Elvis has left the building—or rather, for some, he never got there in the first place.
According to a new poll of adults in the United Kingdom, conducted by YouGov, 29 percent of those aged 18-24 years old had never even listened to an Elvis song. The Guardian, which reported on the polling data, also noted that not a single millennial polled listened to Elvis daily and a paltry 8 percent listened to his music monthly.
To get hard-core fans Stateside further all shook up, Elvis memorabilia is apparently nosediving in value, too.
Of course, the data does show that people of a certain generation still revere The King (though the numbers weren’t reported in the piece). Last year, 382 million people streamed his music on Spotify.
David Hesmondhalgh, an author and professor of music at the University of Leeds, told The Guardian that there is a little less conversation about Elvis’ music among youth today.
“If you ask a small child about Elvis, the fact he died on a toilet through overeating or wore a silly suit is all that registers. The music has become far less important than the caricature. His image has been cheapened,” said Hesmondhalgh.
This August 17, 1977, will be the 40th anniversary of Elvis’ death.
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