Blue Hawaii

Elvis Presley is one of the most celebrated and influential musicians of the 20th century. Commercially successful in many genres, including rock 'n' roll, pop and gospel, he is the best-selling solo artist in the history of recorded music with estimated record sales of more than a billion units worldwide. He won three Grammys, also receiving the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award at age 36, and has been inducted into a.o. Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Country Music Hall of Fame, Rockabilly Hall of Fame and Gospel Hall of Fame.

"Blue Hawaii" was released in 1961 and is the soundtrack to Presley's film of the same name. It spent 20 weeks at #1 and 39 weeks in the Top 10 on the US Top Pop Albums Chart, and was certified Gold in December 1961, and 3x Platinum by 2002. It is second only to the soundtrack of "West Side Story" as the most successful album of the 1960s.

Elvis movies never came bigger than Blue Hawaii, the 1961 romantic musical comedy whose success helped push Presley into near full-time filmmaking for the bulk of the '60s. Not only was the flick a hit but so was the soundtrack, going Gold by the end of 1961, a success partially fueled by the ballad "Can't Help Falling in Love," a song so good it suggests the rest of the record might contain other gems. That's not the case. The record has its moments, including the dreamy title track, but as an album, Blue Hawaii is undone by a film that demands a good chunk of its tunes carry a Hawaiian flavor. Often, this mid-century Polynesian exotica has its charms – Elvis croons sweetly on the swaying luaus and everybody involved has the good sense to embrace the project's inherent silliness, letting themselves josh around on deliberate fluff like "Rock-A-Hula Baby" and the vaudevillian rhumba that's "Beach Boy Blues." Both of these are ridiculous but on record, they're slightly preferable to the steady march of island tunes ("Aloha Oe," "Ku-U-I-Po," "Island of Love," "Hawaiian Love Song"), all silver screen corn performed with a bit more panache than they deserve.

Blue Hawaii's Tenderness searches for the meaning of closeness in our highly-connected world. Central to the record is the contradictory power of technology: people are at once alienated and brought together by its use. With immediacy of communication we can feel close without ever having to be truly tender to each other. After taking a 4 year break from writing and producing with each other, Ra and Agor rekindled their creative flame in 2016, writing music about an unrequited relationship Ra was experiencing with someone mostly online, constantly battling these contradictory feelings of distance and closeness. As record flows from one song to the next with skits, phone calls, acoustic demos, real life samples and quiet left-turns, she discovers that happiness is derived not from others but from something immaterial within herself. She finds validation without the need for the other - a valuable lesson whether in real or virtual reality.

The duo's fourth studio album. Spanning genres as diverse as trance, acoustic, UK garage, trip-hop and house, its core elements are lighthearted and groovy. Oddly, 'Open Reduction Internal Fixation' was born out of unfortunate circumstance. The duo were scheduled to tour through Southeast Asia & Japan in Autumn 2018 but plans changed suddenly when Agor smashed up his heel in Germany. Instead of the tour, he came back to Montreal for treatment - hence the title - 'Open Reduction Internal Fixation', the foot surgery he received.

Hawaii's Greatest Hits Volume One is the 1968 album by The New Hawaiian Band. Originally released by Decca Records, the group also feature help from Ohta-San, Pua Almeida, Barney Isaacs Jr. and a few others. This CD was released by MCA sometime in the mid to late 1980's.

ALOHA FROM HAWAII VIA SATELLITE: LEGACY EDITION marks the first time that both shows performed by Elvis, as released separately in 1973 (the original double-LP ALOHA FROM HAWAII VIA SATELLITE) and 1988 (the CD THE ALTERNATIVE ALOHA), have been coupled together in one package. Accompanying the two-CD set will be a booklet with rare photos and a new liner notes essay written by BBC presenter, producer and musician Stuart Colman.