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How many of us have ever collected these records? I don't mean the compilations from the TV show, I'm talking about a series of 92 albums that had popular songs of the time recorded by cover artists and released every 6 weeks from 1968 - 1982.
My mother bought me Volume 48 for my 5th birthday (which I've still got), and some of my relatives bought me subsequent albums. In my teens and 20's I managed to find some of them in second hand shops and record fairs and bought them.
The collectability of the albums mostly lies in the fact that they provided eye candy for the listener by featuring beautiful models on the front cover posing off with a billboard with all the songs listed in random order, and the back cover had witty hyperbole blurbs on it as to why the buyer should purchase said album.
As they were budget albums, the recording quality and musicianship of the songs tended to vary from absolutely brilliant at times, to absolutely awful depending on your point of view. They became much maligned in the early 80's when the public started to go off them and preferred to buy pop compilations by real arists and changing the chart positions so that imitation albums wouldn't make the charts in lieu of the real thing.
Most of the albums featured semi-famous 60's rocker Tony Rivers doing the lead vocals on the songs, as well as a few others like Elton John and Tina Charles who went onto greater fame in the 70's.
http://topofthepopslps.weebly.com/
My mother bought me Volume 48 for my 5th birthday (which I've still got), and some of my relatives bought me subsequent albums. In my teens and 20's I managed to find some of them in second hand shops and record fairs and bought them.
The collectability of the albums mostly lies in the fact that they provided eye candy for the listener by featuring beautiful models on the front cover posing off with a billboard with all the songs listed in random order, and the back cover had witty hyperbole blurbs on it as to why the buyer should purchase said album.
As they were budget albums, the recording quality and musicianship of the songs tended to vary from absolutely brilliant at times, to absolutely awful depending on your point of view. They became much maligned in the early 80's when the public started to go off them and preferred to buy pop compilations by real arists and changing the chart positions so that imitation albums wouldn't make the charts in lieu of the real thing.
Most of the albums featured semi-famous 60's rocker Tony Rivers doing the lead vocals on the songs, as well as a few others like Elton John and Tina Charles who went onto greater fame in the 70's.
http://topofthepopslps.weebly.com/
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