While the DISCO titled K-Tel compilations ended with Disco Nights, the music certainly continued as evidenced by side one of High Energy: six Top 5 songs on the disco chart, seven Top 6 songs on the R&B chart and four Number Ones on the pop chart. High Energy, indeed. The second side was K-tel's usual blend of Top 40 fare with both soft rock and hard rock. HERC bought this album with his own hard-earned allowance back in 1979 and has since acquired two more copies - it is definitely in his Top 5 K-tel Albums of All Time. HERC's brief research turned up nearly a dozen testimonials from fans saying High Energy was their very first album ever! YouTube user michael riggans likes the album so much he made an all new digital homage from songs in his own library, substituting two songs for two he didn't have and forgetting a third track all together. One of HERC's fave YT users Brandon aka BillboardTopHits1980 posted his authentic vinyl rip of High Energy in what seems to be an ongoing flood of vinyl rips from his fifty album collection, which he lists in the comments to his own videos. If you're interested in hearing his rips, HERC advises you head over there pronto as several have been served with takedown notices shortly after they have posted and are no longer available.
High Energy [1979]
| K-tel Scale: |
31.00
| |||||
| Billboard Top 40s | |||||||
| Pop | R&B | Disco | AC | CB | WLS | ||
| Heart of Glass | Blondie | 1 | 1 | 2 | |||
| Knock on Wood | Amii Stewart | 1 | 6 | 5 | 1 | 1 | |
| I Will Survive | Gloria Gaynor | 1 | 4 | 1 | 9 | 1 | 1 |
| Shake Your Groove Thing | Peaches & Herb | 5 | 4 | 2 | 5 | 4 | |
| I Got My Made Up (You Can Get It Girl) | Instant Funk | 20 | 1 | 1 | 22 | 26 | |
| Le Freak | Chic | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | |
| Hot Number | Foxy | 21 | 4 | 26 | 30 | ||
| Disco Nights (Rock Freak) | GQ | 12 | 1 | 3 | 11 | 14 | |
| Fire | Pointer Sisters | 2 | 14 | 21 | 2 | 2 | |
| Double Vision | Foreigner | 2 | 5 | 9 | |||
| Love Takes Time | Orleans | 11 | 13 | 12 | |||
| Love Will Find A Way | Pablo Cruise | 6 | 28 | 5 | 6 | ||
| Stay The Night | Faragher Brothers | ||||||
| You Never Done It Like That | Captain & Tennille | 10 | 14 | 10 | 21 | ||
| I Just Wanna Stop | Gino Vannelli | 4 | 21 | 4 | 2 | 9 | |
| Renegade | Styx | 16 | 18 | 6 | |||
High Energy scores very well with its only weak spot being the zero points earned by the Faragher Brothers. Still, a 31.00 is good enough to land at number 10 in the K-Tel Scale Top 10 Rankings.
The album was also released on 8-track and cassette and can be found in orange, black and cream colored variants though the cream colored one might have been white when it was issued 35 years ago and yellowed with age. The only cream colored 8-track of High Energy HERC has come across is the Canadian version.
High Energy [1979] CAN
| K-tel Scale: |
22.29
| |||||
| Billboard Top 40s | |||||||
| Pop | R&B | Disco | AC | CB | WLS | ||
| Love Takes Time | Orleans | 11 | 13 | 12 | |||
| Sharing The Night Together | Dr. Hook | 6 | 4 | 14 | |||
| I Just Wanna Stop | Gino Vannelli | 4 | 21 | 4 | 2 | 9 | |
| Love Will Find A Way | Pablo Cruise | 6 | 28 | 5 | 6 | ||
| What You Won't Do For Love | Bobby Caldwell | 9 | 6 | 10 | 26 | ||
| Whispering Rain | Murray McLauchlan | ||||||
| Every Time I Think Of You | The Babys | 13 | 8 | 20 | |||
| Lady | Little River Band | 10 | 10 | 7 | |||
| Renegade | Styx | 16 | 18 | 6 | |||
| Hot Child In The City | Nick Gilder | 1 | 1 | 1 | |||
| Hold The Line | Toto | 5 | 5 | 6 | |||
| You Never Done It Like That | Captain & Tennille | 10 | 14 | 10 | 21 | ||
| Hold On | Triumph | 38 | |||||
| Light My Fire / 137 Disco Heaven | Amii Stewart | 36 | |||||
| Keep On Dancin' | Gary's Gang | 15 | 1 | 33 | 23 | ||
| I Only Wanna Get Up And Dance | The Raes | ||||||
As part of their thirty-fifth-anniversary celebration in 2002, K-Tel re-issued 10 of their classic album compilations on compact disc with a two-volume High Energy being one of them. Like every other album in the celebratory series, each volume had ten tracks for a total of twenty tracks compared to the original album's sixteen. HERC scared up the track listing for each volume and ran them through the K-Tel Scale because that's he does.
High Energy [2002] Vol. 1
| K-tel Scale: |
30.50
| |||||
| Billboard Top 40s | |||||||
| Pop | R&B | Disco | AC | CB | WLS | ||
| Knock on Wood | Amii Stewart | 1 | 6 | 5 | 1 | 1 | |
| I Got My Made Up (You Can Get It Girl) | Instant Funk | 20 | 1 | 1 | 22 | 26 | |
| Fire | Pointer Sisters | 2 | 14 | 21 | 2 | 2 | |
| Renegade | Styx | 16 | 18 | 6 | |||
| I Just Wanna Stop | Gino Vannelli | 4 | 21 | 4 | 2 | 9 | |
| Call Me | Skyy | 26 | 1 | 3 | 27 | ||
| Let's Get Serious | Jermaine Jackson | 9 | 1 | 2 | 9 | 19 | |
| Love Machine, Pt. 1 | The Miracles | 1 | 5 | 20 | 1 | 16 | |
| I Like Dreamin’ | Kenny Nolan | 3 | 4 | 3 | 7 | ||
| You Never Done It Like That | Captain & Tennille | 10 | 14 | 10 | 21 | ||
High Energy [2002] Vol. 2
| K-tel Scale: |
28.18
| |||||
| Billboard Top 40s | |||||||
| Pop | R&B | Disco | AC | CB | WLS | ||
| Le Freak | Chic | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | |
| Boogie Shoes | KC & the Sunshine Band | 35 | 29 | 33 | |||
| I'm Every Woman | Chaka Khan | 21 | 1 | 30 | 19 | 23 | |
| Hot Number | Foxy | 21 | 4 | 26 | 30 | ||
| Thunder Island | Jay Ferguson | 9 | 6 | 14 | |||
| We Are Family | Sister Sledge | 2 | 1 | 1 | 30 | 2 | 5 |
| Double Vision | Foreigner | 2 | 5 | 9 | |||
| Disco Nights (Rock Freak) | GQ | 12 | 1 | 3 | 11 | 14 | |
| Love Takes Time | Orleans | 11 | 13 | 12 | |||
| Heart of Glass | Blondie | 1 | 1 | 2 | |||
Tune in next time when HERC will feature Power Play,
the first of four albums before year's end.
HERC has informed us that he has 80 albums total
(we've covered 33) planned out, which
should take us through September 2016!
The first album I ever bought (also with my hard-earned allowance). 4000+ albums later, and this one still rates as one of my favorites, if only for the nostalgic value.
ReplyDelete