This Is Book's Music

As I was growing up and getting into music as much more than just something cool to listen to, I made lists of projects I wanted released. I have a book somewhere where I actually came up with the “cassingle” concept, where one would be able to have the same two songs on a 7″ 45rpm record on a cassette. This was before they were placed on the market, and had I knew about trademarks, I could have cashed in big time. At a young age, I was already an armchair record company CEO, wanting labels to release this or that, and I was never afraid to find out who controlled certain departments at a label, so that my mail would go directly to them. In time I became a writer, and I would continue writing to publicists and music supervisors not only for free music (back when “free music” was reserved for a select few) but in the hopes one of my ideas would be used. I wanted to be in the recording industry, I wanted to not only work in the mailroom, but become a publicist, reissue supervisor, I wanted to run a label. I wanted to be bigger than Capitol, Atlantic, Warner Bros., and Columbia combined. Wishful thinking, I know, but it would not stop me from wanting to make an impact, however small.

If I’ve made an impact, I’d like to think it was with my reviews and articles. If I’m able to find a way for fans to at least be motivated to listen to something I recommend, I’m happy. I’ll rarely hear about it, but I’m hopeful people will take that chance.

It’s the same album as the one I already have four copies of, so why would I want two more? It’s a chance to hear the same seven songs mastered slightly different than what I’m used to. I love the sound of Columbia albums in the 1970′s, but I’m curious to know if it was mastered differently for Japanese audiences, and if that master is different from the Japanese CD (most likely it is). Even if I obtained the Japanaese LP, why would I now want the album yet again, in Half-Speed Mastered form? Because it was mastered differently, and this matters to me because I want to know, hear, and experience the differences, however small. Half-Speed Mastering was done at a time when perhaps record labels stopped caring for quality control so much, so having to create something with a specific slogan was their way of not only making more money, but letting the public know “we have created a better pressing which we think you will prefer.” Arguably it was the Deluxe Edition of the late 1970′s/early 1980′s, where the public had the option to buy the same set of songs again, but perhaps with slightly different graphics on the cover. To the casual music fan, this means nothing to them. To the serious music listener and audiophile, it’s all about variations, and I wnat to hear them. I also know of a British pressing of Sun Goddess on CBS with an orange label, and just to be a completist, maybe I’d buy that too but right now my goal is to get the Japan pressing and the Half-Speed. Are there Australian, French, and German pressings? Was there an inferior Taiwan pressing? There might be, but I don’t have too much interest in them.

Frankie Goes To Hollywood might not be on the list of mandatory artists to collect, definitely not up there with The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, or Elvis Presley, but I got into them primarily because of the sound and production, done primarily by Trevor Horn. I also loved what Paul Morley did with his level of superhype, created with incredible liner notes and myth creation. It was never “oh, Frankie Goes To Hollywood are from Liverpool, maybe they’ll be as big as The Beatles” or “they’re kinda new wave”, it was always about the music. I love Welcome To The PleasureDome, and it’s an album that I think saved me from complete mental hell when I had moved from Honolulu to the Pacific Northwest. I also liked how their record label, Zang Tuum Tumb, would release a single but not just the standard 7″ 45 or the 12″. There would be an alternate 12″, maybe a 7″ and 12″ picture disc, the cassingle, the shaped picture disc, or maybe two promotional mixes made exclusively for radio. I loved the ideas of multiples (which sounds like something you’d hear in a porn video but that’s another topic, perhaps another time), so I would find myself getting records from different countries. I wanted to explore that with Welcome To The PleasureDome and I have to a small degree. I have the US, UK, UK picture disc, Canada, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, and Yugoslavian pressings. In the US it was released via Island Records, which at the time was a WEA-affiliated label. In Japan it was released through Island/Polystar, and in New Zealand through Festival, and it’s cool to see the variations, however minor. Since FGTH were not as big as The Beatles, being able to find other world pressings should not be difficult. As I look at the page for the album at Discogs.com, I see that there are pressings in Greece, Israel, Portugal, Scandinavia, France, Italy, and Spain. I want them all. Were there pressings in Hong Kong? South Korea? I want to know. But as you can see, the list of countries isn’t big. Compare that with a Beatles album that was released around the world. I could easily complete my collection by the end of the week.

One day my parents and I went to the Kamehameha Super Swap Meet one weekend, something we always did, and after falling in love with what was the longest movie I had ever seen up until that point, I saw the soundtrack album. Three records, and the cost? A massive three dollars. I begged and pleaded, and told them “get me this, and you will not have to get me anything for Christmas” or some stupid shit just so I could get the record, take it home, and listen. They gave me the pitiful look, but once I saw the hand reaching into the purse, I smiled and ran to the man who had the album. Gave him the three dollars, wanting to go home right now. I either played Santana‘s “Soul Sacrifice” or Ten Years After‘s “I’m Going Home” first, and I just put myself into the music and got lost. 1979 was the year I discovered The Beatles and hip-hop, and I believe was the year I found Woodstock. I was set for life. Well, I wasn’t prepared for losing a parent, good friends, and bills, but still.

Woodstock became a worldwide phenomenon, now every country wanted to have their own gigantic festival and a lot of them failed. But the myth created behind the movie and soundtrack was what I lived for, for the simply fact that it looked and sounded good. As a kid I would say “if I had a time machine, I’d want to go to 1950 so I could experience The Beatles and Woodstock in real time”. As I got older, I still think it would have been an incredible thing to be a part of, but that’s a very naive me speaking as a pre-teen. Someone like me with my ethnic mix might not have been able to live outside of Hawai’i or California, either I would be a statistic or fighting for the civil rights of all but… it would have been interesting.

