Rock On Rom

First released at the tail end of 1999 this poor quality release has been re-issued, and is now available in the USA.

This is a pitiful attempt at producing a CD-ROM. And with today’s technology this kind of release it what you’d expect from a child, as a primary school project.

Once you put this CD-ROM into your computer the CD goes straight to auto play and brings up a black screen with a purple square in the middle with a small B/W picture of Elvis in one corner the picture is from 75/76 and on an on stage shot. With ROCK ON ROM and ELVIS in big yellow writing with a start button. So let’s start. We are magically transported to another box with eight categories and a small picture of Elvis with Leiber & Stoller. Again with the Rock On logo and a quit button at the bottom, very tempting but, for reviewing purposes I’ll go on, I must say here I have had this CD for well over a year now, and this is my first good look at it.

Section one. Elvis’ Daughter, you are taken to another box this time no picture, just text that you scroll down around a page of text here, and this is how it starts. A child of nine, dazed by grief over the sudden death of her famous father, is whisked from an idyllic life in America to the obscurity of a comfortable life in Scandinavia, I can’t go on, this drivel continues, no mention of the real daughter of Elvis Presley?

Back at the main board.

Section two. Elvis’ Women (what do you think is in here, Linda Thompson, Priscilla, Ginger? Let’s look)

Again no picture, just a list of all Elvis’ movies with the female co-stars & even a few that just had bit parts, again no attention to detail (if you can call it that) each movie is highlighted except from Clambake onward they stopped highlighting the movies? Quickly pressing the back button.

Section three. Letter To Nixon, this looks a little more promising, this time there is a picture button as well, we’ll look there in a moment, about half a page of text, so not so much to scroll down.

The text states the following here in more detail, "The events leading up to and after the meeting, which includes Elvis hand written letter to Nixon, memorabilia and photo'’ from Nixon staff and a letter from Nixon thanking Elvis for the gift he gave". Sounds good, let’s look into the button that states picture, well picture is just that, a picture of the typed version of Elvis’ hand written letter. NO other pictures, memorabilia or letter from Nixon??

Lets go back to the main page and see if the information is in the next section.

Section four. PIX. Could they be here? No what we get is 15 pictures from 56-76 B/W and colour, including to be fair one with Elvis & Nixon.

Section five. Biography, if the Lisa one has you in stitches so will this one, again no picture around two pages for you to scroll down, here is a clip from the last paragraph. "On August 16th 1977, Elvis was found dead in one of his bathrooms in Graceland, Elvis had died of an overdose of cocaine and barbiturates." Make your own mind up here.

Section six, nearing the end thank god, probably the best part of the whole thing, An Audio Interview, here you get the TV Guide interview from 1956. But that’s it no pictures or anything just a screen with a computer audio channel so you can watch the time pass by watching the arrow draw closer to the end.

Section seven. The Archive section, six songs you can listen to three by Elvis, from the Louisiana Hayride "That’s All Right", "Blue Moon Of Kentucky" & "Baby Let’s Play House" the final three songs for some reason are by Carl Perkins doing "Hound Dog" Jerry Lee Lewis doing Carl Perkins "Blue Suede Shoes?" and Little Richard doing Ready Teddy. Strange to say the least, and finally the last part of this CD-ROM.

Section eight. Video Documentary, this is B/W and its called Elvis Remembered – The Unofficial Biography, you can’t zoom in or out just a small screen and the picture quality is poor. But for $10.00 what can you expect?

If you’re a fan you will be highly disappointed by this CD-ROM, which by the way they have versions on The Beatles, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Madonna to name just some, I’m sure they will be just as bad.

Trying to be fair rating this out of ten a poor 2 or 3 is the best I can give it, and that’s taking into consideration it was made by a Sun Reporter (UK Tabloid press) or a six year old.

If you arenot convinced, you can it at Amazon or at CDNow