Marcus made his name on his coverage of the British punk scene, but while he looks at the ways Elvis’s Sun sessions inspired bands like the Clash, he also details the tangible ways his presence was still posthumously felt in American mass media. (Look no further than the breathless Elvis sightings that appeared in tabloids at the end of the 20th century.) The preeminent music and cultural critic Greil Marcus explored the King’s afterlife in Dead Elvis, a compendium of essays he’d written about Elvis’s influence on 1980s music and culture. While Elvis was a pivotal figure in American pop culture during his lifetime, one could argue that he became even more important in death.
