Rant #3,736: "Super Bad"

Boy, that title could be attached to what is happening in New York City with its mayoral shenanigans, or it could collectively describe what my son has gone through to get another job.

But today, on a much lighter note, "Super Bad" is actually the title of a 1973 compilation of then-current soul songs that was released on K-Tel Records and pushed through endless TV commercials 

Remember K-Tel Records?

Their albums, generally from the early 1970s through the early to mid-1980s, were compendiums of current hits of the day, and they sold millions of millions of copies during their heyday in the early to mid-1970s, or during my high school years.

On these albums, you might get Elton John and Bachman-Turner Overdrive, but you would also get the Sylvers, Reunion and a myriad of one-hit and two-hit wonders like Paper Lace and Blue Swede.

Not only that, but the albums were chock full of songs--20 to 24 songs per release--so to fit all those songs on each side, you would often get abbreviated tunes, much less time than the actual single or album cut actually featured.

You would often get real hitmakers--like James Brown and Joe Tex--mixed in with no-hit, at least in the U S., artists like Blue Mink and Cliff Richard.

I found out some time ago that, for instance, for K-Tel to get the likes of Elton John on one of their compilation LPs, they had to agree to take some lesser artists, like Cliff Richard, and these records were often the place where an artist like Richard--who was huge in Europe and throughout the rest of the world--were first heard by American listeners.

K-Tel was also involved in non-recording projects, such as Ronco, the home of Ron Popeil and his numerous kitchen gadgets and even more numerous commercials toting these products, like "Pocket Fisherman" and the like.

K-Tel was actually a Canadian company, and through various bankruptcies and other legal proceedings, I don't believe they exist anymore, at least as "K-Tel."

I guess I was looking for something different to digitize last week, which was a somewhat slow week for me due to Independence Day coming on a Friday this year, and I happened upon these LPs, of which I have seven, plus one or two others somehow linked up with the K-Tel name but not actually K-Tel records proper.

And yes, one of them was the aforementioned "Super Bad," an LP that features full and truncated versions of songs by everyone from Isaac Hayes to Freda Payne to Millie Jackson.

And "Super Bad" it is.

I don't know where I got this record, but the first side is pretty beat up but listenable--

But the second side is beat up and unlistenable, with more scratches than someone with poison ivy.

Happily, I have all the songs elsewhere from the second side, so I just copied them and moved them to the "Super Bad" file folder, ready for me to listen to them in the car.

I have digitized a couple of these other K-Tel LPs that I have in my collection--with titles including "20 Power Hits " and "Out of Sight"--and some of the albums play well, while others are--

"Super Bad."

But they are all a lot of fun, and 50 years after the fact, they are nice to rediscover again.

And I will bet that if you are around my age, and collected records during the 1970s, you, yourself, probably have at least one K-Tel album in your collection.

They are fun records featuring fun music from a different time and place ...

And it is nice going into the "Wayback Machine" every once in a while to redisover these albums and the music that they feature.

"The Night Chicago Died" anybody?