Those Old "Top Of The Pops" LP's

I've got an old not-by-the-original-artists "Top Of The Pops" LP's - see attached image below pinched from eBay - and I'm surprised to hear how good it is! I thought all these "budget" albums were crap, but this is as good as the real thing in it's own right. It is obviously not the real artists - the guy singing "Maggie May" sounds more like Joe Cocker than Rod Stewart! They claim on the cover that they hired the besst session performers available and it really sounds like it!



My sister had a couple of "Disney Hits" CD's in the mid 1990's and I got stung with a cassette called "Batman And Other Movie Hits" when I was 12 ("Cool! All these songs for five bucks!" *later* "Oh") which were all utter crap. The guy singing on "A Whole New World" couldn't even pronounce his R's! So I am surprised to hear how good this old LP actually is. I wish it wasn't scratched as badly as it is.

(Couldn't pronounce his R's - I'm not kidding - "I could show you the world / Shining, shimmewing, splendid / Now tell me pwincess since when did you last let your heart decide" - I'll post a sample one day if I find it)

So, come on. Own up! Who has any Not-By-The-Original-Artists albums that they actually like? What is it called? When did it come out? And should they take these old "Top Of The Pops" and start releasing them on CD? Not just the end-of-year ones, but the whole collection? You know, Elton John is on a few of the oldest ones.....

 

Hey, That"s not PC...It"s got a man on a dog chain...lol only kidding.

I think it would be a good idea for Elton John to revisit his past for a fresh collection of chartbusters...covers album !

 

http://www.cduniverse.com/productinfo.asp?pid=7488105

you can get it on cd here!

 

That takes me back, mainly to jumble sales .....

What has happen to this world where we can not have record covers like this anymore, what has happen to our freedom, such a shame I love a bit of cheese

 

My very first Lp was not a Top of the Pops one, but it was the same thing..called "Smash Hits '72" I think it was a pickwick label. Had an ugly bird in a karate suit on the cover which may have swung it for me and included such jems as Metal Guru, Chirpy Chirpy Cheep cheep, Mama Were All Crazee etc. I couldn't tell the difference so was happy.

I do remember that there were various cover albums like these at the time and that it wasn't until K-Tel started issuing the "Original artist" compiliations, that these sort of issues began to disappear. The first K-Tel I was aware of probably dates back to '72, but I expect some from '70 as I found one with Deep Purple's Black Night on.

I suspect after that the market for these type of albums disappeared (plus it must have been expensive to produce with recording time,session musicians and mixing etc).

 

I started buying records in the late 70's (aged 11), and my first two LPs were hit compilations. But even at that age and with the little pocket money I had, I knew I had to avoid these "worthless" hits re-recordings by cover artists.

I guess most people who bought those LPs either did not care at all about the artists or even the music (they just needed a cheap sampler to play at a party) or they were tricked into buying them, thinking these were the original recordings. So it was only normal that the market would disappear soon.

 

My first LP was also Top of the Pops. I think mine is one of Elton's. - certainly good performances and sound quality, and value at 75p.

My recollection is that licensing killed these compilations,in the sense that K-Tel hit the same price point with 'original artists-original hits' and so on (though with bad editing, fades and compression)

 

I just found the first 44 (!) volumes of Top of The Pops on Spotify. I love these knock off albums, they are so kitsche.

 

I remember being too young to understand the concept of " cover versions" and was puzzeled as to why the version of C-Moon that was being played on my new TOTP album didnt sound like the version being played on the radio at the time.

 

Hey, I used to work for Pickwick Records (79/80) in the art department! Noo, don't blame me for the covers, the basic design had already been established years earlier. I perhaps did one or two covers which meant that the MD chose the photo, the typo colours were changed and we stuck down the tracks.
I think I still have one somewhere (the one with "Voodoo Chile (Slight Return)" on it).

 

Ok, I'm going to man up and show you my first ever LP. What can I say, I was young, but I enjoyed it. For those who are interested in such things, this is a good website

http://retrotrash.org/pophits.htm

 

^Thanks for the link. Great stuff.

 

The Top Of The Pops albums were issued on Hallmark, a Pickwick label, and ran from 1968 to 1982, with a brief revival in 1985. There tended to be around 6 issues a year.

Other labels got in on the act too, most notably Pye via their Marble Arch imprint, and MFP. Many smaller labels also tried, most notably in the early 1970s.

Woolworths had prior experience in the field, putting out covers singles on their Embassy label for years, using the Oriole label to record and press titles for them. Embassy folded in 1965 when Oriole were bought out by Columbia and became the UK CBS Records operation.

Woolworths then got back into covers int the late 1970s, setting up their really cheap Chevron cassette imprint. As well as releasing albums of mixed covers, they put out single artist tribute albums, orchestral material (such as TV themes) and various other tat. Every Woolworths store would feature a large bin of these cassettes, retailing for 99p or £1.25, but you never saw anyone buy them. They finally died out sometime around 1990.

There's a lot more on the genre here:

http://www.spanglefish.com/budgetcoversalbums/

 

They and their rivals certainly did! This was one of the best:

http://www.eltonography.com/albums/reg_dwights_piano_goes_pop.html

 

I have 192kbps mp3's of some of those top of the pops lp recordings. They are damn good for what they are.

Their version of Gilbert O Sullivan's "Clair" surpasses the original.

I hope to find some of these one day.

 

I bought a few of those in the 70-71 era.

My problem is that whenever I hear "Wedding Bell Blues" - any version- it doesn't sound right and I'm convinced that the version I hear in my head is the one from the TOTP LP. Same goes for Without Her - the Nilsson version just doesn't sound right...

 

From my youth

 

thats how it starts and before long you're a bona fide Deep Purple nut.

 

Yeah, how did that happen?

 

This was the cover of the record that as a kid i couldn't understand why it " sounded" like C Moon but was somehow vastly diffrent to what Tony Blackburn was playing on the radio...

 

And theres someone , somewhere who still belives that this is the definative version of Pretty Vacant...

Oh lordy...

 

Some of those albums are a scream, they are coming into the trifts here...how I don't know but they are British pressings in US thrift stores. I have one of the ones with Elton singing "Tell The Bottom From The Top" a Hollies cover. Some label issued a CD with all the Elton sung material. The first K-Tel album I seen besides the polka stuff was "20 Explosive Hits" from 1970 which had everyone from The Who (I Can See For Miles) to The Shocking Blue (Venus), a superb LP.



I always felt Ronco's "Do It Now" LP from 1970 was the first major various artists album since it had Nowhere Man and Red House, The Beatles and Hendrix don't deal usualy with indi labels. Who wanted a soundalike album when you could get the real deal. I bought one of the QMO soundalike albums from TV and it was awful, they were advoided like the plaque. I pledged my alegence to K-Tel & Ronco for much of the 70's.

 

Am I a bad Slade fan in that i prefer the version of "Cum on Feel The Noize" released on the Hallmark TOTP's lp's?

 

The problem with those TOTP albums, the first version embedded in your brain of a classic track is by a crap session player. Yet when you hear the real version later on, you inexplicably still prefer the crap TOTP version.
These albums are dangerous.:thumbsdn: