What was the purpose of 10 inch LP records back in the day?

Just in UK -
Johnny Burnette And The Rock 'N Roll Trio* - Johnny Burnette And The Rock 'N Roll Trio

 

I believe Elvis' LPs were issued on 12" in the UK apart from a "best of" and the 'Loving You' soundtrack which only had 8 tracks on the 10"
Vinyl Album: Elvis Presley - Loving You (1957)

 

...Anothed turn-of-80s big 10-inch rekkid I recall was a Meco album of music from The Empire Strikes Back, following his earlier Star Wars album.
IIRC, I had that Joe Jackson double 10", which came with a bonus button, but returned the LPs for being defective and got the 12"?? But didn't remembef to keep the button and got mad at myself for being too honest?? Or kept the button but lost it?? I came in here recalling these Epic " NuDisc " 10" relases from 1980 or so - Did CBS dig up their old 50s 10" stampers to press them? - which werd all of vaguely " new wave "-associated stuff, counting Rick Nelson & a G*ry Gl*tt*r hits collection - I'm not sure if I ever had any:-(. Of course, Cheap Trick and Clash collections were the Big Guys amongst them. I recall seeing an import of Wreckless Eric's first Stiff LP on 10", I think just a shorter version of the 12", which I never saw, I never had either.

 

I really like 10" records, perfect format. If I see them by people I like it's an automatic purchase. My favourite recent one is the Alvin Brothers 2 record set, it's gorgeous. Notice the fabricated wear mark as though the disc have been there for a million years!

 

I love that House Party series! I used to have quite a few. I'd love for Sony Japan to reissue all of those on CD with all the original artwork.

 

...I think, again, the first one or two EP studio LPs were uniquely-covered 10"s - I remember a contemporary UK music paper review of the Clash's London Calling LP that did not catch the cover's parody of the RCA USA epoynmous(Sp??)
12" EP debut, the Brit presumably not familiar with the cover design being parodied.
Super-early Brit-rocker Tommy Steele (Yeah, I know.) had a #1 LP in 50s Albion with a 1O-inch soundtrack LP to his movie, "The Duke Wore Jeans "! It was discussed at Then Play Long, he was on Decca UK, was that label a little more inclined to stick with older formats?
Actually, I seem to have read that, when Steele's first two " Rock " singles came out in 50s Britain, thsy were only on 78, not 45s, his label did not issue 45s, liked 'em large. Is this true?






="john hp, post: 17379542, member: 29013"]I believe Elvis' LPs were issued on 12" in the UK apart from a "best of" and the 'Loving You' soundtrack which only had 8 tracks on the 10"
Vinyl Album: Elvis Presley - Loving You (1957) [/QUOTE]

 

In general, classical and show-tune 12-inch LPs had a $4.98 list; pop 12-inch LPs were $3.98; and 10-inch LPs were $2.98, with selected exceptions.

The House Party line was originally at $2.95 list, per Billboard.

By June 1955, Columbia had deleted all its 10-inch albums (except House Party), and the other majors followed suit soon after. By the summer of 1956, Columbia had dropped its House Party list to $1.98.

 

...Thank you!
Were 7-inch EPs $1.79, then, to be a little cheaper?





"tim_neely, post: 17379573, member: 844"]In general, classical and show-tune 12-inch LPs had a $4.98 list; pop 12-inch LPs were $3.98; and 10-inch LPs were $2.98, with selected exceptions.

The House Party line was originally at $2.95 list, per Billboard.

By June 1955, Columbia had deleted all its 10-inch albums (except House Party), and the other majors followed suit soon after. By the summer of 1956, Columbia had dropped its House Party list to $1.98.[/QUOTE]

 

As of the start of 1955, single-disc 45 rpm EPs were $1.49 list.

 

Absolutely. Provided the 16 2/3 speed pressing was a recording of Morse code being transmitted/received.

 

...I remember another turn-of-80s 10" manifestation: Doo-woppin' Lost Nite Records, apparently breathing their last, put out a bunch of 10" albums of harmony groups (plus a Turtles collection) on red vinyl, sold in hole-in-middle label sleeves.

