It turned out that Elvis Presley, the bona fide ‘King of Rock and Roll’, could only run so far before the monster impact of four young stars from Liverpool caught up to eat him alive. That may sound ever so slightly dramatic, but the insatiable rivalry between Presley and The Beatles was one that never went away for as long as they were both treading the boards of the industry, never failing to stir up a heap of toxic acrimony in its midst.
Having provided rock and roll with its birthplace back in the 1950s, you can somewhat understand Presley’s belief that he should be the supreme overlord of the scene forevermore. But it was only by the nature of the very beast that he himself had helped to create that the times soon changed and fresher outfits set about on eclipsing him, with the Fab Four shooting out of the blocks before the rest.
As a result, the competition between the Liverpool band and the Graceland singer was always pretty fierce, because quite simply, in the decade or so after rock made it into the mainstream, there were no bigger forces leading the charge. It’s a fact that remains even more remarkable given the longevity that they still hold in today’s market. But make no mistake – at the height of the 1960s, the two sides were at loggerheads in terms of sales, and only one could emerge as the victor.
It was without doubt a tight contest, but ultimately, four against one was too much of a battle to bear, as Presley never did quite manage to outsell The Beatles, being the titanic forces that they were. That said, however, there were only slim pickings among them, with the King having sold over 500 million records while the Fabs sold somewhere in the region of 500 to 600 million. By only the barest of margins, Presley lost the battle – but it left a sour taste in his mouth forever afterwards.
Did Elvis Presley and The Beatles ever come face to face?
The two warring factions only ever came face to face on one occasion, on August 27th, 1965, when the Fab Four took the pilgrimage to Graceland. It had all the makings of an awkward agenda given the animosity that had built between them in the years leading up to this point, so on the evening itself, there was a lot resting on it in order to prevent a rock world war from breaking out.
But this is not to say that there wasn’t still a heavy sense of bravado at play. By all accounts, Presley was The Beatles’ collective musical hero, and a big part of their supposed beef was the fact that they were really terrified by his inimitable presence. As Tony Barrow, the band’s press manager at the time, told the BBC in 2011: “As the two teams faced one another, there was a weird silence and it was John who spoke first, rather awkwardly blurting out a stream of questions at Elvis, saying: ‘Why do you do all these soft-centred ballads for the cinema these days? What happened to good old rock ‘n’ roll?’”
Whether it was the correct tack to take in breaking the ice, it certainly dissolved something between the pair, as the initially tense meeting then gave way to a jamming session. Granted, there is purposefully no photo or video evidence to corroborate this, but when all was said and done, Presley and The Beatles both realised what they had in common was the ability to command the rock music orbit. What’s a few million sales between enemies turned friends when you’re both among the most famous musicians in the world?
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