Compilations of the past

 It still feels a bit weird as we leave this month  but as I've always said on here we tend not do effects reviews and that on here simply cos it was centred more about me and rather less around objects and equipment.

This week I am looking at a number of records in the build up to a major release next month simply for being part of my life.

Back in the 1970's and 80's if you were less into buying albums by just one artist you had two choices, to buy the seven inch single for around 79p per disc or you bought compilations of the last month or twos hits that may feature a bunch for rather less per song.

Compilations were not new, amongst others Music For Pleasure had "Hot Hits" and Pickwick had "Top Of The Pops" in the 1970's but they usually had re-recorded versions by studio musicians rather than the actual hit.

KTel started the tv advertised hits compilation in 1972 kicking off periodic round ups of hits followed by the mid 1970's by Ronco.

This is one of mine from early 1978 on KTel bought for such a reason and including all time favourite of mine She's So Modern by the Boomtown Rats.

From the same year but at it's end another that had an eclectic  mix of disco in the form of Rasputin by the Boney M and YMCA by the Village People and New Wave in form of Blondie's Hanging On The Telephone and the Boomtown Rat's again with Rat Trap.

With hardly a track I didn't like as a fourteen year old this was a Christmas present coming with a all time favourite I Lost My Heart To A Starship Trouper by Hot Gossip whose performances as they danced to it were very memorable.

Sometimes they would be a kind of a theme to a release and may go beyond a strict couple of month's collection of hits as with Street Level, a album issued by Ronco in 1980 that centred more on New Wave music but included early synth hits by Gary Numan and Underpass by John Foxx with a more "edgy" cover.

This was one I bought in January 1980 from W H Smiths cos I was starting to look more at themed compilations of past hits I'd missed out on and had Reason's To Be Cheerful, Part III which I loved by Ian Dury and XTC's Making Plans For Nigel from late 1979 on

Sometimes the art department would have some out of this world ideas and in Star Tracks they had space themed cover that really had little to do with the music which was late 1979, early 1980 hits with a very eclectic mix of new wave, disco and even old R&B that charted on the "Mod Revival" that year said he who was a mod.

it featured Games Without Frontiers, Living By Numbers and 7Teen which were big favourites of mine in this era, the one that saw me fracture my arm and become reliant for a period on the record decks automatic lowering and lifting as I played this to cheer myself up.

Sometimes they'd be a bit of cross promotion going on as in this Summer 1980 issue made in association with Kawasaki, the motorbike people.

This captures the Disco sounds that stuck around 1980 while picking up on the Ska revival with Bad Manners and featuring the of the moment B.A. Robinson's To Be Or Not To Be plus You'll Always Find Me In The Kitchen At Parties by the rather good Jona Lewie.

Going towards the end of 1980 things were different for me as I'd moved up to The Sixth and while today we know music was starting to change with the synthesizer groups crashing in the only consession to this is OMD's classic Elona  Gay otherwise it's a mainly disco set with the odd new wave track tossed in.

I mean it has D.I.S.C.O by Ottawan for cryin' out loud  but for me the real excitement was Pat Benatar's gem Hit Me With Your Best Shot which lead to me buying many of her albums later on, Baggy Trousers, the funny observations on schoolboy life performed well by Madness and Cliff Richards outstanding We Don't Talk Anymore.

At this point I wish to highlight the bottom part of the text of all these albums : To ensure the highest quality reproduction the running times of some of the titles as originally released have been changed.

Because they were cramming ten tracks per side, getting close to a good half hour per side, they edited and faded some songs and often there was less bass than the original 45 rpm single.

Thanks to physics and record cutting techniques at the time there were very real time constrants on how long a record could last and pushing beyond some 24 minutes of fairly constant volume music per side always compromised the sound.

Due to that increased awareness of how my favourite songs could sound and also armed with more pocket money I did start getting more whole artists albums around this era.

1981 may of seen more synthesizer groups and quirky songs like Einstein A Go-Go but judging by this an early example of the Buy One, Get One Free two volume sets people like Ktel and Ronco started, there's little evidence on this set as they kept to pop, disco and rock for the most part.

I bought this in late 1981 as a kind of year retrospective although I have to say more recent offerings such as the recent Now Yearbooks do more accurately show the tastes of the time than this album

.

Other companies tried the same trick, this time Telstar, with a pretty decent sample of hits and played on the radio tracks from late 1982.

This had some classy hits I liked such as Let Me Go by Heaven 17, two songs from the very good Fame tv show and Ultravox's Reap The Wild Wind.

Now did you notice the proud 15 Blockbusting Tracks tag line on each of these two records sold together and how that compares with the the Twenty tracks all the others so far had?

Things were getting better and this set is much better for having less tracks per side and even full as released singles versions so it sounds as good as any regular album.

Indiana Jones is the inspiration of the cover but this had a good chunk of that years hits so this was one I got over Christmas 1982 playing next to my copy of Rio by the rather good Duran Duran.

You may of asked "and where is Duran Duran" and this is the answer, on another but this time one of late 1982 hits which was a old school twenty tracks, ten per side compilation.

I bought this because it sound issues aside is a great time capsule of the charts then with so many of my favourites like Rio, the brilliant Japan's Life In Tokyo, Talk Talk by the group of the same name and Thomas Dolby's She Blinded Me With Science that featured Sir Magnus Pike an actual scientist!

Raiders of the Pop Charts was to lead to a series of title that runs to today, a mega brand in music which we'll look at some other time but that was a look at some old compilation records I bought and why.