Customer Reviews

The Other Sides: Worldwide Gold Award Hits, Vol. 2

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

These are the songs on the "flip" sides of our 45's and on the extended play 45's with four songs on them...an economical way for teeners to attain an extensive record library of our favorite singers in my day! Though Elvis'voice expanded and became more versatile with training and age, there is something so remarkable and innocent about his voice in the beginning.....no fancy mixers or backgrounds...just simple old Negro jazz and country songs. I loved his voice then and I love it now. I never thought I'd ever hear these songs again except in my head! My personal favorite? .."Rip It Up"..I still sing it every Saturday night! Travel back in time to our innocence with this recording.

The Other Sides is an interesting two cd set for the Elvis music collector. On these two cds we find the "B" sides of what was originally fifty 45 rpm records. The "A" sides of these fifty records are found on the Elvis Worldwide Gold Hits two cd set. Even though The Other Sides consists of "B" sides, we find some outstanding Elvis' songs on these two cds. Outstanding songs include One Night, Fame And Fortune, His Latest Flame, Just Tell Her Jim Said Hello, Ask Me, and It Hurts Me. All five of these songs are among the best 20 songs that Elvis Presley ever recorded. Most of the 50 songs on The Other Side are pleasant to listen to and truly enjoy. This tells us that the fifty 45 rpm records from which these 'B" sides were chosen were outstanding purchases for the consumer, in that, in most cases, both sides of the fifty 45 rpm records contained good to outstanding Elvis' songs that were likely to be much enjoyed by the listening audience.

John

This is a great collection of Elvis, songs that were the B side of his major hit's, but there are just as good as the on'es that went to number one.

After looking at some of the other reviews I have to wonder if they even bothered to read the booklet that comes with this set. The first page contains an entire paragraph on the evolution of this compilation, how it come to be labeled "Volume 2" and the addition/deletion process related to the selections.

The remainder of the 5-page booklet (counting the inside cover) contains photographs showing the receipt and sorting of Elvis' discarded clothing, portions of which accompanied each issue of the original vinyl four-record set in 1971, and a complete listing of Elvis' Recording Industry Association of America certified multi-platinum, platinum, and gold award records. Two full pages also show the evolution of the original box cover for the vinyl set and a reproduction of the hand-written page showing a list of the additions and deletions.

Historical references aside, the music contained herein offer up many of the flipsides of his hit singles, most of which charted on their own. In fact, from 1956 to the release of (You're The) Devil in Disguise in 1963, both sides of his single releases always made the pop charts, a record unmatched in the history of music (not even The Beatles could match that). The B-side to that 1963 single which ended the string of two-sided hits was Please Don't Drag That String Around (track 12 on Disc 2).

In selecting One Night, His Latest Flame, and Ask me for "the other sides" collection, I am assuming that each started out as the intended B-side. If that is the case, it's interesting to note that each scored higher than the original A-sides: One Night reached # 4 in late 1958 while the reverse, I Got Stung, made it to # 8; His Latest Flame - also shown as [Marie's The Name] His Latest Flame - topped out at # 4 in September 1961 while the flip, Little Sister, settled for a # 5; and Ask Me peaked at # 12 in late 1964 while Ain't That Loving You Baby (actually recorded in 1958) reached # 16.

A set worth having in your collection.

In his review of this collection Stephen Verhaeren noted the absence of such hits as Heartbreak Hotel, Hound Dog, Don't Be Cruel, and Jailhouse Rock. Perhaps he failed to notice the "Vol. 2" in the title, since all of those hits reside of Vol. 1.
30 years ago I had the Worldwide GHold Award Hits collections on vinyl and it was one huge stack of records. It was the state of the art anthology of its day. Now in this age of CD box sets we take such collections for granted and expect more and more. But in 1971 there was nothing like this. In fact, it remained the de facto "one-stop" collection of Elvis hits until it went out of print a few years ago. Certainly, one CD, like the "30 #1's" collection can do Elvis' great career justice.

YOU WILL NEVER FIND HOUND DOG ETC ON THIS CD BECAUSE IT IS THE OTHER SIDE SONGS ,IN OTHER WORDS THE B SIDES.BY THE WAY THIS IS EXCELLENT CDS,EVERY ELVIS FAN SHOULD BUY.

The Other Sides has 50 Elvis Presley songs, and RCA did all of them on two cds. But is two cds better than one? The first song on Disc One has My Baby Left Me. Along with Crawfish, Young and Beautiful, I want to be free, (Your so square) Baby I don't care, We're going to move, Hot Dog, Rip it up.

The reason I'm giving this cd 4 stars instead of my usual 5 stars is because Heartbreak Hotel, Hound Dog, Don't Be Cruel, and Jailhouse rock are missing on this cd. So why two cds?

Disc two has Trouble, Wild in the country, Ask me, Puppet on a string, I've lost you, Any day now, Witchcraft, Fame and fortune and Patch it up.

Now I might have given this 5 stars if Heartbreak Hotel, Hound Dog, Don't Be Cruel, and Jailhouse rock was on this cd but not. Was RCA getting pretty tired of putting those songs on Elvis Presley cds?