How Much Did Albums Cost In The Early 70's?

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by Jerryb, Nov 9, 2008.

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  1. drbryant

    drbryant Senior Member

    Location:
    Los Angeles, CA
    Perhaps the problem is not our collective memories, but the fact that inflation during the decade was very high. I don't have the data, but I suspect an annual rate of over 10%, so prices were going up regularly. People who recall $3 - $4 are probably remembering the very beginning of the decade.
     
  2. mrt2

    mrt2 Active Member

    Location:
    Milwaukee, WI, USA
    I remember first buying albums around 1977. I could be wrong, but I recall, single albums listed for $6.99, with double albums listing for $8.99.

    That was kind of expensive, and I seldom paid more than $6 for a single and maybe $8 for a double. My dad was big into garage sales, and I tagged along sometimes to get lps for .25 or .50.

    Thought of in those terms, music is currently kind of a bargain. Even with bills and responsibilities, I walk into used record stores and walk out with a half dozen titles. Back then, I would have to save up allowance money for weeks to buy a single lp.
     
  3. john greenwood

    john greenwood Senior Member

    Location:
    NYC

    My local store had a letter code:

    D was $2.99
    E was $3.49 (once the artist became popular)
    "Abbey Road" was the first F at $3.99 (although the white album was a double E)
    Budget classical albums were Bs at $1.99.
     
  4. Vogels Music in Elizabeth NJ was something like $3 per album in '72
     
  5. Baron Von Talbot

    Baron Von Talbot Well-Known Member

    Wow, that was actually my first bought LP, as well. One year before I started to collect LP's for the first time. LP's were extremely expensive in Germany . 22 DM - Fixed Price. The price came down soon. But in 197O LP's were a Luxury Item not many people could afford - costing about 1 week's pay for a work beginner and 2 DM more than a months allowance for a kid with UMC parents ( 5 DM per week =. average ).....
     
  6. 93curr

    93curr Senior Member

    What were imports like back then? I didn't start buy 'em until around '77 or so and at that point they were about $2.99 for UK singles, $12.99 for UK LPs and about $19.99 for Japanese LPs. (Canadian dollars, natch)
     
  7. Jerryb

    Jerryb Senior Member Thread Starter

    Location:
    New Jersey
    I used to go to Elizabeth also. A place I think was called Alwilk records?
     
  8. John Carsell

    John Carsell Forum Resident

    Location:
    Northwest Illinois
    I remember a small record/stereo hi-fi store in town selling LP's for something like $3.81 and then with 19 cents sales tax it would be an even $4.00.

    This was sometime around the fall of 1972.
     
  9. mikestar

    mikestar Friendly Optimist

    Location:
    Capitol Hill
    $3.99 was the # that came to mind when I read the thread title.
     
  10. JDeanB

    JDeanB Senior Member

    Location:
    Newton, NC USA
    If I remember correctly, the local shop in the small town I lived in had most of them priced at $4.54 and the Beatles Abbey Road and Let it Be at $5.49. At the time, there was not much competition, so deep discounting was just not done for new releases.
     
  11. QuestionMark?

    QuestionMark? 4TH N' GOAL

    Location:
    The End Zone
    Yes, I was buying Japanese imports here for $19.99. Of course, I also remember buying all those Japanese Beatle lp's for $5.99 each around that time.
     
  12. smoggyusa

    smoggyusa New Member

    Location:
    so cal
    Sabbath bloody sabbath was $2.99 at zodys dept store when issued. a lot of pop bottles to collect for a young lad:edthumbs:
     
  13. howlinrock

    howlinrock Forum Resident In Memoriam

    Location:
    SF Bay Area
    I lived in the Sunset district in San Francisco for 24 years and can still remember driving 2-3 times a week to Tower Records (Columbus & Bay) for weekly new releases priced from $3.99 - 4.99 in the 70's and they rose up to 8.99 - 8.99 in the eighties. I helped make Russ Rich. :shh:
     
  14. John D.

    John D. Senior Member

    I forgot all about Zody's Dept store, but I can remember buying the first Beatles album at Whitefront :wave:
     
  15. Wilkie

    Wilkie New Member

    Location:
    Richmond, VA, USA
    The street price of a recording (now and then) is based on the wholesale price charged by the label's distributor. That wholesale price is tied to the list price, but each label could have multiple wholesale prices for each list price, plus different labels charged different amounts from each other.

