Way back in 1981 I was at a friends house and his brother had purchased Bruce’s “The River”.
I’d heard it was a double album but was surprised to see it wasn’t in a gatefold sleeve.
Thinking about this the other day as I played said record it got me thinking about which was the first double album to come in a single sleeve?
Obviously there was “London Calling” and The Macs “Tusk” both from 79.
“Physical Graffiti” from 1975 is the earliest one I can come up with.
Are there any before this?
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Spotcheck Billy says
Todd was released in 1974. The records were separated by a thin sheet of card and a poster. My copy is showing signs of wear, as they say, with the outline of the record visible on the cover.
Spotcheck Billy says
Looks just like this in fact.
https://pulmyears.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/todd-album.jpg
duco01 says
Of course, the Clash’s “Sandinista!” was a triple album in a single sleeve.
I must admit, though, that I’m struggling to come up with a quadruple album that came in a single sleeve…. Perhaps there never was one, and all album sets that big automatically came in a box.
Vulpes Vulpes says
I’ve a feeling there was a CBS sampler that pulled this trick – I’m at work right now so I can’t easily check the shelf, but I think it’s called “The Music People” or something equally anodyne. Must be around the same time as the Todd album, which was the first one that sprung to my mind, too.
The CBS thang has a blue cover with fluffy clouds IIRC. Anyone know the one I mean?
Johnny Concheroo says
Mahavishnu Orchestra alert!
The Music People – 1972 CBS triple LP in a box. There were UK and US versions with different tracks.
UK Release
1. Jumpin’ Jack Flash – Johnny Winter
2. Hallelujah! – Sweathog
3. Tramp – Home
4. Glory Be – Arrival
5. Situation – Jeff Beck Group
6. 157 Riverside Avenue – REO Speedwagon
7. Grand Coulee Dam – Bob Dylan
8. Too Many Mondays – Barry Mann
9. Silence – Jake Holmes
10. She Loves the Way They Love Her – Colin Blunstone
11. The Nest – Jimmie Spheeris
12. Love Song – Lesley Duncan
13. Go Down Gamblin’ – Blood Sweat &Tears
14. Calico Baby – Dreams
15. So Many People – Chase
16. Sleepless Nights Wayne Cochran & The CC Riders
17. Monkey Time – Boz Scaggs Band
18. Magnificent Sanctuary Band – David Clayton Thomas
19. Cool Fool – Edgar Winter’s White Trash
20. Hoedown – Poco
21. Hello Mary Lou – New Riders of the Purple Sage
22. Bugler – Byrds
23. To Make a Woman Feel Wanted – Loggins & Messina
24. Amsterdam – Al Stewart
25. Little Girl Lost – Kris Kristofferson
26. Stealin’ – Taj Mahal
27. Dawn – Mahavishnu Orch
28. While the Sun Still Shines – Fields
29. Para los Rumberos – Santana
30. Chelsea – Girls Spirit
31. No Word for Glad – It’s A Beautiful Day
32. Hold Your Head Up – Argent
33. Underbird – Titantic
34. Hint of A Freeze – Fishbaugh Fishbaugh & Zorn
35. Sun Never Shines on the Lonely – Redbone
36. White Lies – Grin
37. I Call That True Love – Dr Hook
38. What Kind of Man Are You – Genya Ravan
39. Strange Is This World – Nieman
40. Just A Thought – Jonathan Swift
US Release
1. Para los Rumberos – Santana
2. Hoedown – Poco
3. Hello Mary Lou – New Riders of the Purple Sage
4. Stealin’ – Taj Mahal
5. Hallelujah! – Sweathog
6. What Kind of Man Are You – Genya Ravan
7. Celebration of Life – Chambers Brothers
8. 157 Riverside Avenue – REO Speedwagon
9. Too Many Mondays – Barry Mann
10. Country Song – Compost
11. Go Down Gamblin’ – Blood Sweat &Tears
12. Magnificent Sanctuary Band – David Clayton Thomas
13. Sun Never Shines on the Lonely – Redbone
14. Chelsea Girls – Spirit
