Calling Elvis Presley overrated only makes sense if you didn’t live through what he detonated. There is no clean way to explain what it felt like in 1955, to be young and suddenly watch the old rules collapse. Music before Elvis had lines you weren’t supposed to cross. Then he stepped through all of them at once. The sound, the movement, the attitude. It wasn’t just a new singer. It was a cultural rupture, and once it happened, nothing could be put back the way it was.
Calling Elvis Presley overrated only makes sense if you didn’t live through what he detonated. There is no clean way to explain what it felt like in 1955, to be…