CRYPTOMANIA
A big drink, this album. According to the scale in my bathroom it weighs three pounds. I may benchpress it. Sixteen sides, more sides than most albums have cuts, and an enclosed superhype booklet filled with pretty pictures and lowbrow prose.
RECORDS
CRYPTOMANIA
ELVIS PRESLEY Elvis Aron Presley (RCA)
Dallas Mayr
A big drink, this album. According to the scale in my bathroom it weighs three pounds. I may benchpress it. Sixteen sides, more sides than most albums have cuts, and an enclosed superhype booklet filled with pretty pictures and lowbrow prose. If you sit down to listen to the record beginning to end at six o’clock—after dinner, say—you will not get to Coffee and dessert until after 10:30. And it’s not Wagner. It Elvis. Priced at $69.95 and in a limited edition of half a million. RCA’s attempt at the truly monumental, a very big drink indeed. But the thirst, see, is unquenchable.
RCA knows that, natch. How else all those reruns since E’s death? Album after album—the same old -cuts with a touch of addenda. Gospel albums. Kiddie albums. Now and then an alternate cut, an obscure single. But I don’t wanna hear another live version of “Hound Dog,” you say. So how about two of ’em? Here, kid.