To Whom It May Concern [Enhanced] [Import]

But it's not fair to judge Lisa Marie Presley against the legend of her father. Elvis was the King of Rock 'n' Roll. How could anyone live up to that kind of towering presence? And to her credit, Lisa Marie hasn't tried to compete with daddy.

She has produced an album that is full of lyrics about her life. She sings from the heart, in a deep, rocky, bluesy voice, about her lovers, her children and her father. Despite the lyrical content, this album doesn't play on her connection to Elvis. She doesn't cover any of his tracks and neither has she gone for the safe, middle ground of packaged pop, going instead for a rocky, guitar driven sound. 'To Whom It May Concern' is a heartfelt album, crafted by a woman who in her mid-thirties has started to come to terms with her life and who she is. You can almost her her saying, 'This is me, take it or leave it'.

I'd heard the single, 'Lights Out', and found that it grew on me and so has the album. It stands up reasonably well on first playing but it just gets better the more you play it. I think that Lisa Marie Presley could hold her own with the likes of Sheryl Crow and Alanis Morrissette. Like me, I think many people will buy Lisa Marie's album because she's Elvis' daughter but that's not why I play it again and again. She may have the advantage of the instant publicity that comes with the Presley name but with it comes a certain expectation, miles higher that most newcomers have to contend with. Forget who her dad is and give this album a try - you might be pleasantly surprised.

Unfortunately "To Whom It May Concern" is often as over produced as a Brittney Spears album (remember her?). This is someone surprising given that the album is produced by the likes of Eric Rosse (Tori Amos), Andrew Slatter (Fiona Apple) and Glen Ballard (Alanis Morissette), all of whom have worked with artists who refrain from hiding the vocals behind overwhelming layers of songs. The opening track, "S.O.B." is a perfect example: it starts off with Presley's semi-sultry alto vocals, and then then the band cranks it up big time. You might have to go back and listen to the song again to see if Lisa Marie said what you think she said in that song (yeah, she did). You find the same pattern on "The Road Between," "Important," etc., and you have to conclude that these guys must have thought they were covering up limitations of her voice. That might be a concern when you are doing nothing but singing songs written by someone else (classic example, Paula Abdul), but not when they are your songs. Besides, on "Nobody Noticed It" they dub some nice harmonies that showcase her vocal strengths, albeit buried beneath several layers of sound.

Then again, sometimes the fault is in the music itself. The first single off of this album, "Lights Out," has a perky tune that sounds AM-radio friendly, and it is all about her family "dead and gone" back in Memphis, buried "in the damn back lawn." The problem is that the blistering lyrics are totally mismatched by the aforementioned perky music. Besides, it is not one of the better songs on the album; in fact, it is my least favorite track at this point. Most of the songs are set at angry girl rock tempo, the exception that proves the rule being "So Lovely," a slow song with a slow guitar dancing around the theme from "Midnight Cowboy." The bottom line is that, on balance, Lisa Marie comes out ahead of the game on "To Whom It May Concern," an album which may well be more accessible to those who do not accept the musical divinity of her father. She also has the advantage of not having come up with such a great first album that she has nowhere to go but down, a constant fate in the music business. The big question is now that she has exorcised her demons in song, where does she go from here? The tabloids can dissect Michael Jackson and report Elvis sightings for the rest of her life, but Lisa Marie is going to have to move on. This album opens her to new possibilities for doing so.