I was in an op shop today ('opportunity shop' = second-hand shop in Australia), and I saw two compilation albums from the early 1990s. One of them was one I had listened to when it came out, so I decided to buy them both, for $2.25 each. And then I decided I would embark on a mission to collect as many compilation CDs as I possibly could, from the late '80s to the mid-'90s. Because why not? Each of these albums is, in effect, a time capsule.
A brief history of the compilation album.
Compilations go back over half a century. As far back as the late 1950s they were being produced by record labels such as Festival and W&G. However it was probably Philip Kives through his brand Majestic that began the phenomenon "As advertised on TV", and the market started to take off. A record label would usually release a compilation to showcase their own artists. For example, Tamla Motown had a series of nine
Motown Chartbusters compilations from 1968 to 1974.
By the late 1970s, telemarketing companies such as K-Tel (also founded by Philip Kives) and Ronco (founded by Ron Popeil) faced some stiff competition in the compilation albums market and by the late 1980s, the major labels had more or less taken control of it, labelling the front covers of their records with "Original artists — Original hits" to show they were the real deal. K-Tel eventually focused on putting out re-recordings and covers of popular hits. Any company that tried passing off their 'soundalikes' by anonymous session musicians as the real thing were soon shut down by the major labels.
In Australia, major record companies joined together to put out compilation albums from about 1980. CBS, EMI, WEA and Festival were all involved, thus cutting out the middlemen — K-Tel and their ilk. But those companies still continued with releases of their own, containing songs licensed from various record labels — not all of them hit singles.
In 1983 Ronco released
Raiders Of The Pop Charts, which got to number 1 on the U.K. album chart despite having plenty of padding. It featured 7 songs from the Virgin vaults, including the comp's only number 1, "Do You Really Want To Hurt Me" by Culture Club. But most listeners would have been confused by the inclusion of "Rawhide" by The Chaps, "The On And On Song" by Precious Little, a jazz-funk rendition of the
Blade Runner theme by Morrissey-Mullen, and other stuff that didn't even chart.
In an attempt to prove the song itself was the star, some companies put out cut-price albums of 'soundalikes', with slightly pervy covers of female models. They were a success before the majors killed them off — they were also disqualified from the chart because their budget price gave them an advantage. Even as late as the 1990s, compilation covers still felt it necessary to reassure potential buyers these were "Original artists, Original hits", and sometimes even "Full length versions".
It's somewhat appropriate then, that the first entry in my (hopefully) long-running series of second-hand compilation CD finds is one that I actually listened to when it first came out, although I didn't own it myself.
Compilation: 100% Hits, Volume 2
Released: 1991 – Warner Music Australia
Number of tracks: 18
Number one singles: None
Top ten singles: 6
Best track: "Someone's Singing New York New York" by Ghostwriters
Hidden gem: "Too Many Walls" by Cathy Dennis
The soon-to-be long-running
100% Hits
series was just finding its feet in terms of presentation here. I always thought the front cover was meant to resemble the cover of one of the pop mags as was then around, such as
Hit Songwords. The "Free! Songwords inside" label is quite reminiscent of that — those were the days when comps advertised the fact that lyrics were included so's you could sing along in your bedroom using a hairbrush as a microphone, or something.
Note that Jenny Morris has the biggest picture on the cover. Probably because her number 2 hit "Break In The Weather" is the closest thing to a number 1 single here, and therefore the best performer chart-wise. It's actually a really good song, with a slightly unnverving video involving doll parts and a ventriloquist's dummy. Charting almost as high is "Sexy (Is The Word)" by Melissa, which reached number 3. I liked her previous single "Read My Lips", which got to number 1, but this one is awful. The vocals are absolutely tune-free and grate away at your sanity, therefore the track must be skipped. They put it as the second track on the CD, right behind "Good Vibrations" by Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch. Which is a half-decent song. Gotta love that anti-drug lyric in the 3rd verse, "Drug free, so put the crack up. No need for speed, I'm anti-D-R-U-G-G-I-E".
The rest of the songs are fairly familiar to chart-followers — hits from Scorpions, Roxette and Gang Starr — bar some filler from Divinyls, The Escape Club and a few other saddoes, but the comp finishes with its best track, the brilliant Ghostwriters single, which somehow only reached number 29 in the charts. Still, that song alone makes the price of admission worthwhile.
Rating: 6/10