 

I remember those, too. Shortly after that, Jerry Greene closed the Lost-Nite label and reopened it under the name Collectables.

 

...How much were 45s, then? Pop 78s (still around in '55)? Any remaining classical or semi-/borderline/crossover classical 45s, 78s, or EPs then? Broadway show cast LPs were treated by Columbia as part of the Masterworks classical series, one reason they were so proftable then - There were highlight EPs drawn from them, I believe. Also, by the way, was Epic treated by Columbia as a " pop label ", I've seen it, IIRC, described as that - Meaning that nothing classical or semi- came out on it?




="tim_neely, post: 17379584, member: 844"]As of the start of 1955, single-disc 45 rpm EPs were $1.49 list.[/QUOTE]

 

The early UK 10" albums I have are:

Hank Williams Sings (MGM)
Duke Ellington's Greatest (HMV)
Peggy Lee - Songs In An Intimate Style (Brunswick)
Peggy Lee - The Lady and the Tramp OST (Brunswick)
Peggy Lee - My Best To You (Capitol)
Frank Sinatra - Swing Easy (Capitol)
Django - Django Reinhardt (Oriole)
Connie Francis - Who's Sorry Now (MGM)
Lita Roza - Listening In The Afterhours (Decca)
Billy Fury - The Sound of Fury (Decca)
Elvis Presley - Loving You (RCA)

All are from the 1950s with the Hank Williams and Duke Ellington being oldest from around 1953.

The Billy Fury one is the latest from 1960. I don't see many UK 10" albums from later than that. By the 60s it seems to be almost all 12" albums. I don't see 60s reissues of these albums on 10" either. They were either deleted or expanded into 12" albums then. The Billy Fury one was reissued on 10" in the 80s and around the late 1990.

I really like the 10" format but they are very difficult to find in nice condition.

I have later 10" albums by The Clash and The Wedding Present too.

 

That's basically right as "most" 78's were in fact 10" as that became the adopted popular size over time but, strictly speaking, the original 78 rpm 'Berliners' were in fact only 5" diameter! Sorry to be a pedant.

 

Excellent album. I finally picked up an original pressing recently.
One of the best 5 UK albums pre-mop-head. Produced by Jack Good, Joe Brown on guitar, two bass players (one to slap, one to play !), drums Andy White. Recorded in a few hours. It's fab.

 

I have this one as well:

I wish I had managed to find this version:

 

So the big question: Why was the 10" LP format so rapidly supplanted by the 12" format? My guess is that labels (and to a certain degree artists) wanted to exploit the possibilities of extended, uninterrupted listening experiences made possible by LPs, and that 12" albums accomplished this more fully.

Or was it strictly financial?

 

What a great find! Did you have to pay a lot? I only have the 80s reissue, which is very well done. I've never seen an original in playable condition.

 

The list price of 45s and 78s was 89 cents in 1955. Major labels in the U.S. began to eliminate 78s in 1957, and they were all but extinct by 1959, except for certain titles on independent labels. A small number of 1960 singles exist on 78, but not very many. Children's and some budget records continued to come out on 7-inch 78s for several more years.

By the time I started buying new 45s (1973), the list price was 99 cents, but only places like Sam Goody charged full list; department stores charged in the 69 cent to 75 cent range. The 45's list price went up to $1.29 in 1974.

There were still a few classical singles in the 1950s - usually shorter pieces or "light classics" such as the works of Leroy Anderson. But by 1955, classical music on any format other than the 12-inch LP was basically dead.

The box set of 45s or the gatefold EP with an entire album was already dying by 1955. A few came out in 1956; Elvis Presley's debut album was released as a gatefold EP and is collectible in that format. But even that contained only 8 of the 12 songs on the LP. The "album excerpt" EP replaced the gatefold EPs; usually, an entire album was issued as a series of three separately packaged EPs. Some labels (Columbia for sure) still issued these as late as the early 1960s.

