louder, known as the Proximity Effect. Another recording technique of the time was tape splicing which was simply a matter of rearranging sounds, cutting out unwanted sounds and rejoining them using adhesive tape. 

In 'Heartbreak Hotel' the producer 'Scholes' recorded Elvis in a hallway at the studio to get an unusual sounding echo for the single, at the time this was really as far as effects went. 

In Terms of Genre

Originating from the United States of America, Rock and Roll started in the late 1940s and since then has continued to evolve, and will continue to do so. Due to the migration of many former slaves it meant that both white and black cultures were intertwined meaning they heard each others music and started to imitate each others styles. A contribution from all these new and different styles of music of the time included mainly Rhythm and Blues and Country along with other elements such as; blues, gospel, jazz and folk created a new genre that acquired its title 'Rock and Roll' in the early to mid 1950s. This genre kicked started popular music. 

Musical Features 

Song Structure

C V C S V S V C – Hound Dog

V C V C B V C B V C – All shook up

V C V C V C V C S V C – Heartbreak Hotel

V C V C V C S V C V C – Jailhouse Rock

V V C V C V C C – Don't be Cruel

Here are the structures of my five favorite songs on this album and a clear pattern is noticeable, the songs follow a verse chorus structure. The Verse-Chorus form is very common in popular music and rock and roll was in a way its launch pad being predominately used in the 1960's and unless music stops all together there is no sine of it fading. As songs by Elvis Presley go they're all very similar. The majority of the songs begin with a couple bars of the verse before the vocals come in and then to a chorus, to a verse, to chorus and so on before an allowed break where a electric guitar takes lead and plays a solo, or a piano sometimes both before bringing the song to an end with a repeated chorus. For example if you look at 'Heartbreak Hotel' and 'Jailhouse Rock' they have virtually the same structure.

Use of Harmony

Going back to Rock and Rolls roots the songs on this album have characteristics of the blues and using chords 1, 4 and 5 which are known as the 'blues chords' you can hear clearly in 'Hound Dog' (will talk in more detail later). Because of these chords the songs all typically follow a straight 12 bar blues progression. Relating back to song structure it's most common to find a blues progression in a verse chorus structure. So if the songs on this album follow the same structure then they'll also follow the same 12 bar blues progression which is often the case. Obviously the songs on this album are not all identical in harmonic content. The harmonic pattern has been altered in some cases for example on the track 'Don't be Cruel' Elvis Presley presents the standard 12 bar blues with an alteration of the final phrase. Using chords 2-5 back to 1 instead of the typical 5-4-1. 

To work alongside 'blues chords' there are 'blues notes' which are known as being the 3rd 5th and 7th notes which are flattened to be major. These notes are from the blues scale played on the guitars in the band and work in harmony with Elvis' incredible three octave vocal range. 

Texture and Instrumentation

Rockabilly's usually defined as just being an early Elvis song such as his first single 'That's All Right' but the song has the emotive and raw slurred vocal style, a very heavy blues rhythmic feel with the stringed band behind him and the strummed country sounding acoustic guitar. The single 'That's All Right' featured just the four original members of the band with; 

Scotty More - lead guitar

Bill Black - Bass

DJ Fontana - Drums 

Elvis Presley - Vocals, Acoustic Guitar 

The song featured a solo from Scotty More which consisted of finger picking, pitch bends and single string work all taken from the early blues and country artists such as 'Merle Travis'. 

But despite Elvis playing a lead role in the development of the musical genre 'Rockabilly' as well as 'Carl Perkins' and 'Sam Phillips' by the time of 'Elvis' Golden Hits' what was once rockabilly had progressed into Rock and Roll and the sound had grown and developed. The guitar had a more intense sound due to the more heavily amplified electric guitars and with the adding of some group backing vocals shown in various tracks on the album such as 'Teddy Bear' and 'Too Much' as well as piano player. The Rock and Roll sound was becoming more distinctive. 

