Essential Classics for a Saturday Afternoon....

The Doors - The Doors

The Rolling Stones - Goat's Head Soup

The Beatles - 1967-1970

Pink Flloyd - The Wall

K-tel Records "Block Buster" Commercial - 1976

Twenty original hits, original stars, be sure to get the best from K-Tel. LP $5.99, tape $6.99.

A little Musical History

“K-Tel Block Buster Commercial” circa 1976

There is no getting around the fact that the seventies were pretty funky. There was such a wide variety of music produced that if you did not like something, next week there would be something you did like.There was a huge market of teenagers to tap into and hucksters and hustlers alike were there with knives, fry pans, and mood rings for the average guy watching the tube, kicking back in his platform shoes and colourful shirt.

The boomers were veraciously buying music like it was going out of style so it was no wonder a company called K-tel targeted this and made out like bandits. Their famous compilations made it an affordable way to get a good sample of current hits, putting up with the other ‘stuff’ they put on them. As they advertised though, the songs were the original songs by the original artists. That was their appeal. Clearly the songs were shortened at times so the compressed groves of the records could fit all 20 or even 25 songs on the album. When you compress the grooves on the records so much, you tend to lose some of the ‘information’ so the recordings although ‘stereo’ were not of the highest quality; although few noticed I’m sure.  The compilations were the best, but K-Tel did do other collections such as Michael Jackson, Elvis, even an obscure Nanette Workman.