Epic was created as a pop label, and also as a way of making it seem that CBS wasn't releasing as much product at the same time as it really was.

 

Separating your term paper project for this nugget,when investigating the history of the OBC, you will find that CBS,through the record division,invested $350,000 in My Fair Lady. An argument could be made that without the dough,no MFL. So this became a gamble for CBS and,if it failed,massive losses. Could it have failed? After Rogers & Hammerstein's success with Oklahoma,there was a decided bent towards American stories on Broadway. Here was a British play,based on a British play modernizing Greek mythology,being turned into a musical by a couple of guys with only one true hit under their belt(Brigadoon),with a male lead who couldn't(almost wouldn't)sing. The one truly positive is that they had a rising star,groomed via a TV production of Cinderella,who would prove,indeed to be the lady fair-Julie Andrews. Still, it was a pricey gamble.

 

The first two Frank Sinatra Capitol LPs—Songs for Young Lovers and Swing Easy!—were 10″ albums, with 8 songs each, in January and August 1954. His third album—In the Wee Small Hours—was issued simultaneously as BOTH a double 10″ LP and a 12″ LP (and a 4-record 7″ EP set) with 16 songs, in April 1955. (A case can be made that 10″ was the planned format for the latter album, as the overall song order is designed around four 4-song suites/sides.)

However, the 12″ format proved to be most popular with the buying public, and In the Wee Small Hours would be the last Frank Sinatra album issued in 10″ by Capitol. Almost immediately, the first two LPs were combined into a 12″ twofer reissue with one album on each side. On the front cover: “This record contains TWO COMPLETE ALBUMS”.

 

I read somewhere that the Beatles referred to the classical recording artists at Abbey Road as being very "Twelve Inch".
I bought that Billy Fury recording on CD about a year ago (very cheap on Amazon) and really enjoyed it. I can understand how fifteen minutes per side on vinyl would be a nice listening session. In fact, most of the pop albums of the early 60s could have been issued on 10 inch vinyl.
It was those damn Beatles who paved the way for longer albums by giving us 7 tracks per side.

 

...Thank you. I haven't looked it up, but wasn't the live Julie Andrews TV Cinderella post-MFL?
The way uou write your description of MFL, you seem to to say that therd was another play in-between Shaw's play Pygmalion, inspird by the Greek myth, and Lerner-Loewe's musicaization. Again, memory here, but the lyricist (Loewe?) of MFL is tbe credited author of the book of MFL, but he ended up giving 50%?? of bis book-writer's royalties to the estate of the man who wrote the screenplay for (& produced??) the 1930s film version of Pygmalion, as it was judged that Loewe's adaption of ths original play was very similar to the adaption the 30s screenplay writer made in making it a movie. I read that in a biography of (MFL director) Moss Hart.





c51, post: 17379842, member: 2614"]Separating your term paper project for this nugget,when investigating the history of the OBC, you will find that CBS,through the record division,invested $350,000 in My Fair Lady. An argument could be made that without the dough,no MFL. So this became a gamble for CBS and,if it failed,massive losses. Could it have failed? After Rogers & Hammerstein's success with Oklahoma,there was a decided bent towards American stories on Broadway. Here was a British play,based on a British play modernizing Greek mythology,being turned into a musical by a couple of guys with only one true hit under their belt(Brigadoon),with a male lead who couldn't(almost wouldn't)sing. The one truly positive is that they had a rising star,groomed via a TV production of Cinderella,who would prove,indeed to be the lady fair-Julie Andrews. Still, it was a pricey gamble.[/QUOTE]

 

I've just remembered that, as late as 1968, I started collecting a monthly series of classical recordings (mostly in stereo) called "The Great Musicians". It ran to over 80 issues and I never completed the set but I still have a lot of them.
The interesting thing is that they were all on ten inch vinyl discs which was a novelty to me. They had to fit inside a stiff-covered magazine and it was a rather awkward combination. The disc size didn't really suit classical music and a lot of movements had to be chopped in half and continued on the other side!
The pressings and the sound quality varied from very good to awful.