Jailhouse Rock • 1957

One of Elvis’ most rocking songs became as well known for its visuals as its music. The staging of the song in the film Jailhouse Rock, in which Elvis starred, is now viewed as one of the greatest proto-music videos of all time. Its energetic choreography featured Presley shaking his hips with a full cast of dancing inmates. Some of the lyrics in the Leiber-Stoller song reference real criminals, including a criminal organization known as the Purple Gang. But the most daring lyric has one inmate saying to another that “You’re the cutest jailbird I ever did see.” Somehow, the winking reference to prison sex sailed over the censors’ heads. “Elvis never commented on it,” Schilling says. It became the first single to ever enter the U.K. pop charts at No. 1.