All-Time Best Elvis Presley Songs

Presley's first RCA single, "Heartbreak Hotel," was released in January 1956 and became a number-one hit in the United States. Within a year, RCA had sold ten million Presley singles. With a series of successful network television appearances and chart-topping records, Presley became the leading figure of the newly popular sound of rock and roll. However, his performative style and promotion of the then-marginalized sound of African Americans led to him being widely considered a threat to the moral wellbeing of white American youth.

In November 1956, Presley made his film debut in Love Me Tender. Drafted into military service in 1958, he relaunched his recording career two years later with some of his most commercially successful work. Presley held few concerts, however, and guided by Parker, proceeded to devote much of the 1960s to making Hollywood films and soundtrack albums, most of them critically derided. Some of his most famous films included Jailhouse Rock (1957), Blue Hawaii (1961), and Viva Las Vegas (1964).

In 1968, following a seven-year break from live performances, Presley returned to the stage in the acclaimed television comeback special Elvis, which led to an extended Las Vegas concert residency and a string of highly profitable tours. In 1973, he gave the first concert by a solo artist to be broadcast around the world, Aloha from Hawaii. However, years of prescription drug abuse and unhealthy eating habits severely compromised his health, and Presley died suddenly in 1977 at his Graceland estate at the age of 42.

Despite his untimely death, Presley's impact on popular music and culture cannot be overstated. Having sold roughly 500 million records worldwide, he is one of the best-selling music artists of all time. He was commercially successful in many genres, including pop, country, rhythm & blues, adult contemporary, and gospel. He won three Grammy Awards, received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award at age 36, and has been inducted into multiple music halls of fame. He also holds several records, including the most RIAA-certified gold and platinum albums, the most albums charted on the Billboard 200, the most number-one albums by a solo artist on the UK Albums Chart, and the most number-one singles by any act on the UK Singles Chart. In 2018, Presley was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, cementing his legacy as an enduring icon of American popular culture.