Talk:Elvis Presley

RfC: Is a military infobox module appropriate?

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Related to above discussion, should this article include an infobox module about his "military career?"--Light show (talk) 01:44, 14 September 2016 (UTC)

• Remove. It's misleading to include it IMO, as noted in the previous discussion. Having one's singing career interrupted by the draft for a few years does not make it part of his career. It's mentioned in the article, which is plenty. --Light show (talk) 01:44, 14 September 2016 (UTC)
• Remove I agree with Light show that it seems minor when compared with his musical career. I believe infoboxes should be kept tight and concise, containing only key facts germane to the notability of the subject. The military section makes the infobox too large and is undue weight. --Laser brain (talk) 02:31, 14 September 2016 (UTC)

This discussion needs input from other editors. Presley's service ranks among the most famous two years in the Army ever, and deserves to be mentioned in the infobox. A whole shelf of books has been published about this period of his life; how much evidence for notability is needed? MackyBeth (talk) 09:16, 14 September 2016 (UTC)

@MackyBeth: I agree it does, and I think that's why Light show opened the RFC. To be clear, I'm not saying his military career isn't worth writing about in the article. I'm just saying it's not among the top key facts I would want in an infobox. Military persons should have military infoboxes, and musicians should have infoboxes focused on the key facts of their musical career. I don't always agree with your thoughts on this page, but I'm always interested in hearing them. --Laser brain (talk) 11:51, 14 September 2016 (UTC)

• Remove Even though Presley was famous when he became a soldier, his military career was not notable. There is nothing in the article about what he did in the army, or even about his promotions. TFD (talk) 09:28, 14 September 2016 (UTC)
  • The thing is, his military career was not notable for what he achieved in military terms while in the Army. What is notable is just the fact that for two years he was a highly visible member of the Army. In this respect his Army years are not compatible with Mel Brooks or Don Rickles, mentioned above. What should the infobox say about this? What about finding some middle ground between giving these years undue weight and not say anything about them at all? I see that the box contains "Years of service". Perhaps it's an idea to break down the period mentioned at "Years active" from 1953-1977 into 1953-1958, 1960-1977, so that the interruption is at least covered in the infobox? MackyBeth (talk) 12:35, 14 September 2016 (UTC)

Note the infobox for James Stewart was toned down for similar reasons, although in his case he was an air force pilot and made a Brigadier General. Compare his infobox before, when it overwhelmed it, and now. The fact that a major celebrity joining the military during a war naturally draws media attention and keeps him in the spotlight, doesn't suddenly make the military their "career," warranting an infobox. An article like this one is almost a put-down to real service members, like Chuck Yeager, whose life was the military. --Light show (talk) 15:59, 14 September 2016 (UTC)

Some celebrities who enroll as students may be the most highly visible members of their school. Jodi Foster, who was already famous as a child actor before attending Yale, for example, and any member of the British royal family. That does not justify a separate infobox section for their academic careers. TFD (talk) 01:21, 15 September 2016 (UTC)

Which mat be relevant for the Jodie Foster Talk Page, not here.MackyBeth (talk) 14:10, 16 September 2016 (UTC)

Once again, the point is to reconcile, or to balance, these two perspectives:

1. doing justice to the military point of view, according to which EP's Army time was not in any way outstanding,
2. and at the same time doing justice to the wider cultural perspective: no celebrity Army service that I know of has been so extensively covered, which makes it hard to base the Wikipedia coverage of EP's Army time on how it is done with other celebrities. Media coverage of how the Army cut his hair alone has been enormous.MackyBeth (talk) 17:29, 14 September 2016 (UTC)

