Samar Haddad / The Verge
A new biopic about Elvis Presley came out this summer, and it was naturally accompanied by a big soundtrack full of popular Elvis tracks like “Suspicious Minds.” But the biggest hit of the album — the one getting radio play this year — was “Vegas.” The song, performed by Doja Cat, didn’t include a lick of Elvis’ work but did include samplings of Big Mama Thornton’s “Hound Dog” — a song that Elvis covered to great success in the ’50s.
And that was kind of the point. Many of the songs on the soundtrack — the ones not sung by Elvis or the guy playing Elvis in the movie — were borrowing motifs and samplings of Elvis-associated songs. They were attempts by Elvis’ former label, RCA, to capitalize off the songs many of us already know. And RCA…