15. No Word For Glad – It’s A Beautiful Day
16. Monkey Time – Boz Scaggs Band
17. Silence – Jake Holmes
18. The Nest – Jimmie Spheeris
19. I Call That True Love – Dr Hook
20. My Impersonal Life – Blue Rose
21. Grand Coulee Dam – Bob Dylan
22. Jumpin’ Jack Flash – Johnny Winter
23. Situation – Jeff Beck Group
24. So Many People – Chase
25. Bugler – Byrds
26. Calico Baby – Dreams
27. Dawn – Mahavishnu Orch
28. I’m on the Lamb But I Ain’t No Sheep – Blue Oyster Cult
29. Holy Smoke Doo Dah Band – Mylon Le Fevre
30. She Loves the Way They Love Her – Colin Blunstone
31. High Priest of Memphis – Bell & Arc
32. Baby Won’t You Let Me Rock ‘n Roll You – Ten Years After
33. Little Girl Lost – Kris Kristofferson
34. Cool Fool – Edgar Winter’s White Trash
35. To Make a Woman Feel Wanted – Loggins & Messina
36. White Lies – Grin
37. Asalone Dream – Pamela Polland
38. Sleepless Nights – Wayne Cochran & The CC Riders
39. I’m Funky – Grootna
40. While the Sun Still Shines – Fields
http://i.imgur.com/avd08eS.jpg
Johnny Concheroo says
The US version is described as “tri-fold” and the UK as a gatefold. So maybe it doesn’t qualify.
Locust says
I have the US version and it is indeed in a “tri-fold” sleeve.
It is also the Rosetta stone to my musical explorations in life, as I’ve probably told on every version of the Word/Afterword blogs…
retropath2 says
ShaNaNa’s greatest hits, an imprt album I picked up cheaply had this early anomaly. Why, here it is:
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/like/291326953433?limghlpsr=true&hlpv=2&ops=true&viphx=1&hlpht=true&lpid=122&chn=ps&googleloc=1007138&poi=&campaignid=207297426&device=c&adgroupid=13585920426&rlsatarget=pla-146652033666&adtype=pla&crdt=0&ff3=1&ff11=ICEP3.0.0-L&ff12=67&ff13=80&ff14=122
Not mine, mine isn’t mint, in any sense of the word. Do I play it often? (No)
minibreakfast says
At the other end of the spectrum there’s this 2-disc Polydor compilation that comes in a box, which seems a bit OTT.
http://i1350.photobucket.com/albums/p773/minibreakfast/rock20party_zpswbiw3tea.jpg
minibreakfast says
Tracklist.
http://i1350.photobucket.com/albums/p773/minibreakfast/rock20party202_zpsxhpnxe0w.jpg
minibreakfast says
That was a pin-sharp photo until I resized it in Photobucket.
Johnny Concheroo says
Man Of Constant Sorrow credited just to “Ginger Baker” there when it’s actually Ginger Baker’s Airforce.
Denny Laine sings lead vocals on that track. Recorded live at the Jan 1970 Albert Hall concert I mentioned on another thread.
Because Polydor was really a German label, you’ll often find obscure (to us) European bands on these compilations. eg Savage Rose from Denmark.
Johnny Concheroo says
Other interesting names there:
Ferris Wheel featured a young Linda Lewis
Jake Holmes is the Dazed And Confused hitmaker
Cat Mother were properly known as Cat Mother And The All-Night Newsboys. Their first LP was produced by Hendrix. Unfortunately this track is from their second LP.
Beany says
I bought a Ferris Wheel LP on the back of that track. It’s fab and so is Linda’s singing. I bet you have the Audience LP. I only have it on CD.
Johnny Concheroo says
I only have the CDs too, I’m afraid.
Johnny Concheroo says
The Johnny Winters (sic) track is interesting, too.
Bad News is from a 1969 cheapo Buddah label compilation LP titled First Winter.
Never released in the UK, it was issued to cash in on the success of his first CBS LP.
minibreakfast says
Top pop facts as usual Johnny. Thanks!
Johnny Concheroo says
And, I should add, that first Audience LP on Polydor Beany mentioned is now a 250 quid rarity. They moved to Charisma shortly after and their Polydor debut disappeared without trace.
