NR--Billboard Chart Placement?

[Jeremy Dylan]

I suppose that this might be one good thing about how quickly e.c. can record--was it 11 days for these twenty songs? something like that at least makes the initial costs manageable to some degree. it isn't one of these "six months in a studio in nepal and then four months mixing in downtown rio" and so on.

i really don't have any sense at all of how expensive such an 11 days would be. not even sure what the "session rate" is for musicians brought in, and whether that is was is used as a base-line for initial expense, or studio time by the hour, etc. ::::and therefore--anybody have any idea?--how much, even ball-park, it might cost to make something like n.r.?

I would estimate somewhere between 250 and 400 grand. You're talking about some of the most sought after and in demand musicians in the world - some of whom don't even do session work anymore - plus the string and horn players, plus studio cost and T-Bone's fees (a lot of producers charge per track), etc. If you get the kind of people who can get a record of this quality done in 11 days, it's top dollar. EC could easily have spent a month cutting this album and done it for less money.

[Emotional Toothpaste]

For me, its just good, not a masterpiece EC work by any stretch. For the masses, no, this isn't going to be wildly popular no matter how hard it was advertised or promoted. There are some very good tracks, but unless you are already a fan of his work -- none of these would play well on the radio or CMT or even at Starbucks. Not in the age of Taylor Swift, Keith Urban, Kenny Fucking Chesney, or all the other garbage that people are lapping up.

Elvis is doing just fine I am sure. I quit trying to sell friends on him a long time ago. And wishing him mainstream/household name success, well . . . for starters he's going to have to quit wearing odd hats and scarves and singing like he's trying to poop a corncob (Church Underground). The Spell That You Cast, could almost be the "Gas that You Passed".

Songs that are really good however, Stations of the Cross, Five Small Words, Slow Drag, Bullets, and the rest just don't do it for me. River and Reverse and The Delivery Man were his last good albums.