K-Tel Records Radio Commercial - 1978

[sandytinky]

Those old 70's songs are the best!

[Pookatube]

Sounds like it was on THE BIG 8 CKLW!

[WrestlingHeretic]

It's like K-Tel had the prescience to know exactly who was going to be a one-hit wonder even when their one hit was hot at the time, and they signed every one of them.

[clintonearlwalker]

:42 "Thunder Island", by Jay Ferguson, I still have the sheet music to that one from high school days. (and the original 45 rpm I just remembered)

[TheKinetoa]

It seems almost unimaginable any more, but before cassettes, you were totally trapped into whatever they sold you. Getting a compilation like this was great, otherwise there was literally no way to mix and match songs from different artists and styles.

[tommieparch]

klo;

[tommieparch]

loko

[tommieparch]

all of these songs were cut in half on k-tel & the audio was bad..

[steadfastcoward]

@tommieparch But we couldn't afford a lot of LPs and our parents would let us play them. You say half a song, I say HEAVEN. I still had a Westinghouse AM tube clock radio and a Panasonic portable mono recorder!

[castertunes1967]

Remember each song!

[davshaw5]

Didn't they even shorten the songs to fit 20 songs on one album?

[virnman]

@davshaw5 Actually, the artists themselves would send a "radio edit" aka "single edit" version for AM radio use if the song was longer. FM would play the longer version off of the album. Plus, the DJ would usually talk over the intro and ending on AM back then.

[lcozzarelli]

@virnman Annoyingly, DJ's talk over the intro and the ending *now*!

[NoIDidunt10]

Oh God,Dan Hill was one of the worst singers of the period.I HATED hearng that garbage song every time it came on the radio

[virnman]

@NoIDidunt10 Was the honesty too much? Did you have to close your eyes and hide?

[The096757]

never heard of gene cotton before. the dan hill song was still being heard up until the mid 1990s.

[JsgHair71]

Somewhere I have 'Sesame Street Disco' that I bought with my allowance at Gibson's in Casper Wyoming for around 3 bucks. There is nothing sadder than the disco version of "C is for Cookie" but you couldn't have told the 7 year old me that.

[clintonearlwalker]

I had several K-Tel albums and I thought they were great!! I still have them. The thing about K-Tel is that at least they used the original artist singing the original songs. I have several albums where they got some knock off band to sing the famous songs, you should hear those :(

[dkwatson1966]

I had most of those God-awful sounding albums, as some call them and I can honestly say nothing sounded better than a clean LP with a new needle (stylus nowadays) on a good turntable.

[JoshuaTaylor]

Gads. K-Tel used to use old melted down vinyl from albums that didn't sell, paper labels and all, and pressed these God-awful sounding things and sell them to an unsuspecting music buying public. The audio quality was *awful*, but I guess folks in the 70's didn;t seem to care....

[savgal1211]

@JoshuaTaylor To much Marijuana on board!!

[judacia]

nice job!

[bunkieb00]

I had the 8-track of this Long Live Jay Ferguson!!

[SPDY65]

Geesh, remember how we HATED these annoying commercials when they aired? Now, they are almost priceless. Cool memories..... Thanks!

[sparkybluefox]

great tunes from a great time!

[usa02]

Most of these stores that are heard at the end are no longer in business.

[armybeef68]

I STILL have two of those albums that were in the beginning of the video...LOL

[StormHater33]

LOL! Soo cheesy but funny as hell..love it!

[motherbrain86]

@CollectorOfMusic vinyl ftw, i blow so much money on vinyl

[TiggerPleeze]

"This Time I'm In It For Love" by Player. And you all thought they were just a one-hit wonder with "Baby Come Back," didn't ya???

[kittygrrlhk]

I now have most of those songs on my ipod.  How technology has changed.

[nigel2568]

I found Neals record collection :-D

[beckigreen]

The original thats what I call music.

[RetroCaptain]

Good Day!

I have a # of K-tel lp's.....& a K-tel selector still in the box.

It was a more economical way to have your fave tunes on 1 disc. Their philosophy, which sold well.

[ClarenceFisher]

@RetroCaptain How could you beat 22 songs for 4 bucks! Nice bargain, that was. I loved being too innocent to notice the audio compresssion and editing. If I heard those same albums today, I'd have a stroke.

[Carycomic]

@ClarenceFisher

The old "Super Bubble" commercial offered approximately _thirty_ songs on a three record set!

[prospectus91]

@Carycomic

Holy crud!  I still have a set of "Super Bubble" somewhere!

[Carycomic]

@prospectus91

Including the commercial with those hotties in the red T-shirts? ;-)

[prospectus91]

@Carycomic

I remember that! Yeah, they were on the cover...red hotpants, chewing bubblegum...those were the years.

[saml760]

the problem i always had with having all those songs on one side of the album was that some of the songs would be cut short and that always pissed me off!

[jammer1]

I miss all these mix albums. I have several K-Tel records.

[whsinger]

We had the High Energy LP -- greatmusic!

[oHelmslyo]

Good music here, nonetheless, compared to the shit that I see advertised these days like that atrocious Kidz Bop crap. The seventies had just ultra-innocent fluff like this that could easily be excused now, since today we have absolutely abysmal modern teen pop.

[donjabroni]

Ultra innocent? The seventies were anything but ultra innocent. That was the decade that gave us streaking, cocaine, disco music, and "experimenting", if you know what I mean.

