It's surprising, then, to discover that their record wasn't dominant year after year. In 1980, they won just thirty-nine games in the regular season but this evidently left enough left in the tank for them to win their first Stanley Cup. They struggled again in '83 with just forty-two regular season wins only to promptly win their fourth Cup on the bounce. Even when they weren't that great they still managed to win when it mattered. After what proved to be their last Cup they still managed to return to the finals the following year when they were finally dethroned by (shudder) Edmonton.
The sports dynasty is not unlike a pop music imperial period. Everything goes right, every decision made is the correct one and success seems to come even when you're underperforming. Just as the Islanders lost their fair share of games en route to four straight Stanley Cups, Elvis Presley had his less-than inspired moments during his lengthy stay at the top of the charts. If they can't all be winners then they may still wind up getting to number one in the charts anyway — and be winners all the same!
The point of an act having an imperial period is that they can fumble creatively and still not pay the price. Pet Shop Boys, whose singer Neil Tennant is credited with coining the term, put out the single "Heart" in the spring of 1988. While a lot of PSB fans love it, it really isn't one of their top tier efforts. Blondie's cover of "The Tide Is High" is catchy but unremarkable when held up against the likes of "Heart of Glass" and "Atomic". I've heard people make the case that "Super Trouper" is ABBA's misstep smash but surely the very ordinary "The Name of the Game" is the one most could give or take. When Madonna put out her first greatest hits, The Immaculate Collection, she left off at least two major hits so she could include a pair of new tracks instead — and, honestly, did anyone care that both "True Blue" and "Who's That Girl?" missed the cut? The Beatles' "Hello Goodbye", Elton John's "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds", all those endless singles from Michael Jackson's Thriller and Bad and even bloody Dangerous: an imperial period artist can keep shoveling out the shit and fans will keep lapping it up.
No one did this better than Elvis. If 1957 had seen a slight decline in the quality of his recorded work — largely due to "(Let Me Be Your) Teddy Bear" — '58 would be where he really started to go downhill. A packed schedule of recording sessions, tours, film commitments and promotional work had already left The King with little in the way of leisure time to enjoy at his newly purchased Graceland home but now he was in an even bigger rush with his induction into the army on the horizon. One of his priorities had been to really nail his performance in the upcoming motion picture King Creole but I'm not so sure his music was being treated with similar care. While his film career could be put on hold while he was being stationed in Germany, the recorded product had to keep on coming.
Isolated from other releases before and after it, "I Beg of You" / "Don't" feels like a dry run for Elvis' eventual return to life as a civilian star two years later. The latter anticipates the drippiness of "It's Now or Never" and "Are You Lonesome Tonight?" while the former even more worryingly looks ahead to the many bloodless supposed rockers that would really start to set him back as the British Invasion made him appear increasingly irrelevant. "(Let Me Be Your) Teddy Bear" had been a creative hiccup because the composition was substandard; now it was as if everyone involved had followed suit. And The King had become a licence to print money by this point so why bother doing anything more than phoning it in? Again, that's the benefit of being in the midst of an imperial period.
In the CHUM singles chart for January 13, 1958, Elvis' "I Beg of You" is listed at being a new entry at number nine. Meanwhile "Don't" debuted at the much more modest position of thirty-one. A week later the two sides were amalgamated into a single chart entry, this time placing at number 6. At this point the single was listed with "I Beg of You" first but the two switched positions on February 3 when it reached the top the chart. Though "Don't" was considered to be the A-side in the US, its 45" companion seemed to be more popular in Canada so I have it listed first. (It's also slightly less dreary than its flip side) It should be stated though that they do belong together, if only as a way for fans to send a message to their hero: "Oh Elvis, please Don't go into the army, I Beg of You!"
Score: 4
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