Beany says
I once held it in my hands in the record department of a department store (possibly Kendals in Manchester) and decided against buying it. I still make the same mistake but usually over quantity not quality.
Johnny Concheroo says
We’ve all got those stories, I’m sure.
Around 1969 Boot’s were having a sale* and among the singles were the two 1968 Robert Plant solo singles on CBS for a shilling each. “Oh, that’s the singer from that new band Led Zeppelin” I mused and carried on browsing without buying.
Those singles are valued at three hundred quid each today.
*yes kids, we used to buy records from the chemist
Carl says
Jake Holmes appears on both The Music People (UK version) and on Rock Party.
Beany says
Which came first? The Rock Party or the Bert Kaempfert Party. Similar boxes with just 2 LPs. The Rock Party is the reason I check box sets in charity shops/auctions. I could always do with a second copy…
minibreakfast says
Trust you to have that. Do you own the James Last and Hammond ones too?
Beany says
A gentleman never tells. Besides…there are too many box sets to count at this time of the morning. I have yet to decide what to do with them.
JQW says
Many classical double albums can be found in boxes as opposed to gatefold sleeves, as it allowed a booklet of notes to be inserted. Benjamin Britten’s War Requiem, released on Decca in 1963, is one such example, but I presume there were earlier such releases.
Johnny Concheroo says
Did someone mention Donovan?
Two LPs, folder with lyric sheets and two piece box with glued-on picture of Don with the Maharishi
http://i.imgur.com/wSfdJEr.jpg
minibreakfast says
I’ve read this thread twice, JC, and no, nobody mentioned Donovan. Nice try though 🙂
Johnny Concheroo says
He invented multiple disc albums, you know.
Junior Wells says
Many Aussie doubles were single sleeve coz they were tight bastards
Johnny Concheroo says
The Last Waltz – 3/LPs + book in a sort-of box in UK. Just a single sleeve in Australia.
minibreakfast says
Mine’s in a single sleeve, albeit a slightly deeper one.
Johnny Concheroo says
That’s what I meant, a kind of flimsy slip-cover attempt at a box
minibreakfast says
Did I mention mine was £3?
It was £3!
Johnny Concheroo says
Good deal. Is it all complete with inner sleeves etc?
minibreakfast says
Yes, it’s all there, and well-kept too. I seem to remember swanking* about it at the old place.
*I said swanking.
Johnny Concheroo says
Come again?
Junior Wells says
dont get me started on gatefolds for single albums
minibreakfast says
What’s wrong with them?
Junior Wells says
sorry for the late reply @minibreakfast. Nothing is wrong with them -it’s just that more often than not Australian issues were truncated to single sleeve -just seal up the middle and no-one is any the wiser- pity about all that critical information like band members and other liner notes plus art work
Santana’s Caravanserai and Welcome particularly appalled me.
ernietothecentreoftheearth says
OK then, what about the gatefold single?
Johnny Concheroo says
David Bowie’s Baal EP?
ernietothecentreoftheearth says
Early versions of the Banshees’ Hong Kong Garden came in a gatefold sleeve.
Carl says
The Clash Cost Of Living 7″ EP came not just in a gatefold sleeve, but a paper inner sleeve which featured on one side The Funancial (sic) Times with a load of mixed up Latin and English gobbledegook that I never tried to read more than a couple of lines of. Somebody’s effort wasted on me.
Rigid Digit says
The Jam Going Undergound Double Pack was two singles inserted into a single sleeve. I don’t know if it was on all, or just the ones I’ve seen, but the “free” single was housed in a paper inner sleeve, whilst Going Undergound/Dreams Of Children floated freely.
For their next Double Pack (Beat Surrender) they reverted to a gatefold format.
duco01 says
Of course, Yes’s “Going for the One” was a TRIPLE Hipgnosis gatefold for a single, solitary LP.
Surely a waste of environmental resources, etc, etc.
fortuneight says
My copy of Zappa’s Absolutely free is a single in a gatefold. But according to Discogs it’s also an “unofficial” Italian copy.
