At the end of my last post, I claimed that ‘It’s Now or Never’ wasn’t particularly good. Which was a bit harsh, I suppose…

It’s Now or Never, by Elvis Presley (his 21^st and final #1)

1 week, from 30^th January – 6^th February 2005

The problem I have with ‘It’s Now or Never’, both in its original eight-week 1960 run at number one and now, is that there are better Elvis songs which deserve to have been his biggest selling hit. ‘It’s Now or Never’ is catchy, eminently singable, and Elvis belts it out like no other; but it is essentially a novelty. It is an old Italian melody, ‘O Sole Mio’, tarted up as a pop song. It is better remembered nowadays as a Cornetto advert.

It also marked the launch of Elvis Mk II: the operatic, corny movie Elvis, who was being rinsed for every cent by Colonel Parker. Which in hindsight isn’t something to be celebrate. However, it also launched probably the most successful chart-topping run of any artist in British chart history. In just over two years (November 1960 to December 1962), Elvis scored nine chart-toppers, and racked up forty-one weeks in pole position. I’m sure I contended with all that in my original post on the song, published back in 2018. 

I’m also a bit down on ‘It’s Now or Never’ because this rerelease ensured that it was my nineteenth birthday #1. Which means it stands out like a sore thumb in my ‘Birthday #1s’ playlist… It’s far from being my worst birthday #1 – and maybe one day I’ll do a post on them – but I’d rather have had ‘Jailhouse Rock’ or ‘One Night’. Or even better, ‘Goodies’: an actual contemporary piece of music from January 2005.

‘Goodies’ withstanding, Elvis came very close to replacing himself at number one three times, with four consecutive number ones. Which it goes without saying would have been a record. In any case he became only the third artist to replace themselves at #1, after the Beatles and a posthumous John Lennon. But as winter turned into spring, and singles sales slowly picked up, none of his subsequent thirteen re-releases troubled top spot.

In fact, I remember at the time it was quite an interesting way to judge the overall health of the singles market. Assuming the Elvis rereleases always sold just over the 20k mark, the more singles that finished above him meant a more robust chart. From memory, I think the lowest he charted that spring was #5.

Here then ends the ultimate chart-topping career. Twenty-one of the buggers. Yes, some will complain that he has been helped by remixes and releases, and that without them he’d have remained tied with the Beatles on seventeen. But we have to treat these releases as ‘new’ #1s, with new packaging and new catalogue numbers. As we did when ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ and ‘My Sweet Lord’ returned to the top. It’s been an interesting interlude, this Elvisenaissance, that’s for sure. But as much as I do love a bit of Elvis, I’m glad we’ll be returning to more contemporary #1s after this.