2025 in 2025: Day 77

AKA More Elvis Marathons

I have a whole bunch of Elvis 'Follow That Dream' releases that are all coming up now, because they are labelled in my iTunes as "FTD0xx:". The numbers will jump all over the place, because I have already eliminated the ones that were later released as part of another set (e.g. FTD001 was the 68 Comeback Special outtakes/rehearsals, which were later included in the 40th and 50th anniversary collections). I would imagine that listening to these now will help eliminate some of them from my library, because I really have enough Elvis outtakes and rehearsal on all my box sets.

FTD002: Out In Hollywood - Elvis Presley
This is all alternate takes of songs from movies. There are no undiscovered gems here. The only thing that really stands out is after singing Lonely Man, the engineer can be heard telling Elvis it was "beautiful" and Elvis thanks him for the compliment. Young Elvis was a rebel, but also hella respectful and genuinely appreciated that people liked his voice. Actually, the real highlight here is an isolated vocal overdub of for You're So Square. Quite fun to just here Elvis' voice like that.
Highlights: King of the Whole World [Take 3], Little Egypt [Take 21], Spinout [Take 2]
5/10

FTD003: In A Private Moment - Elvis Presley
This is all very pointless; Elvis jamming with friends and recorded very poorly (as one would expect), and mostly just quick little bits of songs.
Highlights: Impressive these exist, I'll give them that
4/10

FTD004: The Jungle Room Sessions - Elvis Presley
Now this is actually very enjoyable. I can not believe I still have not picked up the other Jungle Room set that would make this obsolete. I love these late 70's numbers and getting them without the overdubs. And Elvis' "Italian" version of Moody Blue is rather entertaining.
Highlights: Fire Down Below [Instrumental], Moody Blue [Take 3], Bitter They Are Harder They Fall [Take 2-5], Solitaire [Take 3]
7/10

FTD005: Long Lonely Highway - Elvis Presley
Alternate takes of a bunch of fantastic 60s tracks. Including a very different version of Too Much Monkey Business.
Highlights: It's Now or Never [Alternate Take 1]. It Feels So Right [Alternate Take 3], Long Lonely Highway [Alternate Take 1], Too Much Monkey Business [Alternate Take 9]
6/10

FTD007: Too Much Monkey Business - Elvis Presley
This is all so weird I actually had to google to understand what was going on here; in the early 80s, Elvis' long-time producer tried to cash in on things by taking some old Elvis vocals and getting a team of musicians to redo the music in a more "modern" way, and this FTD release is the original album PLUS 10 bonus tracks from the same "sessions". We can mock, but they are still doing this sort of thing with Elvis' songs to this day. Look, I am not trying to say these are the definitive versions or anything, but it is kind of fun.
Highlights: Burning Love, After Loving You, Too Much Monkey Business, Blue Suede Shoes
6.5/10

"Albums" listened to so far: 626