I grew up in the decade myself (born in 1963) and I can tell you I did crazier stuff when I was a teen then my nieces and nephews did.

I don't mind nostalgia myself but let's be real, the 70s was anything but ultra-innocent., especially when I heard sonds such as "push in the bush"

[oHelmslyo]

I suppose "ultra-innocent" was far from the correct term, but it was still much better than Kidz Bop...I cringe whenever I see those little kids on the commercials lip-syncing terribly to terrible songs...*shudders!*

[donjabroni]

Yeah I understand, but I bet this generation would call our music "quaint" like how we called our parents and grandparent's music.

Anyhow I was born in 1957, not 63. I was extremely tired when I wrote it.

[oHelmslyo]

Decent tunes, but of course we all know that its biggest influence was inherent in the fact that it was precisely this kind of thing, essentially, that started punk in the seventies. Not stylistically, but due to the fact that a group of disaffected kids thought this was awful! How ironic.

[peskylisa]

I think I bought just about every one of these K-Tel records when I was a teenager! Just think what heaven I would have been in if mp3 and iPods had existed back then!

[999manman]

Man, I had every one of K-Tel's LPs! They could pack like 15 songs per side!!!

[odie7]

ah, when there was good music!!

[CreativeCritisizm]

Pure music was alive for only a few years after this.

[meatplow00]

I still have "sound explosion", "music express" and "mind bender"....memories indeed....

[kincaide67]

The "High Energy" album ... I think my older brother and/or sister had one of those K-Tel specials! What memories!

[justmoviebay]

my mom work ed for ktel

[booth2710]

Wow - these songs are ancient but still hear them from time to time in clubs and bars to this day !!!

[ffairlane57]

it was ads like these that encouraged people to wear polyester buy awful American cars like the Pinto and the Gremlin.

[13Raven]

Oh my God. I still have this album.

[kaylarose823]

"K-tel's" were the "Nows" of yesteryear!

[NoLawyers4President]

Sounds good. Think I'll run down to Woolworth's and pick up the 8 track.

[Carycomic]

@NoLawyers4President

Or, save yourself some shoe leather by calling toll-free @ "...Murray Hill 7-0900. That's MU-7-0900!* "

*That's how the fast-talking announcer said it, on the very first mail-order record commercial I ever heard as a kid, back in the early Seventies. Alphanumeric prefixes are now defunct, of course.

[jekiwe]

@NoLawyers4President good for you...i'm off to two guys to get mine....on sale too

[lcozzarelli]

@jekiwe OMG...Two Guys!! I forgot!!  What about Grant's? :))

[TerryT1976]

K-Tel Records rule. I find these in the thrift stores and each album has at least more than one favorite. BTW, it sounded like the beginning of a spot for the movie, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band at the end!

[DJKimiazHotLixx]

I had tons of K-Tel records starting with Fantastc in '73 and stored them in my K-Tel record changer. I had so many that I bought 2 record changers. When you pulled the first record forward, all records behind would then automatically flip forward until you found the record you wanted. Double lps didn't quite fit in the slots, so the motion just stopped at those (too heavy!).

[evileyetodd]

I loved this one as a kid and practically played the grooves flat. Like many of the others here, I collected these records in the seventies and received them as gifts for birthdays and holidays. I still have a lot of the K-Tel releases in my archive. Thanks for the post!

[mrdeedz1]

Dayyyyyyum!! this stuff takes me back, man. Back when things werent so hectic in life...at least by today's standards.

[pekoe]

simple times incense Bong hits an a blacklite man good times~~~

[daryl060761]

Thanks for this awesome posting. Original K-Tel radio and TV commercials are hard to come by. You could make the case that MTV took it's early style from the quick edits and hype-oriented announcing style of the original 70's commercials. I collect them, and have at least 100. K-Tel released many bizarre records around the world. Just do a K-Tel search on eBay to see them all! Way cool posting, thanks!!!!!!!!!

[kittygrrlhk]

I remember seeing one of those old K-Tel records in my parents' record collection. It had many of the same songs heard in this commercial.

[markojameow]

K-tel's commercials were tacky and loud, but effective enough to run to K-mart, Towers or Zellers and bug mom for a record or 8-track tape. Thanks, K-tel, for getting me interested in music: I now own nearly 400 CDs and a number of MP-3s. My old K-tel records are hiding in my parents' basement, a surviving (but unusable) remnant from the 1970s.

[tleok2003]

I also had alot of the K-Tel records. I LOVED them! Most of mine were from the late 70's.

[wilkes85]

look at all those K-tel records!! I got a few in that pile too: "Sound Explosion", "Radio Active", "Music Express", "High Energy", "Canadian Mint", "Blast Off", and many more that aren't in that pile.

I should make a video of all the K-tel records, 8 tracks, and cassettes I got.

[darcandkim]

yeh U should,I would love to have them. :)

[wilkes85]

I'm gonna make a vid of them within the next few weeks

[bluemax79]

Man, I miss K-Tel. You could buy a lot of hits on one record.

[wilkes85]

that's why I love buying old K-tel records. I was born in 1985, so i missed out on the '70s, but on most K-tel records, you discover all kinds of obscure songs and bands that no one's thought about in 30+ years.

[hondolespaul]

I have an inventory of K-Tel 8 track tapes. Perhaps I should record every song before they rot out.

[themaltesebippy]

Good ole K-Tel!!

[beckigreen]

I loved K tel! Thanks for posting this!