| Viva Elvis: The Album | |
| Type: | soundtrack |
| Artist: | Elvis Presley |
| Cover: | Viva Elvis The Album Cover.jpg |
| Released: | November 11, 2010 |
| Genre: | Rock music |
| Length: | 41:42 |
| Label: | Sony Legacy Recordings |
| Producer: | Erich van Tourneau |
| Prev Title: | The Complete Elvis Presley Masters |
| Prev Year: | 2010 |
Viva Elvis is the soundtrack remix album of the Cirque du Soleil show Viva Elvis, which focuses on the life and music of American singer and musician Elvis Presley. The album, though initially produced as a soundtrack to the show, does not include all of the songs featured in the show. The CD tracks are rearranged and extended versions of songs heard in the show, and in fact the album includes two instrumental versions of the songs "Memories" and "You'll Never Walk Alone", neither of which is in the Cirque du Soleil show.
This album marks the third official posthumous album by Elvis Presley created from scratch, whereas previous albums were compilations of previously released or unreleased studio material recorded well before his death. The two prior albums were the urban country-influenced 1981 Guitar Man record and the 2008 Christmas Duets CD. Similar to Cirque du Soleil's soundtrack to The Beatles-themed Love, "Viva Elvis" contains samples from throughout the entire span of Elvis Presley's career, including interview clips, home recordings, studio outtakes and snippets of dialogue from Elvis's feature films.
Unlike Love, however, Viva Elvis features new backing instrumentation on each track in an attempt to modernize the arrangements.[1] This has met with a mixed critical response, with some reviewers praising the production quality and others opining that Elvis's music is best left untampered with.
In each country, a bonus version of "Love Me Tender" was included, featuring a local singer in place of the singer from the Cirque du Soleil show.