Bing=Quality
I have been remiss in commenting on this. Todd Epp takes me to task for preferring Bing Crosby to Elvis Presley. Todd, do you ever get tired of being wrong all the time? Let's take it point by point. First, as I pointed out before, this website shows that by record sales and box office receipts Crosby was more successful than Presley. Second, Crosby's movies are more memorable than Presley's. First, Holiday Inn and White Christmas are seasonal favorites. Second, films like Going My Way, Bells of St. Mary's and Country Girl stand up far better than any of the shlock Presley was in. I want to point out that the Road movies with Bob Hope were on cable just this weekend, along with Presley movies on another channel. I own five of the Road movies (Singapore, Morocco, Rio, Zanzibar and Utopia) and I think these movies are still funny 60 years later. Presley movies are just embarrassing.
True, Crosby's music, outside of the Christmas music, is not heard much anymore. But he did record classics like Pistol Packing Mamma and Accentuate the Positive with the Andrews Sisters, along with songs like Moonlight Becomes You, Where The Blue Of the Night, I've Got A Pocket Full Of Dreams, Swinging On A Star, and Too-Ra-Loo-Ra-Loo-Ral that still hold up. And he sang Blue Hawaii thirty years before Elvis.
The fact that there is no Cult of Bing only shows his quality. Crosby fans are far to well adjusted to let their lives be defined by someone who, let's face it, isn't exactly reciting Keats. The Elvis Culters are pathetic losers, not people to be admired.
Bing was status quo? Crosby recorded popular music, country music, Hawiian music, jazz music, religious/gospel music. Todd's objection here is that in his persona Crosby was not a "rebel." Sure, but was Elvis? Not really. Just phony mass marketed rebellion made to order for an easy audience, teenagers. Elvis pursued "cool" as opposed to "good." See Nation of Rebels for a take on this phenomena. Elvis started a sad and lamentable trend: the idea that there is music for kids and music for adults. And the kids began defining was it means to make "good" music. Only those caught up in a different cult, a cult of youth, would see that as a good thing. Let's face it. That's a key difference in their music and personas. Elvis is for kids, Crosby for adults. This is a modern perversion that obsesses on youth as an ideal with nary a concern of growing up and acting like a grown up. Let me alter something George Will once said about baseball. Bing Crosby is boring to boring people. So there!
And by the way, I dress like Crosby's era, too. It's all argyle for me!!
I have run down Elvis more than I like, but the facts are the facts. I like rock music and Elvis rocks. But Crosby rules.
I listen to just about everything, but these days I am listening to this and this. And if I am listening to 50s rock, I am going to listen to the best, which is Mr. Holly. 
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