Nonetheless, the soundtrack album moved me and I was always curious as to how the soundtrack was perceived. I don’t have as many pressings of Woodstock as I do of Welcome To The PleasureDome but I do have them for the U.S., Germany, Taiwan, and Israel. The album, a 3LP set, was originally released in 1970 on Cotillion Records, a subsidiary of Atlantic. Back then, the double album was considered “the event” but a 3LP set? Even The Beatles didn’t have a 3-record set, and now there’s one for a damn music and art fair? Anyway, as is the case with Atlantic-related albums in other countries, sometimes Woodstock would be released not with the Cotillion label, but with the Atlantic label, such as this pressing from Venezuela:

Argentina:

Or labels that have absolutely nothing to do with Cotillion or Atlantic, such as these pressings from South Korea and China respectively:

The album was also released with different covers. Uruguay pressing? Sure:

In India, the album was not released as a 3LP set but as three individual records with a different color scheme for each one:

Czechoslovakia? Yes.

In South Korea, there seems to be a few counterfeit pressings, which seems to have been customary in Asian countries that didn’t have proper record label affiliates. Somewhere down the line, there was an official pressing, and that had a completely different album cover as well. I can use eBay and other sites to find out which pressings are out there, it’s much cheaper to do that than it is to fly there and look for any stores or collectors, but that’s all a part of the fun of being a collector. There’s no really good reason to do it, other than to do it, and it’s not mandatory or life threatening. It’s merely a hobby, and I try to make it fun. It may be as corny to the outsider as it is for someone who attends Happy Meal toy conventions, but perhaps it’s a way to spice up a hobby that at times can be boring. It’s nothing but dust collecting on an archive I can’t really do anything with unless I’m interactive with it, which means taking the record out of the sleeve, placing it on the turntable, and lowering the stylus onto it.

The buzz would start, and American record labels were not sure what was going on. Only skiffle groups were known to come from England, and yet kids were enjoying the long-haired antics of a group from Liverpool? A few labels discovered that there were songs recorded in the group’s early days, and they obtained the rights to release them. They include MGM and Atco. For a brief moment, Capitol in the U.S. could not keep up with the demand, even though they had their own record pressing plants. In some markets, Beatles records unique to Canada (i.e. they were only released in Canada and did not have a U.S. counterpart) were imported into the U.S., and enough copies were sold to make a dent on the charts. These few records were on Capitol of Canada.

While The Beatles were not signed by Vee Jay, it didn’t stop them from cashing in on Beatlemania that was attacking. The 14 songs they had acquired the rights to was released as the group’s first American album, the 12-track Introducing The Beatles (the American norm for pop was a 12-track album, while the UK standard was 14, so while there are different variations of Introducing The Beatles, one pressing features “Please Please Me” and “Ask Me Why” while another substitutes them for “Love Me Do” and “P.S. I Love You”.) Trying to find a way to sell the same set of songs to the public, those songs were released as singles and 4-song 7″ EP’s. They also released “Twist & Shout” on a subsidiary label, Tollie, which would become the most successful Vee Jay-related record, going as high as #2 on the Billboard singles chart during the week of April 4, 1964 when The Beatles dominated the 1-5 positions, which no one has ever done since (not even Justin Bieber. It did make it to #1 on the Cash Box chart.

Not wanting to stop, Vee Jay would spread the songs apart and release them a number of ways:
* a split album with Frank Ifield and releasing it with two different covers
* a double album “battle” called The Beatles vs. The Four Seasons (later mocked by bootleggers in a number of ways, including the infamous Beatles vs. Don Ho)
* a single album called Songs, Pictures And Stories Of The Fabulous Beatles
* a series of “oldies but goodies” 45′s on the Oldies 45 label

The only record Vee Jay could properly sell without protest was an interview album called Hear The Beatles Tell All. At the time, interview albums were considered almost disposable, so the idea of a record company owning interview recordings was not as big as the music. Speaking of which, Hear The Beatles Tell All did not feature any actual Beatles music, so the record sounds like a long-lost radio talk show but features some nice moments.

When an album went Gold by selling 500,000 copies, the labels would often print up new covers which stated that title won a “Gold Record Award”, with the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) logo. You can find it by looking below the Capitol Records logo on the right hand side:

This distinguishes it from early pressings, and is also a factor in pricing. Now, if you see this RIAA “Gold Record” logo, it means again that it sold 500,000 copies. This means technically that at least 300,000 coopies are still roaming the Earth, and that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a one-of-a-kind “rare” piece. If someone charges $500 for it and it looks like an old photo album found in the back of a pick-up truck, put it down and look elsewhere.

Having the RIAA thing doesn’t mean it’s not rare or that you can’t sell it. Keep in mind though that most pop and rock’n'roll records were played by kids and teens who could care less about record care. Records were often left out of covers, so if someone stepped on it, it would scrape with the carpet. Not exactly great condition. Handwriting on the cover? Put it down. But if you manage to find a copy that looks like the cellophone plastic was just ripped from it, you *might* have something.

But then you have the issue of record labels. It was also common for companies to change the design of the label every few years. The most popular titles would get the new labels, and that would be part of the practice until Capitol stopped pressing records on a regular basis. Since Meet The Beatles was released in 1964, Capitol’s labels looked like this:

What you see here is the first variation of the mono label, and there would be three others with different things on the label (primarily publishing information) distinguishing them from one another.