Elvis #1 Singles [Box] [Limited] (CD - 2006)

Personnel: Elvis Presley (vocals, guitar); James Burton, Scotty Moore (guitar); Bill Black (bass instrument); D.J. Fontana (drums).

Liner Note Author: Colin Escott.

Recording information: 01/27/1957-08/01/1972.

The ELVIS #1 SINGLES box set is, among other things, a monument to impracticality and excessive packaging. A nostalgia fetish item par excellence, the box houses 20 of Elvis's best-selling singles as individually packaged CDs, each of which--designed to replicate the original 45--contains the single, its B-side, and the original artwork. This means that listening to the music will require a lot of manual labor: listeners have to remove each individual sleeve, put the disc in the player, listen to its two songs, take the disc out, put it back in the sleeve, then repeat the process. At least it's one less trip to the stereo than when they were on vinyl.

That said, those looking for a regular full-length hits collection should not turn here. This item is strictly for collectors and Elvis buffs--those whose 45s are scratched and unplayable, or who were never able to procure their favorites. Superb remastered sound and a booklet with complete discography information are the icing on the cake, but the fact that all the hits are here in their original incarnations--not to mention all the dreamy cover art photos of the King--is too good for any serious Elvis-head to pass up.

CD replicas of original singles and EPs from the '50s and '60s have been a hot item in collectors' circles since the latter half of the '90s, yet they remain a rather bewildering item to a wider audience. After all, for listeners who don't fetishize original packaging -- the photo sleeves, the shifting logos on the label -- it's hard to grasp the purpose of a set that contains 40 songs spread out over 20 discs, as they are on Elvis #1 Singles, a set that rounds up 20 of the King's chart-topping hits and serves them up as two-track CDs, complete with original B-sides and artwork. This, to put it mildly, doesn't make for easy listening: most of the CDs clock in at roughly four to five minutes, which means even a full five-disc multi-disc player would need to be reloaded after 20-25 minutes. But listening isn't the point of sets like these: nostalgia is, and on that level this set is a success. Each of the individual sleeves is appealing -- occasionally, there are some subtle differences from the original artwork (these changes are acknowledged in the liner notes, where it's stated that legal reasons necessitated these changes), but the graphics are bright and the cardboard sleeves, while not thick, feel relatively sturdy. There's a booklet with a solid essay by Colin Escott, plus original release and chart information for all 20 singles, and there's a bonus poster of all 20 pictures sleeves as well. So, as packaging, Elvis #1 Singles is very good, filling all the basic requirements of this kind of collector-bait set, even if it doesn't quite wind up as an outright home run: frankly, there's not enough variety in the individual single artwork -- it's almost all portraits of Elvis, either smiling or serious -- to make this a truly noteworthy set for those who aren't already die-hard Elvis fans. But there are plenty of those diehards out there -- both in America, where this set was released, and in the U.K., where a series of CD single reissues was so successful in 2005 that it inspired this 2006 box -- and those diehards looking for creative repackaging to justifying buying the same hits yet again will find this an attractive set. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine minimize