The Most Popular Elvis Presley Song

By Douglas A. McIntyre Published Feb 3, 7:30AM EST

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The Most Popular Elvis Presley Song — © NBC Television / Getty Images

Elvis Presley recorded about 700 songs over the course of his career, a remarkable number given that he died at age 42. He was in over 20 movies, which were released between 1956 and 1972. The figures are even more impressive since he was in the Army from 1958 to 1960.

He was not only prolific. His career was outrageously successful. He sold (and continues to sell) over a billion recordings of his songs, a figure his followers say is the highest number of all time. He also sent 109 songs to the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart, even though the chart began about four years after he started releasing music. While he does not have the most chart-topping hits, he certainly ranks among the artists with the most.

24/7 Tempo has identified Elvis’s most popular song, based on album sales and Billboard performance. Many of the songs we considered were released during Elvis’s hot streak during the late 1950s. However, some of his most beloved recordings came out as late as the 1970s, a testament to his staying power as an artist.

To determine the most popular Elvis Presley song, 24/7 Tempo created an index based on two metrics: the number of singles sold, as reported by the Recording Industry Association of America, and performance on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart. As the Hot 100 did not begin until August 1958, some Elvis Presley songs did not have the opportunity to chart upon their release. These songs were not penalized in the ranking. Editorial discretion was used in rare instances where a song had a greater cultural impact than reflected by its sales and chart performance in relation to other songs.
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Elvis’s most popular song was “Hound Dog.” It was released on July 1, 1956, and has certified sales of 4 million copies.

Elvis’s scandalous performance of “Hound Dog” on “The Milton Berle Show” in June of 1956 is among his most iconic moments and has been credited as essential in shaping rock and roll. Complete with hips swinging, the appearance cemented his status as a national sensation. The song is Elvis’s best-selling single in the United States.

Click here to see all the most popular Elvis Presley songs.
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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.