Apart from some import punk compilations, nearly all of my early 1990s vinyl purchases were secondhand copies of older albums. New releases were purchased on tape and (later) compact disc, which had the advantages of greater portability and ease of use. Records were an easy way to build up a library on the cheap, thanks […]

It’s time for another dive into the howling vortex of the 1983 pop charts, as chronicled by K-Tel’s midlist compilation albums. In this case, the insanity is not merely implied… …it’s directly stated in the title. Honestly, the whole Dancing Madness angle doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. It’s the type of title […]

As mentioned previously, my recollections of Chart Action 83‘s track list experienced a good deal of inflationary haziness during the two decades between losing and replacing my copy of that crucial compilation. It grew to include every fondly remembered slice of pop fluff heard on WHTT (“Boston’s HOT HIT radio!”) over the course of that […]

I’m going to go out of sequence with this week’s entry, which is fitting because it was both my most recent record purchase and the second K-Tel comp I bought with my own money. The album is Hit Mix, released in 1984 and originally purchased by yours truly from a cassette bargain bin at Bradlees […]

This week we’re taking another trip back to the heart of the Me Decade as chronicled by overstuffed mid-list music compilations of dubious production quality. The album is K-Tel’s Hit Machine, covering the mellow pop thrills which graced the chart in late 1975 and early 1976. Here’s the track list: A1 K.C. & The Sunshine […]

As the stack of compilations on my shelf grew larger, it was time to adopt a methodical approach to my collecting. I tabbed on over to the utterly invaluable Discogs database and spent the better part of a week working my way though the entire chronology of K-Tel releases, with a specific emphasis on the […]

Even as I dug through a disorganized assortment of crates in search of my copy of Rock 80, another auditory artifact from a bygone era was making its way from someone’s damp basement to my front porch. The album was Right On, a 1976 release that represents the apotheosis of K-Tel’s midlist compilations during the […]

As my collection of K-Tel compilations began to grow, I realized my old assortment of platters included one of the label’s most celebrated releases. Rock 80 was a two-time hand-me-down. An older cousin passed it on to a tween-age Maura, who in turn handed it off to me during the early days of our relationship. […]

Another Monday, another truncated ‘n’ squished collection of pop hits from the polyester apocalypse of the early 1970s. The album is the creatively titled 22 Explosive Hits, Vol 2, released by K-Tel in 1972. I purchased it for the same reason I purchased the thematically similar Believe in Music compilation — to cheaply acquire a […]

After realizing the value of K-Tel compilations as historic-nostalgic core samples of my wayward youth, I decided to dig a bit deeper into that vein, past the hazy recollections of pre-adolescence and into the primordial murk of my early childhood. When all is said and done, I am a child of the Seventies. The eight […]