    In 1970 many new releases of top selling pop artists was $4.98 list that the labels normally sold for about $2.80, but frequently were discounted a few points when first released. We sold these to retailers for about $2.95. The store would add its mark-up to this. Most stayed significantly under the list to be competitive.

    By 1972 more and more new releases carried a $5.98 list price. We sold these to retailers for about $3.40, and they added their mark-up to this. There could be noticeable differences depending on retailers' strategies.

    By 1975 $6.98 lists were more common, with appropriate wholesale and street prices.

    Here are some of our price stickers from the 1970's that we printed for some of our rack-accounts (department stores). Notice how much cheaper Best Products sold their $7.98's compared to the other stores. Showing that the list price AND the particular retailer have a lot to do with the price the consumer pays.

    [​IMG]

    Here are all the list price codes for Elektra/Asylum labels as of September 1975:

    [​IMG]
     
  16. GerryO

    GerryO Senior Member

    Location:
    Bodega Bay, CA
    Inflation

    Depending on the year and item/point of reference (a gallon of gas, loaf of bread, the minimum wage, a house) a 70s dollar was worth at least five to 10 times what a dollar is worth now. At one time in '72 I made $2.20 an hour, so $3+ for an album was big bucks. Most music is so much less expensive now.
     
  17. fabtrick

    fabtrick New Member

    Location:
    NorCal
    Thank you Wilkie! Nice info there...

    As far as costs of music go, I guess if you're a kid, and the mp3 format is the single and album format of today, and buying a single track is 89 to 99 cents, and an album is about 8.99 to 9.99 (and some sellers have sales just like our favorite shops did), the price is quite stagnated!

    Sure you got TWO songs on a 45 - but how many people who bought it for the b-side, or even PLAYED the b-side (I'm talking John Q. Public here, not folks like US)?

    Definitely agree with the whole "loaf of bread" thing as well.

    FOUR DOLLARS for a loaf of bread (nearly 5 at RALEY'S)? That's crazy. If you were making minimum wage, you'd have to work 30 minutes for a loaf of bread? When 35 years ago, you worked 15 minutes for the same loaf of bread?

    Thank goodness we have a bread outlet store very close by!
     
  18. shepherdfan

    shepherdfan Western European Socialist Music Lover

    Location:
    Eugene, OR
    I recall thinking to myself what an achievement it was to have saved up and bought Chicago's At Carnegie Hall set.
     
  19. I bought the Rocky Horror Picture Show Soundtrack for $5.20 and the Beatles
    Red/Blue comps for $7.60 each at KMart (walking distance from my house) in 1978.

    I saw a lot of 45 rpm singles around this time priced from $1.30 - $1.70.
     
  20. Damiano54

    Damiano54 Senior Member

    I may be wrong, but I thought I had read years ago that "Abbey Road" was the first
    pop album in the U.S. to retail for $6.98. Previously albums were retailing for $4.98 mono and $5.98 for stereo. When they stopped making mono albums the two-tier pricing remained for a while. I remember a store in the mid 70s selling albums at $3.79
    for the $5.98 titles and $4.79 for the $6.98 ones.
     
  21. Lord Hawthorne

    Lord Hawthorne Currently Untitled

    Location:
    Portland, Oregon
    It was, and even though it was a Beatles album, I thought it was highway robbery, as minimum wage at the time was $1.50 and it took more than a half day's wages to buy it. Even longer after taxes.
     
  22. bhazen

    bhazen ANNOYING BEATLES FAN

    Location:
    Deepest suburbia
    I remember leaving the house with $10 and usually returning with three LPs circa '73 or so. When I lived in Bangkok and had PX access, they were $2!
     
  23. pmc7070

    pmc7070 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Nottingham, uk
    Here in England I started work in 1972 earning a whopping £9.60 a week, I seem to remember that an Album cost £1.99 and a Single £0.45. But I do remember ordering John Lennon's Wedding Album which cost £3.89 (just over a third of a weeks wages no less) and I still have it.
     
  24. GerryO

    GerryO Senior Member

    Location:
    Bodega Bay, CA
    Oregon

    At least Oregon is a zero sales tax state.

    We always purchased only a maximum of $0.14 worth of penny candy at time (sales tax was 7.00%) in order to avoid paying even one precious penny of tax money.
     
  25. djost

    djost Hyperactive!

    Location:
    Dallas, TX
    I remember buying Eric Clapton's "461 Ocean Boulevard" when it came out as a kid for $4.25.

    I'm curious, how much would this $4.25 LP cost me today in 2008 ? With the stock market crash and the bad economy we now have, this might not be a fair question.
     
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