Johnny Concheroo says
Is that one of the counterfeits from the late 80s? They used the early 70s UK Verve Zappa reissues and photographed them, hence the blurry artwork. I always thought they originated from Greece, but a lot of dodgy records came out of Italy too, where they laughed in the face of any kind of copyright. All those Dylan boots on the Joker label were part of that wave of “unofficial” vinyl releases.
Vulpes Vulpes says
My copy of HP Lovecraft’s second album is Greek, as is a copy I have of the Floyd’s “More”, which has the couple on the back cover staring the opposite way to most copies.
fortuneight says
As far as I can tell it’s this one
https://www.discogs.com/Mothers-Of-Invention-The-Absolutely-Free/release/3891966
fortuneight says
Just noticed my copy of “One Size Fits All” is also a single LP in a gatefold. And not a dodgy Italian version
Skirky says
We used to sell so many copies of a Spanish Stevie Wonder double LP in a single sleeve that the rumour went round that it had charted on the back of our imports. I suspect it wasn’t totally kosher as when the BPI were rumoured to be visiting we were told to pull all copies from the rack and hide them.
Spotcheck Billy says
Just wondering, what is the correct format for Absolutely Free then? Mine is a gatefold sleeve too
Johnny Concheroo says
Absolutely Free.
All the US pressings were gatefold
The 1967 first UK pressings, mono and stereo (Verve through EMI) were single sleeves
The 1971 UK reissue pressings, stereo only (Verve through Polydor) were gatefold
Spotcheck Billy says
OK, mine’s a US pressing.
A product of plasticity
Johnny Concheroo says
Still with Zappa.
Freak Out, released mid-1966, is often claimed (along with Blonde On Blonde) to be the first rock double album.
However, the first UK pressings were edited down to a single LP in a non-gatefold sleeve.
The full double LP didn’t receive a UK release until Polydor took over the Verve catalogue in 1971
Spotcheck Billy says
On the subject of Polydor, I was just re-reading parts of Joe Boyd’s ‘White Bicycles’. He mentions Polydor and particularly their ‘cartoon German’ Horst Schmolzi, as a key figure in late 60s London. Boyd says by offering independence and better royalties, he was able to prise the Who away from Decca, gave Stigwood the chance to develop Eric Clapton and the Bee Gees, and was involved in the signing of Jimi Hendrix.
Since reading that, I have noticed that Polydor’s name features as distributor on many other records, notably the Atlantic label albums. Which means Horst not only allowed the above named artists to thrive but was also at least partly responsible for bringing Otis, Aretha and other Atlantic releases to the UK.
Were you aware of him Johnny?
Johnny Concheroo says
Not aware of him by name until reading Boyd’s book, but it was clear that something big was going on with Polydor in the late 60s.
Until then they were pretty much a local German label releasing only uninteresting MOR stuff like Bert Kaempfert and European pop. They were not really on the map in the UK, except perhaps for those Beatles’ Hamburg recordings.
But around 1966 they moved into London and took on the major labels. As well as Cream/Clapton, Bee Gees, Hendrix and the Who (the last two via Track Records) Polydor had rights to the Elektra and Atlantic catalogues for a while, including all that great US soul stuff and the first four Zeppelin LPs. The Elektra deal also gave them the Doors and some great folk material.
They lost Atlantic/Elektra in 1971 when Warner Bros formed WEA, but picked up MGM/Verve around the same time, which gave them Zappa and the Velvet Underground.
So it was notable how, in the space of a few years, Polydor came virtually out of nowhere to become such a big player in the UK.
Your line about “prising the Who away from Decca” is interesting, too. Although a UK band, The Who were unusual in that they were signed directly to the Decca label in America (not the UK Decca label). Their records were then leased to the Brunswick label for British release. Brunswick handled all of US Decca’s releases in the UK and the Who were virtually the only British act on the label.
After the Who left to go to Polydor (first via Stigwood’s Reaction label and then Track) there was some dispute about contract breaking, so US Decca/UK Brunswick kept on releasing Who singles alongside the new Reaction label records and forced them to change the B-Side of Substitute TWICE because of a dispute about the song Circles. The eventual UK B-Side Waltz For A Pig wasn’t even by The Who, but it was a left-over instrumental track by another Stigwood band The Graham Bond Organisation.
