Just to be pedantic, it wasn't the cartridge itself so much as the stylus and the tracking force.
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Hit Songs That Should Never Be Played On Radio Today
- Thread starter TheFonz
- Start date
Just to be pedantic, it wasn't the cartridge itself so much as the stylus and the tracking force.
I'd call them pop from a group that did pop, rock and roll, and rock, and stuff that straddled categories, but when those two songs were new, they wouldn't have been elevator music. Too "psychedelic". Maybe nowadays, but not back then, unless you're talking something like a Hollyridge Strings version.
And I think that's why they were so popular. Because if you didn't like John's songs, you probably liked Paul's. Or the other way around. If you talked to them about their influences, they'd name a broad range of people. They were originally a skiffle band, which was popular in the 50s. They really pre-date all the hard categorization that became more popular in the 70s.
Also consider how rare it was to have two lead vocalists. Today, record companies would tell the act they had to pick one or the other. Fleetwood Mac was another group with multiple leads. The Eagles.
I wasn't suggesting that "Elevator" was a category of music. I was saying that the only time I would want to listen to "Strawberry fields" or "Penny Lane" was on an elevator or in a dentist chair.
I don't think it was all that uncommon: Beach Boys, Monkees. I'm sure there were others. To me, "Pop" is something by Doris Day. What we call "Pop" just seems like another form of "Rock". This is based on the fact that anything not aimed at adults was termed "Rock". Top 40 stations were called "Rock stations" until the 1970s.
Gonna stand by what I originally posted, on the grounds that that was an IMPORT single. The five-digit catalog number in the 70000s gives that away. A look at my price guide further confirms that. The U.S. singles on Capitol had four-digit catalog numbers, and in 1964, were in the 5000s.
It is worth noting that some U.S. singles that were not also U.K. singles (songs like "Eight Days a Week," "Nowhere Man," "I'll Cry Instead," and even "Yesterday") were instead issued on EPs in the U.K. "All My Loving" was the title song from one such EP. ("Yesterday" eventually became a U.K. single, but not until 1976.) All the EPs (except for one bonus record in a box set that I have) were in mono. Who knows, maybe if we had had EPs, then fewer songs would have been pressed as singles. Magical Mystery Tour was a U.K. oddity in that it was a two-EP set. The MMT album that we are so familiar with here stateside was actually a U.S. creation, and one of the few times in which U.S. consumers got a better deal than their U.K. counterparts.
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You got that right. I wonder how long it has to be pointed out that most of the top recording artists produced a diverse selection of songs, in a variety of genres. Any attempt to pigeonhole all of the output of any artist or band into a single, narrow genre is 99.9% likely to be wrong. Music genres apply to songs, not to artists.
And yet today "pop" is a term used to refer to Miley Cyrus, Lady Gaga and Katy Perry.
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"Pop" is short for "Popular". Rock is a subset of popular. A rock song can be popular and yet also remain a pop song as well. But not all popular songs are rock songs. Some popular songs are from different genres of music, other than rock. There are also unpopular rock songs that are rock, but not pop. What is so difficult to understand about that?
That's interesting. I noticed that the Beatles single "Roll Over Beethoven/Please Mr. Postman" was also pressed in Canada and made the US charts. Just when I thought this thread was winding down, you present a new set of issues. Why weren't those singles pressed in the US? Was it a business decision (taxes, royalties, etc)? How many other import singles made the US charts in the '50s and "60s? Are labels like London and Top Rank considered "imports"? Let the discussion begin.
Could be because at the time, the Beatles didn't have a US label.
That makes some sense. Canadian Capitol began releasing Beatles records in 1963. When the US finally discovered the Beatles, some of those early Canadian releases ended up on US labels such as VJ and Swan. For some reason, the two records we are talking about never did.
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I would call a chart peak position of #45 particularly impressive for a single that was not even (at least domestically) available in the U.S. (The price in the price guide seems to reflect that!) Since charts are (or at least were) based on airplay, that might have been mostly an airplay stat. Of course, the Beatles had LOTS of competition from themselves in '64, and "All My Loving" might have just gotten lost in the shuffle. I live in Tennessee and often browse used record stores, but have never seen a copy of that one. (That was definitely a 1964 peak position because nothing by them would have gotten that high in 1963.)
What label was "Roll Over Beethoven"/"Please Mr. Postman" on? I will look that one up.
I don't think that airplay based charts became prevalent until much later. In the 60's Billboard was sales based, as were Cash Box and Record World.
It was really not until R&R redefined Top 40 as "CHR" that airplay-based charts for each format became widespread. One could argue that the charts in the Gavin Report later tip sheets like FMQB and Hamilton were also based on airplay prior to the beginning of R&R, but the "trades" were all sales based.
Of course, the trades were subject to record company manipulation. And the tip sheets depended on honest reporting of actual airplay and spins...
That was also on Canadian Capitol. "All My Loving" and "Roll Over Beethoven" are unusual because 1963 Canadian Capitol singles were picked up in 1964 in the US by labels such as Vee Jay, Swan, and Tollie. Those two were not. They sold and charted in the US on Canadian Capitol.
http://capitol6000.com/beatles45.html
About London and Top Rank: London Records arose from a split in ownership between the original (British) Decca company and its US affiliate, due to which British Decca could not use their trade mark here. The London name in turn was used by UK Decca for their releases of US recordings, licensed from Atlantic, Dot, Liberty, Monument and others. They manufactured the Parrot label on both sides of the ocean. US-released London records were manufactured here, but often carry the words "Made In England" on the label, referring to the original recording sessions. The same domestic manufacturing would also apply to Top Rank; both labels had US headquarters in NYC. Due to corporate shuffles, Decca has regained the use of their original name here, while the London name (now connected to a new label) now belongs to Warner Bros. (Confusing enough?)
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