Any artist that has ever faced criticism of their work or had to listen to very convincing reasons why their art wasn't good enough and couldn't possibly be successful needs to know the story of Elvis Presley and Rock n Roll. It may sound totally ridiculous now but when rock n roll music first hit the scene it was only supposed to last a year according to some critics. Singers were supposed to sound beautiful and the music had to match. When this new musical genre debuted it was not predicted to last more than a year, that is until Elvis Presley hit the mainstream with a song that every music executive at RCA hated.

Elvis had just signed to a major record company, RCA, and started recording new songs for his upcoming album. The second song he recorded was completely unlike anything he had recorded before at his previous record company, Sun Records. "Heartbreak Hotel" was a song inspired by a man that committed suicide and left a note saying "I walk a lonely street." It was not the upbeat rockabilly style of Elvis' previous recordings; this was a song that was blues inspired and talked about death, not the kind of song people were listening to on the radio. Elvis fell in love with the song when he first discovered it, however his version ended up sounding completely different, and when he took it to his producer, although reluctant to play a part in such a risky song choice, he believed Elvis knew what he was doing enough to record the young singer. 

When executives at RCA heard the song and were told this was the first single, they said it was a horrible song choice and there was no way they could release such a song. The only one that was confident in the song was Elvis. Everyone else didn't understand it. It didn't measure up to what they were used to and so they did not want it. Eventually Elvis had his way and the song was released in early 1956 and once again a few critics called it morbid and bad. Remember, at the time, rock n roll was not supposed to last either, according to several of the same critics, but once Elvis performed the song on television and people heard it on the radio, it went to number one, charted high on three billboard charts, was the biggest selling song of that entire year, completely solidified rock n roll as a movement and is widely considered one of the greatest songs of all time.

Listening to "Heartbreak Hotel" made a couple of young men in Liverpool, England want to be rock n roll musicians and they started a band called The Beatles. Bob Dylan and countless others up to the present day were influenced by Elvis Presley and rock n roll music not only survived but completely permeated throughout the world and influenced practically every nation on Earth. And interestingly, this almost didn't happen if you remove Elvis' confidence in his artistic work. If he had just said, "well, these guys are the professional music executives and they know better than me, i'll just let them choose what songs I should sing," we'd be living in a completely different world right now. 

Fortunate for us, Elvis was a true artist that knew what he wanted to create and didn't let an entire world convince him he couldn't create it just because they'd never seen it before. As an artist/creator I can relate to this story because my own music doesn't fit nicely into what people are used to, if you're interested in listening to it go to www.xraypoetz.com. I take a lot of inspiration from "Heartbreak Hotel" because if we as artists don't stand up for our art, we'll be the ones walking a lonely street.

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I recently watched one of many Beatles documentaries in my life and something stuck with me. In the film it was said that upon arrival in an Australian city, 300,000 people (half the city) came out to greet the Beatles. 300,000 people! That's a huge crowd. I thought back to scenes of fans waiting at the airport for the Beatles to walk out of the plane. I thought about Shea Stadium and how the screaming was so loud that you couldn't hear the music. And then I thought, why doesn't this happen anymore? Is it because, in a very high brow answer, "there will never be another Beatles?" No, that's not it.

In an age of Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, StubHub, etc. shouldn't we have larger crowds forming for our artists because of the faster communication available to us, unavailable to Beatles fans? We have better, faster transportation too! What is stopping another Beatles-like invasion from occurring?

I acknowledge that in the era of the Beatles, there was Elvis, The Rolling Stones and Bob Dylan: very big legends. But do we have legends today? It seems to me that our biggest stars are artists like Britney Spears, Lady Gaga and Beyonce. There's nothing wrong with them as artists but they definitely are not The Beatles. What about U2 or Coldplay? Or Jay-Z and Eminem? They fit the mold a bit better but why aren't huge crowds awaiting them at every airport? Why aren't crowds screaming so loud these artists think about not performing live anymore? Is it the artists that are not good enough to garner the reactions the Beatles did or is it the people in societies across the world that have fallen into an apathy or boredom over music? Somehow I don't think it's either of these.

I don't have all the answers but if I had to choose one, I would say this: I believe there is a genuine effort on the part of some suppressive element on this planet to create an atmosphere where artists are kept in line and the public is kept at home. In my hometown there were hardly any live music venues so artists hardly ever performed there. We were forced to admire artists from afar while watching them on TV. There's nothing wrong with TV or the internet but I think there should be more encouragement to go outside and do something, to interact with other people just a bit more. If that happened I think our artists would become inspired enough to want to do more shows. 

We should be waiting for our favorite artists at the airport. We should let them know what they mean to us in bigger ways because at the end of the day we don't go home and look forward to watching the evening news, we look forward to listening to our favorite band, watching a movie, reading a book, catching an episode of our favorite show. Let's make sure we catch more shows in person, because i think that'd create another Beatles Invasion, except we could turn it into an Artists Invasion, and that would truly change the world.
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