Rant #3,946: I'm a Believer

I chose the title of this Rant not for the reasons you might think--

But more about that later.

I am feeling OK today, and each day I feel a little better, but honestly, after surgery, it is going to take a few more days to get back to myself.

That arduous task I had to do as part of my healing regimen is something that I do not have to do anymore, as I heard from the doctor yesterday, whose representative told me that I didn't have to do it anymore.

As long as I was regularly doing the final part of that task, I didn't have to do the majority of the task anymore, which made me feel better right then and there.

Yes, I'm a believer that I will eventually conquer all of these things that ail me, but it is going to take some time.

Now onto other things ...

Amidst all of the health concerns I have had over the past couple of years, I have continued to work, without any stoppage.

I have slowed down on what I can do, but I have continued to work, because, as I have said before, I am currently working for my retirement pension, so any stoppage would derail that goal--

Even though I dearly wish I didn't have to do this, and could just simply flat out retire.

But that being said, the work I do generally isn't constant, as rather than work at least an eight-hour day--usually more than that--when I worked full time, I now work anywhere from an hour to sometimes as much as eight or 10 hours a day in my remote editing/writing job.

Lately, it has been a few hours a day, and I am done. 

I don't think I could do much more with all this health stuff swirling around me, so I have cut it down quite a bit.

Anyway, what do I do when I am not working?

I don't like to sit in front of the television all day, although that is tempting.

So rather than do that, I try to keep busy.

I am all over the Internet, on Facebook, and that keeps me going.

But I just love to digitize my records, as putting them in MP3 format allows me to listen to my 10,000 records in my car as I drive from one spot--yes, including doctors' visits--to another.

I have digitized so many records over the years that my head spins even thinking about it, but it is a fun activity.

I have digitized records by acts from the (A)ssociation to the (Z)ombies, and everything in between.

Looking to digitize something in my collection, I came across this one album that I hadn't even thought about in decades, which means I hadn't played this LP on my turntable in probably about 40 years, if not more.

You might remember the LP, because you couldn't turn on the TV in the early 1970s without seeing a commercial for it.

"No. 1 Hits of the 60's" was a 52-song, four-disk set of chart-toppers from mainly the 1960s, featuring tunes from such acts as Otis Redding, Dion, The Archies and Lulu.

(No Beatles. No Rolling Stones. But lots of other really great stuff by a gaggle of the most popular 1960s pop, rock and soul acts.)

There is "all killer, no filler" in this collection, all number-one hits of that golden era of music.

It was also one of the first--and most successful--records that were marketed on television, and it sold millions of copies after it came out in 1973.

(It was so successful that it was re-released in 1975 with a slightly different cover.)

Before the Internet, this is how such records were marketed to the public, with TV ads that played day and night.

You remember that K-Tel records were sold in this way, and they sold millions of copies of records like "20 Power Hits" and "Super Bad" and "Out of Sight" during the 1970s.

"No. 1 Hits of the 60's" was not a K-Tel product, as there were scads of K-Tel imitators out there at the time.

This one was on the Tele House label, which was an arm of Roulette Records, the infamous mob-run record label whose biggest act was Tommy James and the Shondells (yes, the are on this set too).

The album sold for $8.98 in 1973, the equivalent of $56.12 in 2026 money, so I guess it was pretty pricey in terms of 53 years ago, but you got a lot of bang for your buck.

(And the 8-track tapes edition cost a bit more.)

And who starred in the fabled TV ad for this LP?

None other than Micky Dolenz, just about three years separated from the dissolution of The Monkees--who rose to the top of the charts through a similar TV marketing tool, this time using a popular NBC-TV show to market the act's music to the masses.

(And Dolenz says in the comercial that he is still one of the Monkees, which is interesting in itself.)

There is Monkees music on this set--yes, "I'm a Believer" is on there--and the commercial is kind of annoying, but you couldn't help seeing it whenever you watched TV, morning, noon or night.

I believe that my family ordered this record via the TV ad, and I think my mother must have gotten it for us, but I can't be sure.

The sleeve of the collection is a bit beat up, kept together by some tape, but incredibly, so far at least, the records play pretty well, I am happy to say.

I am sure that back in 1973, this was a real find, as it had music that we couldn't have had in totality in whatever record collection my family had, and these songs were still pretty fresh in our minds.

So that is what I am filling in the time with now, and I hope to have this entire collection digitized in due time ...

And then move on to something else to digitize.

It is nice to hear these songs again as they are presented here, and like I said, there really is no filler at all on the four disks.

It was a fun find in my collection, one that I had completely forgotten about, but once I started playing the collection, all of it came back to me--

Even that chintzy commercial.

https://youtu.be/BPHvjFAWu8k?si=k5NVfTrjFFSiOioX