The dispute dragged on for a long time, holding up the CD release of the My Generation album for years.
Johnny Concheroo says
I should add that the Verve/MGM deal also brought all that prestigious jazz and soundtrack material to Polydor, which was probably much more lucrative for them than the small selling Zappa/VU albums.
Spotcheck Billy says
Didn’t know that about The Who’s US deal.
But for all that Polydor were involved with so much that was good about music in the late 60s and early 70s, the association with Kaempfert and James Last meant they could never be cool like Elektra and Atlantic
Johnny Concheroo says
That’s true. But for me RSO is the one Polydor label I’ve never thought cool. Must be something to do with Saturday Night Fever and all those snoozeworthy Clapton albums of the 70s
Johnny Concheroo says
The Who US Decca deal was down to producer Shel Talmy, I think. They were signed directly to Talmy’s production company who then leased the recordings to the US Decca label.
Sniffity says
I thought I’d read somewhere that Waltz For A Pig was the Who’s comment on their relationship with Shel Talmy…now it seems it wasn’t even their music.
Johnny Concheroo says
You’ll note that Waltz For A Pig is billed as “The Who Orchestra” on the record label and in fact it’s played by Ginger Baker, Jack Bruce and Dick Heckstall-Smith, with Graham Bond on keyboards.
Depending on which version of the story you believe, that track could be responsible for the formation of Cream. The story goes that Ginger received £2,000 as his share of the joint songwriting on Waltz… and went out a blew it on a brand new Rover 2000.
It was this car that he drove to Oxford to check out Eric Clapton, then with John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers, with the intention of trying to persuade him to form a band.
Eric was so impressed with Ginger’s flash motor that he drove back to London with him and the plan to form Cream was hatched that night.
Disappointingly, another version of the story says that Ginger bought the car with the proceeds of a Georgie Fame B-Side he’d co-written.
In his book, Ginger tells how he fell asleep at the wheel one night, rolled the car and wrote it off. Then went out and bought another Rover exactly the same with the insurance.
fatima Xberg says
Polydor in Germany was swimming in money in the late 60s/early 70s, due to the enormous sales of James Last: he put out a million-selling album every month (in 1970 he released 16 albums!), that’s why Polydor was able to do all those contracts and distribution deals. Money clearly didn’t matter at the time – they granted bands like Faust unlimited time and recording funds, and gave a band like Wonderland (“Moscow”) unlimited studio time, and never questioned their sanity when they delivered five different albums to be released at the same time (among them “Die grüne Reise” by Achim Reichel).
Here’s a list of Polydor’s compilation series “Pop History”. Not bad for an “uncool” label: http://chickswithdisks.wordpress.com/the-pop-history-series/
Johnny Concheroo says
Great info as always Fatima
Junior Wells says
yes ditto. I had the Hendrix and James Brown sets.
Always liked Polydor- seemed to be richer vinyl.
Beany says
EXCUSE ME! Is the Frozen Xmas Mix 2013 by “Fatima Berlin” anything to do with you? If so, WHY WERE WE NOT TOLD ABOUT IT! That is, us collectors of Xmas music.
Johnny Concheroo says
In fact I’ve just remembered. Fatima and I “had words” on the old blog re. my less than flattering comments about the artwork on the Pop History series and the Zappa volume in particular.
I think it was the fact that they showed the generic sleeve border broken and uneven, as if to say “here’s a band who are wacky and off the wall, watch out!”
Locust says
Some CDs these days are trying to be more like LPs, with cardboard sleeves (nothing wrong with that) that sometimes fold out and quite often then has the CD you’ll want to play stuffed into the middle “pocket”, so tightly that it’s near impossible to get it out of there without ripping the sleeve slightly.
More pointless than those are the extra cardboard sleeves that are open in two ends and “protects” the real sleeve inside (sometimes a jewel case, which makes some sense, but more and more often just another cardboard sleeve).
Nine times out of ten I end up ripping it apart and throwing it in the trash, because I can’t get the actual sleeve out of the protective sleeve no matter what I do.
