I don't think I should be admitting this really.
My friends will laugh.
I will though.
I'll stand up and admit it.
Back in the 1970s I bought quite a few of the "Top of the Pops" series of albums.
My friends will laugh.
I will though.
I'll stand up and admit it.
Back in the 1970s I bought quite a few of the "Top of the Pops" series of albums.
There it's done.
Now it's possible, probable even, that some of you, especially those overseas, don't know what these albums were. There were, apparently, ninety-two altogether in the series - though I had only about a dozen. They sold over three million copies. They were mostly not eligible for the album charts because they were budget priced but in the very brief period when they were eligible two of them made number one.
So what were they? They were albums by anonymous artists covering an astonishingly wide range of currently popular chart hits, about a dozen per album. The front of the sleeve always featured a list of the tracks and, crucial to pubescent boys, a scantily clad model.
The songs were covered as closely as possible to the original sound and often they made a pretty fair job of it, though I recall that the attempts at imitating singers with distinctive voices weren't always successful. David Bowie covers always seemed to come out particularly weakly.
Now I know that they were looked down on by nearly everybody. After all if you were a fan you'd buy the real thing wouldn't you? But I always quite enjoyed them. They were cheap and cheerful and very much a product of the era.
Anyway, I am quite nostalgic about them.
Even if this is the first time I've ever told anybody that I bought them.
Now it's possible, probable even, that some of you, especially those overseas, don't know what these albums were. There were, apparently, ninety-two altogether in the series - though I had only about a dozen. They sold over three million copies. They were mostly not eligible for the album charts because they were budget priced but in the very brief period when they were eligible two of them made number one.
So what were they? They were albums by anonymous artists covering an astonishingly wide range of currently popular chart hits, about a dozen per album. The front of the sleeve always featured a list of the tracks and, crucial to pubescent boys, a scantily clad model.
The songs were covered as closely as possible to the original sound and often they made a pretty fair job of it, though I recall that the attempts at imitating singers with distinctive voices weren't always successful. David Bowie covers always seemed to come out particularly weakly.
Now I know that they were looked down on by nearly everybody. After all if you were a fan you'd buy the real thing wouldn't you? But I always quite enjoyed them. They were cheap and cheerful and very much a product of the era.
Anyway, I am quite nostalgic about them.
Even if this is the first time I've ever told anybody that I bought them.
4 comments:
Funny how shame can follow you down the years. And shame about cheap remakes seems sad. But understandable in adolescence. You wouldn't care tuppence about it now, would you? You'd still buy them without a twinge. Wouldn't you?
I bought a couple, too, I confess. IIRC I was quite pleased at how similar the covers sounded to to original artists on the first one. I also remember taking it to a couple of parties and my friends all thought they were the the original songs. On the second, though, the sound wasn't quite right on any of the tracks.
A little earlier, in the early 60s, a lot of American releases were covered over here by British singers, and sometimes both made the charts.
These days, at least here in the US, Disney does similar compilations of covers. They're not trying so hard to sound just like the original artists, though, as they are all Disney-fied covers. Ew.
How did I forget to respond to Elisabeth's comment here?
Buy them? I'd actively seek them out now. If I could get them, especially at the prices I paid them, I'd love to have some of them. It would be worth it for the curiosity value alone.
I have no idea what happened to the ones I used to have but I no longer have them.
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