(Credits: Far Out / MGM)
Thu 18 December 2025 22:00, UK
Not only was Elvis Presley the ‘King’ of rock and roll, but he also presided over the pop charts with an equal level of regality and divine right; in many ways, he was the first proper pop star, and that fact is certainly reflected in the sheer number of hits the rock and roller entered into the charts during and beyond his time on this planet.
It was all the way back in the rockabilly days of 1953 that Elvis Presley first crossed paths with Sun Records’ Sam Phillips and cut his first-ever recording. Within a few short years, though, he had become the definitive poster-boy for the bold new world of rock and roll, his slicked back hair and apparently outrageous hip-shaking becoming adopted by an endless array of teenage rock devotees in his wake.
He wasn’t the first musician to establish the sounds of rock and roll; that accolade would go to Bill Haley or, more fittingly, the multitude of ignored Black artists who had been combining blues and R&B for decades. He was, however, the person who brought rock and roll into the global mainstream, amassing hit records everywhere from Memphis to Macclesfield. In fact, Graceland estimates that over one billion Elvis records have been sold worldwide to date, and Billboard lists 109 total entries into the US charts over the decades.
In the United Kingdom, Presley’s inaugural number-one entry into the hit parade came in 1957 with the rock and roll classic ‘All Shook Up’, which kicked off an incredibly impressive run of 21 UK number-ones, beating out both The Beatles and, perhaps most impressively, Cliff Richard. Throughout the entirety of his career, through countless albums and a litany of largely unwatchable films, those number-one singles kept coming.
Seemingly, nothing could derail the commercial powerhouse that was Elvis Presley, and even his tragic death in 1977 did little to damage his chart successes in the UK. In fact, that year saw the late rock star spend five weeks at number one with ‘Way Down’, which many might have wrongly assumed would be his final run at the top of the charts.
Such is the timelessness of his baritone output that, throughout the decades, whenever a label has sought to reissue an old Elvis track, or perhaps a big anniversary connected to the Memphis hero has cropped up, it has often been marked with a re-entry in to the charts – which might explain why he has had a collective 386 weeks in the UK top ten.
Perhaps one of Presley’s most notable number-ones came in 2002 when Dutch DJ Junkie XL reintroduced him to the mainstream thanks to a masterful remix of his 1968 track ‘A Little Less Conversation’. However, that early 2000s entry wasn’t Presley’s last dance with the pop charts.Â
So, what was the final Elvis hit?
To date, Elvis Presley’s last number-one in the UK was the aptly named ‘It’s Now Or Never’, which was reissued as part of a series celebrating what would have been the singer’s 70th birthday. The fact that the song was able to reach number one 45 years after it first topped the charts in 1960 speaks volumes about the enduring influence of Elvis Presley and the timeless nature of his musical greatness.
Despite that impressive accolade, it would be foolish to assume that ‘It’s Now Or Never’ will be Presley’s final number-one in the UK, given just how many times the rock and roll pioneer has been able to reintroduce himself into the charts decades after his heyday or even his untimely death back in the 1970s.
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