Johnny Concheroo says
It’s had to know what’s worse, jewel cases that break as soon as you look at them and leave little half-moon indentation on the CD booklet, or the more aesthetically pleasing mini LP sleeves that hold the discs so tight you tear the cardboard and scratch the CDs getting them in and out
Beany says
You obviously never bought an LP from Makro – a chain of wholesale merchants with a large non-food department. Their price stickers were totally immovable. In fact retailers could buy stickers to cover them up so the punter did not discover the wholesale price. I still see them in pristine condition on the occasional charity shop LP.
Johnny Concheroo says
There was a CD store here in Perth who used giant price stickers which also doubled as security tags. The were around 2″ square and were impossible to remove because of the metal security strip which didn’t peel off but came away in small pieces leaving a sticky residue behind. Even soaking them off with solvent didn’t work very well and the only answer was to change the jewel case for a new one.
That was OK unless it was a Digipak or special kind of packaging, in which, er, case you were buggered. Eventually someone persuaded them to put the sticker on the shrink-wrap instead of on the case itself.
Beany says
Last year I saw records for sale at a car boot sale that got around the problem of those pesky price stickers. They simply wrote the price on the record sleeve with a marker pen. Twots.
Johnny Concheroo says
We have a new winner! That’s tantamount to vandalism!
Beany says
Vandalism you say? Pish! That award goes to the folk who sold LPs in bundles of around 10 by wrapping them in masking tape. When I asked how much they were I was told they were £1 per LP. When I explained they were in bundles they just told me to take the tape off – which, of course, ripped the sleeves. From what I could tell the records were unplayable anyway.
I fancied the Rainbow LP they had. That’s the TV show not the band. Don’t get me started on the ones that pile their LPs flat on wet grass. Flogging’s not good enough for them.
Johnny Concheroo says
I started a thread at the old Word blog about writing on LP sleeves.
Some of it can be quite interesting and touching, especially when it’s a record that was exchanged between lovers.
It’s still a hanging offence though.
Needless to say I was shouted down as an anal retentive obsessive.
Skirky says
In answer to the original question it had obviously missed the boat but Any Trouble’s Wrong End of the Race (1984) was a double in one sleeve. Also available in cut-down single LP version in Europe.
Easterham says
The first album I ever, ever bought* was Wings Over America. £5.30 from Timothy Whites (now Laura Ashley, I think), in St Albans, in 1977. Not a bad way to start a record collection, with a triple live from an ex-Beatle. But from that day to this, the niggle has always been – lps 1 and 2 in the left hand side of the gatefold, or 2 and 3 in the right hand side?
Actually, having just checked, I’d forgotten that within each “gate” (or is it fold?), there was an inner divider, which allowed the separation between each indivdual lp sleeve, with the fourth space reserved for the poster. And to me it was a simply awesome poster, at least thirty years before “awesome” became a thing. Or before “a thing” became, er, a thing, too for that matter.
But joy of joys, despite adorning my pre-teen (only just) self’s wall all of those years ago, a slightly be-blu-tacked poster is still present and correct in bay four.
I shall sleep soundly tonight.
* I draw a discreet veil over the previously purchased “Top of the Pops” one with their versions of Convoy, Needles and Pins, Concrete and Clay et al and the scantily clad pretty ladee on the cover.
PS – either the fouth or fifth album I ever ever bought was Out of The Blue, possibly one for the big, sprawling thread?
duco01 says
Well, the Afterword is a small world – and yet there are at least three people originally from St. Albans in it. Thre’s you, Easterham, there’s me, and there’s niscum, if I remember rightly.
Yes, St. Albans Timothy Whites sold LPs – in a small side-room in the basement, they were. Indeed, that area of town was record-shop-rich. A few metres away was the darkest record emporium in town, Cloud 7, where all the local hipsters hung out, and also very close was The Record Room, where I was a Saturday boy.
Anyway, back to double albums. The first double album I ever bought, I bought there at Timothy Whites. It was Elton John’s Goodbye Yellow Brick Road. I’d gone and looked at it in there in the rack in the preceding weeks, and then I finally bought it. They had no other copies behind the counter, and so I had to have the one that had been in the rack for ages, now rather bent and shop-soiled. But the triple gatefold sleeve was still rather splendid, with each song lyric given its own illustration. I was very pleased with my purchase – take away the obligatory stinker (“Jamaica Jerk-off”) and the whole album was packed with goodies. It still amazes me that EJ and the band recorded the whole thing in just two weeks.
