I'm aware that this is likely to elicit a barrage of abuse and calls for me to be strung up from the nearest lamp-post, but why do people rate Elvis? I've never been able to understand it. To me he was the first manufactured pop-act - he didn't write his own songs, he was carefully marketed to appeal to the as-yet untapped teen audience and was a triumph of image over substance. I've been told it's one of those 'you have to have been there' things, but I was born seven years after the Beatles split up and I still rate them. Same goes with a variety of 50s and 60's artists - the Stones, the Who, Buddy Holly, Chuck Berry. To me Elvis doesn't bear comparison with any of these!

I'm not trying to stir shit, I'm genuinely nonplussed as to his appeal. Can anyone enlighten me?