K-tel "Stars" commercial

[pacmanindy]

Yipes! I, for many years, and still, cannot stand Al Stewart. His deadpanned voice is sooo irritating, especially when you listen to "The Year of the Cat," and "Time Passages." HE SUX!

[singlejeff69]

Very cool video of this commercial !!! I still have this album,,,,and I still have my album of 20 power hits,,,volume 1.You know,,,if there is one thing good about this computer age now,,we have youtube and folks like these great people that post these great videos of our childhood here. Thanks for the memories man !!

[mrmjb1960]

Sears carried these at one point..that's where I'd bought my copy of "20 Power Hits,Vol.2".

[LTDViperDeli]

I remember getting this album when I was 5. And I think I still have it. Jesus Christ, I feel old now.

[1retrogurl]

Love it! I kept many of my K-Tel compilation albums from the 70s.  Good times.

[at90percent]

We used to make fun of K-Tel, but at least they really used the ORIGINAL artists recording. Unlike so many other fakers of the day.

[Browningauto5magnum]

Hell..i use to have this record

[selenawannabe]

I have a few of the K tel records still. these were the roots to CDs such as "Now That's What I Call Music" series. Be cool if they'd re release their records into CDs for the fun of it.

[kd4adv]

@selenawannabe Exactly and used the same image used on the album cover.

[DrewziG]

I think my sisters had this one.

[homersimpson0370]

i worked for the guy and he is a cheap basturd, i heard from his a accountant that he is cheating on is taxes thats why they quit

[cobolsaurus]

1977

[HypnoToad72]

The 70s sucked half the time, but they beat the snot out of most of what's made between 1995 and 2010... and counting...

[PrincessofPower84]

@HypnoToad72 Boy, you don't sound like an embittered old fart.

[tobyradloff]

I used to buy every K-Tel, Ronco, and Adam VIII hit record album when the new one came out. They were a good way at the time to get a collection of hit singles on the cheap, but the drawbacks to them were that, because K-Tel and the others squeezed 20 (or 22) songs on one LP, the records were easily scratched and often skipped while playing, even with a new diamond stylus. The 8-tracks often jammed. And most of the songs were edited, sometimes badly. I do miss those K-Tel sets.

[mx94racer]

Does anyone remember when they used to come out with the "generic" compilations? They werent done by the original artists.  It was just someone covering the songs. My mom and I used to make fun of the commercials for them because they sounded so BAD!

[sideshowcarny]

Oh yeah. I remember those. I remember my friend's sister had one with a ridiculous version of Ohio Players "Love Rollercoaster" that would make us laugh.

[selenawannabe]

@sideshowcarny I still have a bunch of them KTel records in my closet, lol. There are still them cover songs CDs out, it irrates me when I find a good CD at Walmart and only to see in little letters below that says "performed by the Countdown Singers".. lol!

[kd4adv]

@selenawannabe Thank you! I used to go to "Memory Lane Records" in Richmond back in the mid 90s and find all kinds of albums, cassettes and stereo systems that had Power and the speaker wire was thicker than those you see on those stereos at retail stores.

[kd4adv]

@selenawannabe Richmond, Virginia that is.

[RRaquello]

I remember those. They would come out at the end of the year and the name of the group was the "Sound Effects", or so they said on the commercial. I was very young at the time, but even so I knew it was crap, LOL.

[wmbrown6]

Not to mention another set of "knockoff" albums by a group called "Dimensional Sound." Whose "sound" was more like one-dimensional. If even that. I remember TWO labels (T.E.J. and United/Superior) put out their manglings of the top hits of the day.

[KidAJonni]

All the songs on this album were 1977 songs. So i assume thats when this compilation album came out.

[cobolsaurus]

1977 that is

[jrg8008]

Oh Jesus Christ, I don't miss this at all. A Worst of the 70's collection, ugh.

5 stars, lol.

[admanhawks]

Does anyone remember the K Tel record matic? It kind of flipped the albums forward until you selected the one you wanted. Then it would stop at the empty slot when you wanted to replace it. I have an album (from K tel) that has an advert for it on back cover & it says "works like a computer"....hehe. I will try & find it & scan it.

[Kenou]

My mom actually still has this albulm lol.

