K-Tel was Spotify in 1978
Anyone growing up in the 70’s and 80’s probably remembers seeing TV ads for the cheesy music compilations on vinyl and cassette - they were everywhere and encompassed all genres of music, and by far the most well-known company that produced those compilations was K-Tel Records, a Canadian company with offices in the U.S. and the U.K.
K-Tel Records were like the Spotify playlists of the Seventies, an era sandwiched between the height of buying individual pop songs (or “singles”) on a small 45rpm records in the Sixties, and the growing accessibility of cassette decks in the Eighties - which created the “mixtape,” an innocuous activity that became an art form, that became a way for people to express themselves through something as simple as sequencing songs on a tape.
But in the Seventies and early Eighties, K-Tel compilations were the way to hear a diverse selection of songs all in one convenient album, and for many people K-Tel records were the first place they discovered new music. Just put it on the turntable and you had 24 minutes of the best pop songs playing on your hi-fi! The albums were usually compiled according to musical genres, and there were K-Tel collections for pop, disco, country, soul, hard rock, and in the Eighties they even had new wave and rap compilations. K-Tel released hundreds of compilations between 1968-1990, which were sold mainly via TV ads. They were prolific and their albums were everywhere, which means a cheap record hunter like myself can usually find K-Tel records in great condition for great prices.
I’m a HUGE fan of K-Tel records and I have 30 or 40 in my record collection, but I must admit that although I grew up in the K-tel heyday, I only became a fan and collector in the past 3 years. Nostalgia for the music of my childhood has been a major obsession for me recently, and it’s probably what drives a lot of my 99 cent record bin hunting. The cheap record bins of thrift stores and record shops are full of albums that I grew up with, and I have been lucky to find so many of these classics in almost new condition. Here are a few of my recent K-Tel discoveries…
VARIOUS ARTISTS - DISCO ROCKET VOLUME 2
K-Tel Records, 1978
TOP TRACKS:
“Spring Rain” by Silvetti
“Magic Bird of Fire” by The Salsoul Orchestra
DUDS:
“Superman” by Celi Bee
“Hot Line” by The Sylvers
Of all K-Tel’s strictly disco compilations, and there were a lot, the Disco Rocket series were some of the best and I was super glad I found this Volume 2 in near-mint condition at a local thrift shop, though in actuality Volume 2 is just the C+D sides of the 2xLP set Disco Rocket Volume 1 repackaged as a second volume. This compilation was released in 1978 smack dab at the height of disco mania, and it’s one of the better curated disco collections from K-Tel. It kicks off solid with KC and the Sunshine Band’s “Boogie Man”, arguably one of the top five most recognizable songs in the genre, and from there adds offbeat, unique, and sometimes really terrible less known tracks mixed up with other popular disco favorites like “Love Machine” by the Miracles and Diana Ross’s slow, sultry “Love Hangover.”
Three of the compilation’s most interesting tracks were licensed from the Salsoul label, a NYC-based label born out of the musical culture of Latino bands combining Soul and Disco with the Salsa sound in the 1970’s. “Magic Bird of Fire” by the label’s house band The Salsoul Orchestra is a hard driving instrumental, a fast tempo, five minutes of cinematic orchestration that careens from sinister, to funky, to an epic finale topped with a psychedelic, single guitar note feedback. The other two tracks from Salsoul are “Spring Rain” is an Italo Disco production by Argentinian composer and band leader Babu Silvetti, a truly talented contemporary of Paul Mauriat and Henry Mancini whose style took a lot from their European soundtrack quality, and “Magic Fly” the second to last song on side B from Kebekelektrik, the electro-disco Kraftwerk-ian studio project from Quebec-based composer Gino Soccio.
Those standouts are sprinkled between the popular favorites and a few mundane discofied novelty tracks, though one other song is worth noting here, “Love Motion” by George McCray who I never heard of before buying this LP. Underneath the standard disco sounds in the beginning comes an extended funk-jazz saxophone solo in the middle and a weird jump cut (literally sounds like a spliced tape) to the ARP synth laying down a deep persistent bassline for the live string section that comes sweeping in.
If you want to hear these for yourself, I made a Spotify playlist for this album and the others in this blog They’ll give you a feel for the tunes and sequencing, but they lose a lot of the nostalgia you get when listening to the actual record on a turntable.
