No Rock And Roll Fun

THE PRICE OF ELVIS: We're a little surprised that Lisa Marie has flogged off an 85% share of the Presley estate for just fifty-one million quid, even although at current exchange rates that is quite a lot of US dollars. We can understand the desire to release some of the cash tied up in the 68 Comeback special and, um, GI Blues, but she's handed SFX entertainment and its boss Robert FX Sillerman (are those his real initials? We're somehow finding it tricky to accept that) a huge chunk of an industry which pulled in nineteen million quid's worth of business up until September this year, and is about to have a massive boost to its take in 2004 with some sort of anniversary. Perhaps signing really shit deals with shrewd businessmen is genetic?

The great news (by which we mean "shit news") is that Sillerman thinks what Elvis needs is some more "aggressive marketing." We can't quite imagine what ghastly Elvis-faced tie-ins he's got in mind, but if the awful Official Tat is viewed by its new owner as being too restrained, 2005 looks like it's going to be the year when the corpse is dug up and sat back on the toilet to promote the Presley Diaper range. (we're going to call him and float our idea about a cartoon featuring a superhero Elvis who fires Hawaiian Lasers out his eyes and has a special anti-crook guitar, but we fully expect one of these to be in development anyway.)

Sillerman somehow forgot to include Lisa Marie's music career in the deal.