I’m Listening To 100 “New” Albums This Year — Starting with The King

Album Review #1/100: The self-titled debut album from Elvis Presley

I recently read a great story in The Riff from writer Nia Simone McLeod, in which she shared that she was challenging herself to listen to 100 new albums in 2022. By “new,” she didn’t mean that the albums necessarily had to be new releases — but they had to be new to her.

You know what? She can explain it better than I can, so here’s her great article:

When I first read it, I was tempted to do the challenge too, but I told myself that it would be crazy for me to take on such a big endeavor. After all, I had already begun my own challenges in which I decided to listen to and review all of the studio albums by Bruce Springsteen and Neil Young in 2022. I thought that an additional 100 albums might be a bit more than I could handle.

But then I saw two other writers I’m a fan of, Kevin Alexander and Nicole Brown, say that they were also doing the challenge. They each wrote great reviews of new music they’ve been listening to in 2022— and they inspired me to do the challenge too.

Here Are My Self-Imposed Rules For ‘The 100 New Albums in 2022 Challenge’

1. Like the others have been doing, “new” simply means that the music is new to me. The albums can be brand new releases or they can be very old.
2. Since rock and roll music was unofficially “born” in 1956, when Elvis Presley first became popular, I’ve decided to start my challenge by going back to that year. My plan is to listen to and review at least one album from each year between 1956–2022. However, I’m not going to go in chronological order. I’m going to zig-zag back and forth. I’m going to start out by doing one from 1956, then one from 2022, then move on to 1957, then 2021, 1958, 2020, etc.
3. To keep things fresh for myself and for readers, I’m only going to do one album per artist. An exception to this rule, though, is when an artist has recorded both solo and with one or more bands. For example, guitarist Steve Howe was in great bands like Yes and Asia, but he’s also released solo albums. In his case, it would be okay for me to include one Yes album, one Asia album, and one of his solo albums — as long as they’re all new to me, of course.
4. I’ve been debating whether or not to include the albums I’ll be listening to for My Year of Neil Young and My Year of Bruce Springsteen challenges. Between the two of them, there will probably be close to 50 albums that I’ve never heard before, so it seems foolish for me to not include them here. Then again, I like doing foolish things like this — so I’m not going to count them.
5. Unlike this article you’re currently reading, I’m going to keep my reviews fairly short. I won’t focus too much on the histories of the recordings of the albums, how well they sold, etc.

It’s mostly going to be about how I enjoy the music. So, let’s go!

‘Elvis Presley’ — Elvis Presley

Elvis Presley, the debut album from Elvis Presley, was released on March 13, 1956. I listened to it for my first time yesterday afternoon while I was out for a walk.

One of the things I love about a lot of albums from the 1950s and 1960s is how incredibly short they were. Most of the songs back then were only 2–3 minutes long, so it doesn’t take very much time to listen to a lot of those old albums in their entirety.

Elvis Presley has 12 songs on it — but the album is only 29 minutes long! During my hour-long walk yesterday, I listened to the entire album twice.

While I’ve always considered myself to be a pretty big fan of Elvis, I’m not familiar with the majority of his recordings. I’ve owned a few compilations of his music, but I never owned any of his studio albums.

I was a little surprised by how much I enjoyed the Elvis Presley album. Though it only contains 12 songs, most of them are very good.

My favorites from the album:

Blue Suede Shoes: This is the opening track. What a way to start an album! It’s one of the first songs I ever heard by Elvis and it’s always been a favorite of mine. It was written by Carl Perkins, who released his version of the song the previous year. While I love that original, I love Elvis’ version more.

I Got A Woman: This classic song was co-written by Ray Charles and originally released by him in 1954. Ray’s original is fantastic, of course, but so is this version.

One-Sided Love Affair — Elvis and his band sound great on this one. I especially like the short piano solo towards the middle of the song.

Just Because — Though Elvis is awesome here, my favorite thing about this cool song is the great rocking guitar playing on it.

Tutti Frutti — Though I prefer the original version of “Tutti Frutti” by Little Richard, Elvis’ version here is pretty fantastic.

Least Favorites:

While I don’t hate it, I’m not too crazy about the ballad I Love You Because. It’s fine and has some very good guitar playing on it, but it doesn’t do much for me.

I’m also not a fan of Blue Moon. However, I don’t blame Elvis for that. I’ve just never liked this song by anyone — including the popular version by Frank Sinatra.

My Rating:

Overall, I think that Elvis Presley is an outstanding album. Out of a possible 5 stars, I give it….drumroll, please…4 stars!

Thank you to Nia Simone McLeod, Kevin Alexander, and Nicole Brown for inspiring me to do this challenge. Here, respectively, are some of their recent articles related to it:

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