The Impacts of Elvis Presley
The impacts of Elvis Presley can be divided into several groups. Firstly is the impact in terms of the amount of sales that he made. He made 6 hit singles, at the time he had only been going for 10 months. This is more that any artist would hope to get in their whole career. His popularity among the younger generations also helps to see the impact the he has made, someone noticed that there was a market for music aimed towards younger generations, so they set out looking for someone; this meant that he had no competition when he was released onto the market. Because of this the impact seemed a lot greater, there had never been anything like it. Among adults there was also outrage because it went against everything that they believed to be right and good. The outrage meant that it must be cool to like him so his popularity grew. He also had a long term impact in that it wasn’t just the music. You could get toys and films, records and books. All of this added to the impact of him on U.S society.
The next thing to consider is whether it was down to his music. Whatever anyone says it was clear that he had amazing talent; this doesn’t mean that everyone liked him but everyone acknowledged that it had its place. He was deemed “A white man that can sing like a black man”, he was something different and in this time there was no one else like him. The amount of sales from his records also helps to give evidence supporting this. He made it to number to in the company’s charts in a very short time shows how effective his music was. His unique dancing style meant that people were attracted to him. If they didn’t like him they still watched to see what all of the commotion was about. The fact that he appealed to the younger generations was the main reason for his success.
The media, in particular the TV meant that he was always in the public eye. When he went onto the Milton Berle show for the first time they managed to knock Sergeant Bilko off of the top ratings. Everyone watched because the children liked him and the adults just had to see this controversy. The fact that he was followed all through his service in the army meant that he was given allot of credit. They saw his every move and everything he did. This built a lot of credit for him even amongst the adults. Then when he left the army he went straight into a TV special with Frank Sinatra. This meant that he had never really left the public eye, because he was still popular enough to do TV specials.
There are other things that helped though; firstly there was a huge gap in the market where teenagers were concerned. This meant that there were many opportunities to offer something for the teenagers and because there was nothing else there would be no competition. They also had a greater chance of any bands released for the teenagers being liked. Marketing also played a big role in his impact on society. The amount of money that went into selling him was incredible. Everywhere that a teenager went there was something to remind you of the “King” Posters, billboards and TV’s shop windows. A third thing that would have helped his impact is the wealth of the US. After World War 2 they were the only country to make it out with a profit.
Teenagers as a result were able to spend 7billion a year on clothes and records. This meant that there was allot of money available to spend. If people have this much money to waste as a country, the normal thing to do is spend it on something fashionable. The final thing that helped him to become so popular is the films that he stared in. There were so many of them and so many people went to see them, even if he was the worst actor ever and the plots were all the same. This meant that for the first time ever there were films specifically directed at the younger generation, adults didn’t approve so the most sensible thing to do was to go and see it, if only to annoy the adults.
So all in all there are there are many reasons why his impact on society was so great. I think that it can best be described as a combination of things. His films and TV specials all help towards making him popular, but I think that the thing to remember is people ultimately know him for his music. This is why I believe that his impact on society was so great. If you think about all of the other things, they only came because of the music, he was only found because he could sing.