• Keep and summmarize on his military career Elvis Presley's Army career provides a wealth of information on his career, so the section should instead be summarized with a link to the main article. He was notable for having joined the military, having gotten an extension, among other things. Mr. Spink ^{talk★contribs} 19:21, 14 September 2016 (UTC)
• Remove per light show. Iazyges [Speak] 00:19, 19 September 2016 (UTC)
• Remove. It's dwelling on trivia. Presley was not notable for military service. Infoboxes are supposed to present a very concise précis of the most salient facts about the subject; we are not to shove into them every possible detail that can possibly be put into them "just because". Agree with suggestion that the years of his military career should be interrupted by the military service period in the infobox; we wasn't making records and such during that period.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  09:03, 27 September 2016 (UTC)
• Remove. Infoboxes are not for trivia, and his milliary career is not really a "career." Darwinian Ape ^talk 04:55, 28 September 2016 (UTC)
• Weak Keep, Modified. Remove the units assigned, leave in Branch/Rank/Service dates, or even just branch linked as per Mr. Spink above, to address the concerns of weight. Unlike Mel Brooks, the service of Presley was extremely notable at the time and beyond. Disagreeing with SMcCandlish, the article states he continued to record and chart hits while he served (for a soldier outside Special Services that is exceptional IMVHO.) If the facts were lost from the IB it wouldn't be completely devastating to the IB or article as a whole, but I think it would be an unacceptable loss of weight, so I'm weak on it. LaughingVulcan ^{Grok Page!} 01:29, 1 October 2016 (UTC)
  • He did virtually no recording while in the Army. He was inducted March 24, 1958. After that, he only recorded five songs while on leave in June, as the article says in the sentence sourced with note 161. Of course, his record company and manager made sure there was enough material to keep releasing singles during those two years. And RCA had to go back to unreleased Sun material to fill up the 1959 A Date with Elvis album. After his discharge on March 2, 1960, he recorded on March 20. Describing that session, Guralnick writes in his Vol. 2, page 59: "the band consisted of the same group who had backed Elvis on his last session, while on furlough, in June of 1958." During the two - year interruption he only made home recordings, now the only way to get a glimpse of the development of his voice, which sounded smoother in 1960 than it did in 1958. The "years active" line in the infobox should exclude the year 1959. For more on this, see Elvis Is Back!. MackyBeth (talk) 22:16, 3 October 2016 (UTC)
  • This seems like a reasonable compromise to me. Unlike the handful of other discussions recently started for biographies of celebrities who had incidental service, Preslet's time in the military was a media event, that took place after he reached the fame which is his main source of notability, so the service itself received significant coverage in this case. That said, the finer details/particulars of his "military career" did not receive much coverage and did not play a large role in his overall notability. Under the circumstances, I think it makes sense to include the pane for his military service, but reduce it to just a couple of basic elements, per LaughingVulcan's suggestion. Snow ^{let's rap} 03:50, 5 October 2016 (UTC)
• Remove per LightSnow - He wasn't notable for his military career so it's rather pointless to have it as an infobox, Having a section in the article's more than sufficent. –Davey2010^Talk 15:00, 8 October 2016 (UTC)
• Keep why info on the world's most famous G.I. would be omitted is odd. His hair cut alone was a huge sensation --Moxy (talk) 20:18, 8 October 2016 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Semi-protected edit request on 17 October 2016

First line: Aron not Aaron

2600:8803:AE06:C500:494F:A022:45A9:25D7 (talk) 07:25, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

 Not done please read note 1 for the full explanation - Arjayay (talk) 08:18, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

Name wrong

His middle name is spelt Aron... like you have at first. Then further down you have spelt it Aaron... that is wrong. BUBBLESxOo91 (talk) 23:46, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

Elvis was declared the most successful uk artist

Elvis Presley takes Madonna’s world record for Most UK No.1 albums by a solo artist

gwr. please add that. thank you.

73.38.165.46 (talk) 14:36, 2 November 2016 (UTC)

Please provide your source for this information. Britmax (talk) 14:47, 2 November 2016 (UTC)

Just added the information in section "Since 1977", sourced (see note 326) to an online Billboard publication for October 28. The Billboard piece also cites a second record that this album creates, that of longest span between No. 1 albums. Presley first reached No. 1 with his 1956 debut album.MackyBeth (talk) 17:17, 4 November 2016 (UTC)

Excessive citation tag in the lead: sources for biggest selling solo artist of all time are obsolete

The claim in the lead that EP is the biggest selling solo artist of all time has a tag added to it. A FA-rated piece should have no such tags, least of all in the lead, so hopefully this issue is settled asap. The nature of the claim makes it an extraordinary strong claim, and I feel that it needs extraordinary strong back-up. So I think 4 sources is okay, as long as each and every one of them carries significant authority. And here we come to what I feel is the real issue: the claim "of all time" is only legit when supported by fairly recent sources, but two of those sources are from 2002, one is from 2001, and one is from 2008. One close competitor for this claim is obviously Michael Jackson, whose death in 2009 predictably increased sales of Jackson's music. Therefore, the sources need to be from 2010 and later, as earlier ones are now obsolete. MackyBeth (talk) 19:46, 5 November 2016 (UTC)

This has been more of a challenge than I'd thought. I did look around for sources and found some for the RIAA, which are mostly irrelevant. I found a couple sources that mention Elvis in this way but they are very poor and don't say where they got their information. --Laser brain (talk) 23:10, 6 November 2016 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 12 November 2016

Elvis Persey is not dead. He is still alive. Change that

14.203.178.249 (talk) 10:27, 12 November 2016 (UTC)