Stylistic Quality

He didn't get the title 'King of Rock and Roll' for having no style. This album is full of chart topping records that only represent half the style he had. I believe he was a man where you had to see him to believe him. It was the way he performed these hits that gave Elvis a certain style. He was so full of energy and spent almost all his time on stage on the balls of his feet losing himself to the music him and his band played. His sexually provocative dancing started many outbursts and arguments simply because like the music he played, it was new. The things Elvis did were unheard of at the time and this sparked major interest in everything he did which is what made him legendary. This album of greatest hits was Elvis' contribution to not only popular music, but pop culture too
He didn't just ooze style he created it,  by combining the existing styles of the time. What made Elvis so different to me in terms of the music I hear on this album compared to other music of that time was his voice, his vocal style was like no other. It was extraordinary for its power, quality and range. He had a three octave vocal range which i'd catagorise as being a lyric baritone but also having the capability to produce rich low notes and fantastic high notes which you can hear across the album as well as his classic hiccupy styled vocals which helps to define him. 

Despite this album being full of rock and roll chart toppers his voice later went back to his roots since he developed to sing more gospel songs and ballads which soon became his favorites.

Elvis in his later years went a little off the tracks but this album captures him at his finest. Due to technology there is no doubt in my mind that Elvis Presley was even more remarkable off record. Sadly because of the times he was just a much better singer than could ever be captured truly. 

Musical Devices 

This album is full of some of Elvis' most successful early recordings and the majority of these songs were Rock and Roll hits based on the 12 bar blues. As mentioned before the 12 bar blues is based upon a sequence of chords and structure.

Blues music also has similar patterns and structures verbally, tending to made up of a series of three or four line verses. The best example of a 3 line verse and 12 bar blues on this album is the track 'Hound Dog'. With the first two lines being identical then the third line differs but rhymes. 

You ain't nothing but a hound dog, cryin' all the time

You ain't nothing but a hound dog, cryin' all the time

You ain't never caught a rabbit and you ain't no friend of mine. 

The words 'you ain't nothing but a' work rhythmically as a clustered upbeat before the opening bar, he repeats this just before the second line and then the words 'you ain't' before the beginning of the last line. Meaning that the beat falls on the word 'hound' for the first two lines and 'never' for the final one. This was a common way for Elvis to sing the lines on this album since he does it in other songs such as 'Heartbreak Hotel' and 'All Shook Up' whereas in 'Jailhouse Rock' he starts his verses on the beat. He may of inspired many other singers to follow this clustered upbeat method of singing despite it now feeling like a natural way to sing. 

So in having discussed the vocals we'll now look at the music that supports these lyrics. The chords are very traditional in terms of blues since its based on three chords and two of these chords are 7th chords, which sound bluesy since they were used a lot by blues artists from the 1920's and so on. Staring with a tonic chord (Bb) then on the second line moving to a sub-dominant with an added 7th (Eb7) back to the tonic chord. Then for the third line it moves to a dominant chord with an added 7th (F7) and back down the chords. I - IV7 - I - V7 - IV7 - I

Lyrical Themes

Elvis was certainly a sex symbol of his time and at the time of this record the man was definitely at his finest point and since his fan base was typically screaming girls the writers for Elvis typically wrote songs about girls, target market.Anything else that lay in the semantic field of a young lifestyle was also written about. He sang about falling in love; for example in 'All Shook Up' the line 'I'm in love, I'm all shook up' indicates this new found feeling of being in love. There were songs about being in love, for example the self explanatory titled track 'Loving You' and Elvis also sang about heartbreak with the hits 'Heartbreak Hotel' and 'Don't be Cruel'. As well as love he liked to sing about living the party life style, the famous line 'everybody lets rock' from the smash hit 'Jailhouse Rock' indicates that. 

The amazing thing I've found is that this seems to be the one musical feature that remains the same throughout the decades. Songs today are still about the party life style and usually very sex driven which is no different to the songs written on this album. The popular culture changes through the years giving songwriters more things to write about but feelings  remain the same which is why the same lyrical themes appear, it's in our blood to write about love.