[kimsquit]

I used to have one of those! i'd totally forgotten about it

[lcowles]

Wow. The things you never expect to see again! This was the first album I ever bought with my own money...and it was mostly for the 10CC Things We Do for Love...but they're all terrific on this album. I recently found out there was a K-Tel Christmas album. I found in on CD in a resale store!

[paktype]

Oh, man, "Things We Do for Love" by 10cc puts me into a time warp. I was 12 in the summer of '77. Geez, I was young.

[howImetyourfather]

I still have this record!!

[parkman35]

I remember in '77 listening to the song "The Things We Do For Love" by 10CC on the radio when a news bulletin interrupted that Elvis had died.....

[visor109]

That must have been on August 16th 1977.

[evileyetodd]

Awesome. I've owned this one since it was released but don't remember ever seeing the commercial. Thanks!

[hondolespaul]

I have this on an 8 track tape from 1977!

[david13395]

lol  We were in a pawn shop the other day my boy sats i want that its a scanner... I say no thats a CB... Whats a Cb daddy?

[hondolespaul]

Heck, I have CB radios here lol.

[utube9000]

Get into ARS!

[beatlebijou]

I love K-Tel.

Greatest thing to come from my home state.

[bobross95]

Is this in records shops now??

Sort of thing seen at bootsales now, but back then it would be classy stores like Woolworths that would have stocked this!

[tobyradloff]

Also Cunningham Drug, K mart, Gold Circle, and Uncle Bill's.

[DrewziG]

Gold Circle....the Wal-Mart of the 70's

[scotia902]

Hall and Oates

[chazcov08]

I don't know if this is too nerdy or not, but I like to research the K-Tel album track listings, and then make MP3 playlists that are the same songs in the correct order. If I still listened to CDs, I might even have done that.

[utube9000]

Yes, that is VERY nerdy.

But a great idea!

[bubba362]

Hey I do the same thing!

[bhusar1]

The only problem with making an MP3 of the songs is K-Tel would edit and fade songs out early so you miss K-Tel's creativity???

[DriveInFreak]

I've done that too, but I like to dub off the original LPs, cassettes, and even 8-tracks...yea, yea I know..I just may be one of about 5 people on Earth who've dubbed from 8-track to MP3, let alone still have a deck and some carts.

The problem with the LPs is the bass compression and low levels (especially the pre-'77 releases), but that's easily fixed by running it through an equalizer and boosting the lower end. Also some of the cuts where edited down (again mostly pre-'77).

[glennandrew]

I had that album.

[kgrueschowjr]

you too?

[ruben210]

I still have it.

[goatboy63]

Great stuff, there.but, I am still looking for the K-tel album with the first track just instruments.

[noahf67]

Ah, me childhood...

Days of yore and Baretta...

[utube9000]

Don't do the crime if you can't do the time!

[carouselgal]

Awesome tunage! LOL! I have many of those songs on my 70s cd compilations. I still love them!

[eduardo002]

At least they were the real groups.  These days they are the NOW series.

[beatlefan64]

I also have a copy of this in my vinyl collection. A buddy of mine had a copy as well

[VisionVTV]

I Have it in my vinal collection !

[ABBAFANUSA]

I still own this album. It was my first K-Tel record!

[noahf67]

If you had to have a "first record" that would unquestionably be the one! Wouldn't it be great if despite all the era compilations out there, if K-Tel could just re-release these original ones on CD?

[troyboy1971]

K-Tel had some of the dumbest titles for their various artists albums. Like "Raiders of The Pop Charts", "Chart Action", etc. Anybody remember Quality Records and Polytel Records? They were popular in the late '80's.

[oseum]

use to have that album!

[OpenArms81]

It seemed like Hall&Oates were on every K_tel Record.

[reyguel]

Now that you said that, I'm begining to think they were too !

[OpenArms81]

I had Rich Girl,She's Gone,Sara Smile,and Kiss on My list all on KTel albums.

[reyguel]

K-Tel was television's place to order anything musical. You could find it all including the "Dumb Ditties" album my Mom bought me (from K-Tel of cource) for my birthday.Those were some silly songs.

[movementent]

I still have their "Looney Tunes" album that my mom got for her birthday one year.

[nickatdusk]

i smell the 70's..and I love it! 40 ounce porterhouse steaks and scotch, anyone?

