Elvis: Close Up is part of an ongoing series of Elvis Presley box sets BMG has created to keep collectors supplied with "new" material, in a manner of speaking. All 89 of the recordings are previously unreleased mixes and alternate takes, with each disc focusing on a different period of Elvis' career. The first disc contains stereo mixes of recordings from 1957, including "Jailhouse Rock" and "I Beg of You." These mixes, created from the binaural session tapes, will be worth the price for many stereophiles. The second disc has alternate takes of songs from four of Elvis' early-'60s movie soundtracks, with all of the recordings hailing from 1960 and 1961. Disc three is titled "The Magic of Nashville" and features Nashville recordings mainly from the early '60s…
Whether in its original serial form in the 1940s, in the low-budget films of the 1950s, in the television series of the 1960s, or even in the overgrown re-imaginings for blockbuster movies in the 1970s and beyond, the science-fiction genre on film (and videotape) has always had something cheesy about it, and that is part of its appeal. Even when the technical wizards at director George Lucas' Industrial Light and Magic are dreaming up the next Star Wars movie, there is, at heart, a sense of the earliest, silliest versions of the genre still present. In that spirit come Neil Norman's souped-up and synthesized treatments of the various scores for sci-fi films and TV series.