Elvis Presley - It's Only Love - The 1980 Extended Version (UK only release)

Описание: The very first posthumous Elvis album released by RCA was 'Elvis In Concert' and that particular double LP album was the final album of new material that would appear in the seventies and the final album of 1977. The following two and a half years would see seven albums released most of which would be rehashed albums of already released songs. The only album amongst these to contain new material was 'Mahalo From Elvis' which contained the entire post-Aloha stage recordings all of which were heard for the first time apart from 'Blue Hawaii' which had previously been released early in 1976 on 'A Legendary Performer Vol.2'.

Amongst the seven albums were two volumes of 'Our Memories of Elvis' which contained twenty one undubbed masters between them and although the tracks are not true undubbed tracks, they can be still be considered the forerunner to the similar albums we see regularly today through FTD in particular. Finding new ways of trying to sell previously released material to Elvis fans was nothing new even in 1978 as they released the 'Canadian Tribute' in gold vinyl. However, releasing the embarrassingly titled 'Elvis Sings For Children and Grown Ups Too' less than a year after Elvis' death was surely insulting to Elvis' legacy and to his memory.

It took RCA until 1980 before they finally released an album worthy of his memory with the silver boxset 'Elvis Aron Presley' which amongst the 8 LP's contained for the first time some previously unreleased live material and an almost complete concert.

A year later RCA released worldwide another album, Elvis - Greatest Hits Vol.1, containing some 'new' live material with 'Don't Cry Daddy' and an alternate 'Steamroller Blues' amongst them. This album was not released in the UK but instead a similar album with the same album art was made available and was titled 'The Sound of Your Cry'.

This album contained almost all of the live material from 'Greatest Hits' album but had twelve as opposed to ten tracks in all. Both albums contained the stereo versions of 'Suspicious Minds' and 'You'll Never Walk Alone', a previously unreleased live versions of 'What'd I Say', 'A Big Hunk of Love', 'Steamroller Blues' as well as a remixed version of 'Burning Love'.

The Elvis - Greatest Hits Vol.1 album contained two further tracks in previously released masters of 'The Wonder of You' and 'There Goes My Everything'. Three of the four songs released only on 'The Sound of Your Cry' included a stereo version of 'Angel' and two live Las Vegas tracks first heard the previous year on the silver boxset 'Kentucky Rain' and the legendary laughing version of 'Are You Lonesome Tonight'.

The only remaining track from 'The Sound of Your Cry' is one of the strangest and unusual Elvis tracks ever released by RCA, an extended version of 'It's Only Love'.

In 1980 RCA, to promote the silver boxset in the UK released a 7" single version of 'It's Only Love' with 'Beyond the Reef' as the 'B' side. In a strange decision however, they all decided to release a 12" single version which unlike the longer version of 'The Sound of Your Cry' which placed the fade further on in the recording this 12" version of 'It's Only Love' has verses repeated in odd places and a very strange extended intro.

To anyone familiar with the original this version feels quite odd and unnatural. Listen and decide for yourself!!