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Elvis Today: The First Reactions

January 30, 2000 | Other
Last week we announced the end of Elvis Monthly. During the week week we noticed a there was a lot of consternation in Elvis-World, especially the Elvis-fanclub-world.

Several sites mentioned Elvis Today, as the follow-up of Elvis Monthly will be named, to be official (an official E.P.E. product?). According to Graceland they will not be involved in the new magazine. Mr. Slaughter himself suggests that BMG is supporting the new magazine. Ernst Jorgensen wasn't aware of that fact. He promised to answer questions, but he does that for any fanclub magazine (like The Man and His Music and Elvis Unlimited). If the magazine will be supported by BMG, won't there be a risk that the magazine will be nothing more than a glossy catalogue for BMG? For instance, will we get honest reviews on both BMG and "import" releases? Through the Internet news quickly finds its way to most of the fans, so what will this magazine really add to the Elvis-community?

We asked several people for their opinion about the hype surrounding a new Elvis publication. The group of people we selected exists from fanclub-presidents, webmasters of the best known websites and some (other) publishers of Elvis-magazines. The reactions were diverse. Here is an anthology of reactions we collected last week.

"Any change on E.M. is an improvement, it used to be a very good magazine, but the last couple of years it had no function, it was too smooth for toilet paper"

A more political answer we received from the U.K.:
"Remember Elvis saying that he'd rather keep his own views to himself at the MSG press conference in 1972? I'm afraid that there's far too much nastiness and politics in the Elvis world for me to want to give a personal opinion on the new Elvis Today venture. I wish everybody luck in whatever they do."

"It is a pity see the end of Elvis Monthly (EM) coming. This has been an "institution" within the Elvis world for 40 years, despite the fact its editorial quality slipped drastically in the final few years.
Elvis Today "sounds" like a very ambitious adventure; one that nobody, really, has ever been totally successful with. We ... know the problems of having a popular magazine for fans all across the world. The European fans like to read about Elvis music, the new and bootleg CDs. The American fans, in general, want to think of Elvis as God; and think of his movies as the best that were ever filmed. You have the language barrier in many countries. When you print photos, some want the early ('50s) photos; some prefer the jumpsuits of the '70s.
To be successful internationally, Elvis Today would have to provide an abundance of all of the above."

"Good idea, but we'll have to wait for the final results..."

"Don't be blinded by the hype; the reality might be slightly different"

We guess we have to wait another two months for a final verdict. At this moment we can only say that the price ($30 - $40) looks high for a quarterly magazine. On the other hand, when it is really a quality magazine regarding pictures and they'll manage to get some real and independent content, this isn't really outrageous compared to existing magazines. Regarding the content of Elvis Monthly the last five years, our expectations are not too high. But you never know, maybe this time Mr. Slaughter manages to get things straight.