Easterham says
Ah the eternal triumvirate (of the three record shops in St Albans, that is – definitely not of Duco, niscum and myself – I am trying to ease myself very gently into this Afterword malarkey).
I’m sure there must have been a well-worn sort-of-oval-shaped path between the three of them. My memory might be failing me, but the TW bit was on the first floor by 1977. Initially, it was where I and my best chum Geoffrey used to go to “flick through the racks” in a bright, safe environment because Cloud 7 was where the big boys (and presumably girls) used to hang out and was a bit scary, and The Record Room seemed very serious.
Cloud 7 then soon became an Our Price, but I remember The Record Room as still being serious, a rather dark, long room, usually empty of anyone else remotely young, and with the popular music section limited to a small part of one end, with the rest given over to classical music. This is slightly strange, as the only internet records I can find relating to it, although obviously quite a bit pre-1977, are of an apparently hip and happening pop n’ rock orientated establishment.
Quite embarrassingly, I took my copy of Wings Over America back to Timothy Whites several times to complain that it jumped or sounded scratchy etc., before I realised that the needle on the rather ageing mono record player I was using was distinctly past its best. My apologies to any passing purists in such matters, but we all have to start somewhere, and I did not come from a family of hi-fi enthusiasts, or even of record buyers.
But yes, GYBR as a package is a lovely thing (alas my copy is, I think, some early ‘80s reprint, and is also just the normal double gatefold), and I agree wholeheartedly about Jamaica Jerk off. I think it can safely be lumped in with Zep’s D’Yer Maker as “A Bad Idea”, however well intentioned (well, D’Yer Maker was definitely a friendly nod to Plant and Bonham’s Black Country background and the associated reggae scene, and I assume that as recording sessions for GYBR were initially undertaken in Jamaica, then there was some sort of influence there too). If people wish to complain about white men playing the blues, then they really need to listen to white men playing reggae…
… although of course , then there were all those nice white chaps like John ”Rabbit” Bundrick who did a very good job of adding a smoothness and sheen to Bob Marley’s stuff to make it more palatable and commercial for mainstream western consumption. But is that really reggae?
Easterham says
Hmm, sorry. Exhibit C – 10cc, otherwise wonderfully inventive, intelligent and amusing. And then there was Dreadlock Holiday.
Johnny Concheroo says
Loved the original 4 man line-up of 10cc, but it just wasn’t the same after they split into two bands
Chris says
Eels’ live Albert Hall set from last year is a triple LP – three discs in one single sleeve.
Tiggerlion says
How about PiL’s Metal Box. It may be made of tin but it is a single sleeve.
Pessoa says
I’ve just remembered that Husker Du’s last outing, “Warehouse: Songs and Stories” was a double LP in a (quite crappy looking) single sleeve. Reissue please!
duco01 says
Yes, the entire Hüsker Dü catelogue has been very shabbily treated. The CD editions are old and sound mediocre. I think nothing has been done because of some long-running legal dispute. It’s a pity. All the albums need to at least be remastered with lots of nice bonus tracks, etc. Indeed, I wouldn’t be against them calling in Steven Wilson or someone similar and actually remixing the albums from square one. Those thrilling songs deserve nothing less.
Pessoa says
Yes indeed. You may have seen the Bob Mould interview in last month’s Mojo, where he alluded to lingering band problems holding up the back catalogue. And I like the production idea: the drum sound on Warehouse is so weak it’s as if they had taken the gated reverb sound into reverse. I’d like to hear the band properly again.
JQW says
I spotted an oddity in an Our Price bargain bin many years ago – a triple album entitled something like The Greatest Rock Ballads stuffed into a cheaply designed single sleeve. On inspecting it further they has simply taken some soundtrack LPs out of their original sleeves and rammed them into this new one. Two of the LPs were from the FM soundtrack, I can’t recall the third.