This remains one of the greatest gifts in HERC's life. An album with "All Top 10 Hits", 2 posters and a robot on the cover: K-Tel's Music Machine released in 1977. It features 18 "Original Hits" performed by the "Original Stars"...
In the Seventies and early Eighties, the K-Tel compilation albums were ubiquitous: in addition to record stores (anyone remember those?) they could be found in drug stores, grocery stores, convenience stores and department stores. The albums were often accompanied by incessantly played television commercials but they were never the chart-toppers their latter day brethren, the Now That's What I Call Music series, has since become.
HERC received several K-tel and Ronco (a less popular competing compilation company) albums as gifts before he started actively purchasing them and some of his other favorite titles include Hit Machine, Music Magic and the double album Starburst.
Through the years, HERC has continued to pursue those K-tel albums, especially from their peak period of 1976-1982, and has amassed quite a collection Now, HERC is proud to offer digital re-creations via Spotify playlists.
A regular feature here at HERC's Hideaway will be the weekly release of these playlists, one at a time. At that rate, we'll run out of K-tel playlists sometime NEXT year. And then HERC will start releasing playlists featuring the Ronco titles and finish up with the Sessions and Silver Eagle albums from his collection.
Don't forget to share your K-tel stories in the comments below. HERC kicks things off with the Music Machine playlist.
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| album art photos by Mark Betcher |
For all you eagle-eyed math geniuses, yes your computations are indeed correct - one track is missing from the playlist. It is Peter McCann's not too subtle "Do You Wanna Make Love". While the track is available on Spotify, it is a re-recording rather than the original release and for this reason will get no play on HERC's Hideaway.
Hello Herc, first reply here in your blog, very nice.
ReplyDeleteI too loved STARBURST, and that one I received as a gift for good grades in school... and on cassette.
There are so many albums that I remember, but I believe they were my neighbors or I just remember the commercials all too well. The other album that I also really liked was DUMB DITTIES. I really liked Ray Stevens' "Bridget The Midget (The Queen Of The Blues)" because he would sing in three different voices: sped up, slowed down, and regular speed. As simple as that may be to do *now*, at 7 or 8 years old I wondered "how can I make my voice do that?" It would be awhile before I achieved it.