Even before seeing High Fidelity, I have always hated the "Top Five/Ten/Fifty/100" list. My musical preferences change as often as my socks, and what fits the mood for today may be totally out of whack tomorrow. For some reason, tho, I recently filled out a Top Ten Albums survey on Facebook and received some interesting and encouraging feedback. This gave me the idea to keep a diary of what I'm currently diggin' in order to share my listening habits, inspire discussion, and perhaps turn folks on to some under-appreciated gems as well as occasionally embarrass myself by revealing a few guilty pleasures. So here goes!!
What better place to start than SUN SESSIONS by Elvis Presley? 1954, the birth of rock'n'roll! (Although if you dig back through the early 1950s and late 1940s you can hear plenty of what sounds to me like pure unadulterated rock'n'roll, but that is a whole 'nuther topic). I've never been a huge Elvis fan...these recordings, his first two RCA records, and his pre-Army singles are all the Elvis I need. Certainly, his mythic impact on youth culture and future sonic pioneers cannot be underestimated, but this can't be attributed to his song-writing or boundary-shattering creative achievements. He was simply the primary icon, the first "rock star", and others (Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly) would soon supply the artistic substance that would carry rock music to a level beyond mere "teen marketing phenomenon". (I can't help but wonder how much Elvis' plummeting artistic decline had to do with the Beatles brazen insistence on releasing original tunes, even when potential hit singles by outside writers were presented to them? In other words, did they equate following managerial/record label "standard procedure" as artistic suicide, preferring to go down in flames with their integrity intact than sell out to guaranteed but bland commercial success? Hmmm...future topic...).
So, what about these Sun Sessions? Cool songs, yes, drawn mainly from bluegrass or blues, but presented in a nervous, twitching, pulsating treatment that sounds like the singer has his fingers in a light socket, propelled by relentless backbeats and pumping rockabilly guitar. Is it country, or is it blues? Is it black, or white? Is it old, or new? It is both, and neither. Ambiguity in recorded form. Thus was rock'n'roll born, the ultimate music of synthesis and appropriation, taking a little of this and a little of that and mixing it up with plenty of volume and explosive energy. Elvis' vocals really shine, simultaneously smooth and exultant, but this is also the sound of the BAND: slappin' bass, train-beat drums, and most of all Scotty Moore's sublime guitar breaks, all processed through generous gobs of Sun's slap-echo. Somehow, Sam Phillips captures lightning in a bottle, using humble technology to harness pure energy and transfer it onto vinyl plastic...a full-blown performance leaps right out of your little bedroom radio speakers! And while Elvis would certainly go on to achieve absurd peaks of commercial success with movies and mansions and comebacks and Las Vegas purgatory (the man's CADILLAC went out on tour for him!), in my opinion he would never surpass the pure rockin' energy of these first few singles, singing bizarre hillbilly versions of "Milkcow Blues" and "That's All Right Mama". Teenagers in America went apeshit and began pumping millions into the economy, while across the sea kids like John Lennon, Keith Richards and Jimmy Page heard these recordings and decided to forgo proper educations and wise career choices...they wanted this man's job!