[stephencraig4442]

I still have loads of these albums. This one was purchased at Goodwill store in Slidell, La. I'm now 46. Tells you how long ago that was. Where does all the time go? I wasd in Jr High when all the great 70's songs came out.

[nickatdusk]

I prefer 8-tracks.

[rodineisilveira]

By the hits featured on this K-Tel commercial, I could notice that this commercial is from 1977.

Good times, those ones...

[sticksrossi]

I got this album from 'Almacs Supermarket'! I still have it.

[higgy04]

Coming on strong? What in the world does that mean?!?

[SuperBad1976]

I'd like to check out that old 70's commercial called "SuperBad" It was a record commercial that went like this: "twenty soul-sational sounds from the brothers and sisters who made them great"

[laminage]

I know what you mean. That was the only time that I can remember songs by R & B Artists being promoted in Canada. My other favorites were Girls, Girls, Girls, and Disco Rock. I still have the Old School Music Machine Album that I got for my 13th B-Day.

[higgy04]

I would love to see one of these commercials with the pastel stripes that mentioned where you could buy the record. It was funny when the commercial came to an end and on came these stripes and the appeared crooked on the screen and a wimpy voiced announcer would say, 'Available at Woolco, K-Mart, Miracle Mart, Sears, (Page two had even more crooked stripes) Sam the Record Man, Treble Clef, Eaton's, The Bay.' Boy, what great memories of high tech television back in the '70's.

[murielsartre]

Oh. I don't know this commercial, but I remember singing <i>Rich Girl</i> on the school bus in 2nd grade whenever we heard it on the radio, and it was on the radio a LOT. Huge hit. We little ones thought we were so badass for singing "it's a bitch, girl..."

What a great song.

[staticfluxforever]

Ha! Same here....

[gli7utubeo]

The sad thing is that most of that music is way better that all of the current stuff (just IMHO, of course).

Nothing like Do the Hustle, you know...

[tickkledpinkk]

WOW! I love K-Tel commercials...and use to have the albums!

[iamthepig]

Does anyone have or remember the soul compilation commercials under the Super Bad banner?

[katharina613]

omg! that's embarassing haha :P

[atomicplayboy4u]

Wow I feel old HAHAHA and queer AS IN WIERD ! LOL

[mg4150]

Wow, That's great! I remember this one! Thanks for posting this.

[eyeh8cbs]

The first Betamax came out in late 1975, though it cost over a thousand dollars so only rich people had them.  Sadly a lot of people who taped stuff back then cut out the commercials; they should have realized what an obligation to society they had and taped everything all the time!

[vidlivs]

"Obligation to society" hahaha, I think your reaching buddy. It makes for interesting looks at clothes or hairstyles of an era, but commercials back then were intended to do what they do now, and that's push product.

[Tigerboy83]

The reason? Tapes were expensive so you did what you could to conserve them. I bought my first VHS VCR with my paper route money and I always used the SLP mode and tried to tape while watching so that I could get rid of the commercials.

[zombieddie73]

From where in the hell do you get these from? I know no one had VCR's back then.A dvd copulation of 70's commercials?

[meheuck]

Looks like a 16mm kinescope of a video source.

[cdkscully]

The first VCR was released in 1971.

[staticfluxforever]

dvd "copulation"..........

[zombieddie73]

Compilation......sorry

[staticfluxforever]

lol, with you, not at you....

[tobyradloff]

In 1971-72, Sears sold an early VCR called "Cartrivision"...it was a video tape recorder that came on a console color TV set. However, Cartrivision only lasted a year or so because it didn't sell very well...I believe the TV's with the Cartrivision players sold for around $1500...a lot of money in 1972. Also in the early 1970's, Sony sold the U-Matic VCR, which used large 3/4 inch tape cartridges. Most U-Matics were sold to broadcasters, schools, businesses, and institutions.

[sliv812]

Does anyone have the 1972 commercial for the K-Tel "Believe in Music" compilation? If so, I beg you! Please post it!

[zoat77]

I've stepped back in time!

[pekoe]

primitive lloking graphics memories an thsat guys nasal voice screams 1977

[gregindallas]

I had THIS album. I used to collect those albums. This one covered mostly early 1978 and some late '77.

[angrymarsplanet]

Wow, this takes me back. I think I'll rate this just for its historical value.