VARIOUS ARTISTS - THE HOT ONES
K-Tel Records, 1978
TOP TRACKS:
“Thunder Island” by Jay Ferguson
“We Just Disagree” by Dave Mason
”Flash Light” by Parliament
DUDS:
“Sometimes When We Touch” by Dan Hill
“Lets All Chant” by Michael Zager Band
”This Time I’m In It For Love” by Player
1978 was a great year for K-Tel releases. This 2LP collection is one of the best time capsules of late 70’s AOR - an acronym used in the radio industry for Adult-Oriented-Rock - and the music flow is nearly flawless, a great example of how well the folks at K-Tel were at sequencing the songs. No doubt there were probably a few radio veterans working at K-Tel doing the programming for the compilations. That said, every K-Tel album had it’s share of duds and no-name bands that didn’t make the top 40 and probably were licensed cheap from the labels, and The Hot Ones has it’s share.
Side A is solid, soft-pop block that hits upbeat and downtempo notes in the five top 40 hits on this side, beginning with the disco-tinged “If I Can’t Have You” by Yvonne Elliman, and from there slowly ramps down to the superb, but oft-forgotten “We Just Disagree” by Dave Mason, then wisely puts the maudlin “Sometimes When We Touch” last. Side B continues the soft pop ride, though mostly with no-name and one hit wonders like Smokie, a mediocre pop outfit from the UK whose one minor hit on the UK charts “Living Next Door To Alice” is included here, and “This Time I’m In It For Love”, total pap from the underrated Yacht rockers Player, who are much better known for their huge hit “Baby Come Back” (not included here).
Side C is where the party starts, a little slowly thanks to Abba’s sultry “The Name of the Game?”, but picking up with “Boogie Shoes” from K-Tel mainstay KC and The Sunshine Band, the psychedelic funk of Parliament and their biggest hit “Flashlight” (“ohhhh funk me!”) and ending with the classic “Disco Inferno” from the Trammps. Side D is an interesting mix, I’m not sure if I would call it great programming even though most of the songs are great in their own right, like the incredible rum-drenched rocker “Thunder Island” by Jay Ferguson and “It’s Ecstacy When You Lay Down Next to Me” by Barry White. Not sure I would have put them both on the same side of vinyl, particularly grouped with the soul disco classic “Best of My Love” and the godawful B.J. Thomas massacring the Beach Boys “Don’t Worry Baby,” but closing with “Thunder Island” is a master stroke, so the album ends on a high note.
VARIOUS ARTISTS
TODAY’S SUPER GREATS, Volume 1
K-Tel Records, 1974
TOP TRACKS:
“Go All The Way” by The Rasberries
“If Not For You” by Olivia Newton John
DUDS:
”Sunny Days” by Lighthouse
”Go Away Little Girl” by Donny Osmondy
Today’s Super Greats selection is as just as cheesy as that vintage Seventies clip-art cover art suggests, and is probably as good a simulation to listening to an average radio station in 1974 as you’re gonna get, minus the commercials. In the same way the Disco Rocket series was packaged as sets and individual records, bargain bin record shoppers are likely to find several different versions of Today’s Super Greats, all with basically the same cover. K-Tel first released it as a 3xLP box set in 1973 and later released each of the three vinyls as individual albums. There are no discernible themes to the individual releases, they have the same sequencing as their counterpart vinyls in the box set.
The Jive Time bargain records section in Freemont Vintage Mall
I found volume 1 in a bargain bin at Jive Time in the Freemont Vintage Mall (before the COVID lockdown) and bought it as an addition to my K-Tel collection more than any interest in listening to the selections, but of course I gave it a spin to grade the record. Like I said, it’s a mostly cheesy ride through bland, cheesy AM pop circa 1974, a bit earlier than my memories as I was only 3 in 1974, and the lack of mastering between the tracks makes it a tough listen because the volume and equalization varies quite a bit from track to track.
I won’t go into too much detail about the songs on this collection. Most of them are pretty boring, even by pop music standards. While it’s obvious to note that pop music in the late Seventies and early Eighties was more polished and incorporated way more diverse musical styles, the art of songwriting also became much more sophisticated later. But really, why would I put heavy expectations on a K-Tel pop compilation?, Pop music has never been about getting experimental, or making you think deep, it’s been about selling songs and making money, and in the early seventies - post-Manson Family murders and in the tail end of Vietnam - it was REALLY about just feeling groovy and staying mellow.
And frankly, I didn’t recognize or remember half of the tracks on this collection anyway. “How Do You Do?” by Mouth and MacNeal, a not-bad pop stomper, was a new one to me and probably will be for you too unless you grew up in The Netherlands. I was also pleasantly surprised by Olivia Newton-John’s cover of “If Not For You”, one of George Harrison’s best songs from his first solo album All Things Must Pass. There’s two “rock” tracks thrown in the mix (“Go All The Way” and “Layla”) and more than a few really craptacular stinkers (“The Candy Man” and “Go Away Little Girl”), making this LP a real scattershot affair. It’s pretty obvious they didn’t quite have the programming aspect perfected yet, but it was interesting to listen to it as a snapshot of 1974.