Remember the K-Tel ‘As Advertised on TV’ Compilation Albums?
by Best Classic Bands Staff
If you’re of a certain age, you’ll remember seeing commercials for such products as the Record Selector and Fishin’ Magician on TV. These and many others were thanks to the ingenious marketer to the masses, Philip Kives of K-tel fame, who died April 27, 2016, at age 87 after decades of revolutionizing product advertising and marketing. Among the many sales-generating innovations by the Canadian entrepreneur was the development of the compilation album, which became a potent music marketing tactic and generated untold millions in new income in the recorded music industry in the pre-CD era.
K-Tel popularized TV “infomercials” for the Record Selector, Miracle Brush and other products and bringing the phrase “as advertised on TV” into the modern lexicon.
We can’t help but cringe every time the voiceover pronounces “rec-ord.”
In 1966 Kives compiled the album 25 Greatest Country Hits (which came with a bonus Bobby Darin 45 RPM single). The album was a sales success. His next release was a rock album followed by 25 Polka Greats, which sold 1.5 million copies in North America (at a time when million selling albums were a rarity).
1972’s 22 Explosive Hits included favorites from Derek & the Dominos, Olivia Newton-John, “and many more!”
“I didn’t look upon it as a long-term deal,” said Kives, born Feb. 12, 1929. “I looked upon it as a one-time product. Record companies in those days didn’t know what compilation albums were. They had vast catalogs of music they didn’t know what to do with.”
K-Tel’s biggest selling release was Hooked on Classics in 1981, which sold a reported 10 million copies. A single was a Top 10 novelty hit.
Related: The same musician who orchestrated ELO gave us Hooked on Classics
In addition to generating previously untapped income in the vinyl record era for record companies, music publishers, songwriters and artists, Kives’ multi-artist compilation concept helped provide a boon when the advent of the compact disc enabled record labels to re-sell music on a new format.
Watch a vintage ad for “5th Dimension Special” with 20 great hits on one great stereo LP. (Why is the announcer shouting?)
Although K-tel compilations were often sniffed at as low-brow, Kives was as influential to the growth of the recorded music business as the many great “record men” revered by the industry and music loving public.
Other K-Tel products were also available at retail, like the “I’m in the Mood” shirt, “perfect for today’s lifestyle.”
For many years, one of Kives’ main suppliers was Ronco and their popular “o-Matic” products like the “Veg-o-Matic.” K-Tel’s sales went from a reported $23 million in 1971 to $178 million in 1981. (The company says it had sold more than half-a-billion albums.)
K-Tel began to diversify into significantly different businesses and within three years filed for bankruptcy protection. The firm reorganized and eventually reached profitability once more.
It has its own catalog with some 6,000 tracks that it continues to license and sell via iTunes and other digital music outlets. Some of the classic albums are available on Amazon.
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18 Comments so far
Jump into a conversationK-tel prices good, but what about quality? Pops, hisses…. I wonder how many plays
you get till you groove into cardboard=ha, ha!
I still have “25 Golden Greats” which featured 50’s and early 60’s rock and pop, and another one called “California Sun” which is pretty self-explanatory.
It should be noted that Art Laboe and his “Original Sound” label introduced the first compilation LP “Oldies But Goodies” in 1959. It was first aimed at the Los Angeles market but went national and reached #12 on the Billboard LP chart.
I still have my K-tel best hits record from early 1970 that included The Rapper, Love Grows Where My Rosemary Goes, Ma Belle Ami, etc…
I only had one k-tel album ever and I don’t remember what it was called, but I remember it had Venus by Shocking Blue and Crystal Blue Persuasion by Tommy James and the Shondells and Indiana Wants Me by R. Dean Taylor. I don’t remember anything else that was on it but I was only about 10 years old and I thought it was the greatest thing in the world.
I always thought it was some kind of martian marketing scam like Ron Popel’s pocket fisherman. Kind of aimed at the Cowsills and Partridge Family crowd. Which was unfortunately was too big and is part of what got us to where we are today.
What you figured out about these LPs, is that you played them once to get a level and timings, and then you dubbed your favorite tracks to cassette.
The songs tended to be rolled off pretty quickly at the end, so that a 3:00 song might be 2:30 on the K-Tel Comp, much the way American Top 40 would dump out of a song in the early days.
Bring back the “MOOD” t-shirts! (& stop shouting)….
“Record companies in those days didn’t know what compilation albums were. They had vast catalogs of music they didn’t know what to do with.” Total baloney!
ABC/Dunhill Records released “Treasury Of Great Contemporary Hits” in 1969, featuring big hits from it’s catalogue:
SIDE ONE
[4:30] **Magic Carpet Ride – Steppenwolf
[2:32] California Dreamin’ – The Mamas & the Papas (1/66 – #4)
[2:42] Midnight Confessions – The Grass Roots (8/68 – #5)
[3:59] Try a Little Tenderness – Three Dog Night (2/69 – #29)
[2:56] Dedicated to the One I Love – The Mamas & the Papas (2/67 – #2)
[3:29] Eve of Destruction – Barry McGuire (8/65 – #1)
SIDE TWO
[3:03] Monday, Monday – The Mamas & the Papas (4/66 – #1)
[2:35] Let’s Live For Today – The Grass Roots (5/67 – #8)
[3:43] Dream a Little Dream of Me – Mama Cass, w./the Mamas & the Papas (7/68 – #12)
[3:28] Born to Be Wild – Steppenwolf (7/68 – #2)
[7:20] MacArthur Park – Richard Harris (5/68 – #2)
TOTAL TIME: 40:17
Clearly precedes any K-tel release, and making comment by Kives baseless.
Not to mention the yearly Christmas comps you could get from your local tire shop.
Art Laboe’s Oldies But Goodies (started in 1959), and the K-Tel catalog (starting 1966) helped inspire the Cruisin DJ tribute series, starting 1970.
Cruisin’ 56 June 1970 Robin Seymour Detroit WKMH
Cruisin’ 57 June 1970 Joe Niagara Philadelphia WIBG
Cruisin’ 58 June 1970 Jack Carney St. Louis WIL
Cruisin’ 59 June 1970 Hunter Hancock Los Angeles KGFJ
Cruisin’ 60 June 1970 Dick Biondi Buffalo WKBW
Cruisin’ 61 June 1970 Arnie Ginsburg Boston WMEX
Cruisin’ 62 June 1970 Russ Knight Dallas KLIF
Cruisin’ 63 January 1972 B. Mitchel Reed New York City WMCA
Cruisin’ 64 September 1973 Johnny Holliday Cleveland WHK
Cruisin’ 65 September 1973 Robert W. Morgan Los Angeles KHJ
Cruisin’ 66 September 1973 Pat O’Day Seattle KJR
Cruisin’ 67 September 1973 Dr. Don Rose Atlanta WQXI
That 1963 WMCA one was a staple of my listening for decades and I still stick it on once in a while.
Uhhh, wasn’t K-Tel known to edit songs (perhaps worse than “American Top 40”) in order to squeeze so many of them onto a long-player?
And likely sped up some of them, as well.
Name a K-Tel album from the latter half of the 70s that did NOT have at least one track from KC & The Sunshine Band.
Not to forget the early 70s K-Tel compilation of soul/funk/r&b – “Super Bad”, and its seemingly played every 15 minutes commercial (with the Isaac Hayes/”Shaft” intro) of “Super Bad – Twenty soul-sational songs from the brothers and sisters who made them great”….
You could also get some rare mixes on these. In the early 70s I got a 50s comp with a stereo version of “Born Too Late”.
Later, on one of Morris Levy’s Adam VIII comps (I wonder if ANYONE got paid for those) you got the cool James Brown “Payback” 45 mix, with the DJ floating over JB (this one is for AT-LANTA!).
I still have a couple of these from the ’70s, but yeah, the quality was NOT good. They tended to pack on too many songs for the grooves to handle – around 10 or more songs on each side – and they also tended to edit them down so they could pack on more songs, so if a song was three and a half minutes, you more likely to get only about two minutes and fifty seconds on the K-Tel version. And they may not have been the first to come up with compilation albums, but they were among the first. Side note: I actually POSSESS several of the K-Tel radio ads that I use on my weekend oldies show, and they sound great!