Certified Gold is a double wide greatest hits K-Tel comp from 1981. Here in Los Estados Unidos, we are treated to a dozen songs per record or twenty-four for the whole album. The cover artwork resembles an envelope sealed with a gold wax seal and there is even a gatefold though it is wasted with just the image of a large gold note on a white background - no artist or album photos, no ads for other K-Tel albums. As with most of these two disc/two tape K-Tel collections, the majority of the songs had appeared on previous K-Tel albums in 1980 and 1981 though invariably there are a few songs new to the K-Tel Universe. Certified Gold has been a favorite K-Tel album of mine ever since I bought it new because it has more than a few of my all-time favorite songs and I believe it might be the only source of "Shaddup Your Face" by Joe Dolce here in the Audio Archives. Here are some of my other favorite songs from Certified Gold:
Overall, Certified Gold leans towards the softer side of the rock spectrum and that ain't a bad thing this time around as there are enough rough edges in some of the other songs to make it a pretty good hour and a half listen from side one through side four. But just how many of the songs are actually certified gold (selling 500,000 copies) by the RIAA? According to my research, seven of the album's twenty-four songs are certified gold sellers. Let's see how it fares on the K-Tel Scale...
Only one Pop Number One in the bunch? Three songs that missed the Top 40 completely? Only eight Top 10s? This does not bode well for an album trying to score 30 or better on the K-Tel Scale and Certified Gold limps in with a 26.19. Disappointing.
CERTIFIED GOLD [1981]
| K-tel Scale: |
26.19
| ||||||
| Billboard Top 40s | ||||||||
| Pop | R&B | Disco | Rock | AC | CB | WLS | ||
| I'm Alright | Kenny Loggins | 7 | 4 | 3 | ||||
| Living Inside Myself | Gino Vannelli | 6 | (45) | 5 | 9 | 13 | ||
| United Together | Aretha Franklin | (56) | 3 | (74) | ||||
| Precious To Me | Phil Seymour | 22 | 34 | 34 | 29 | |||
| Ain't Even Done With The Night | John Cougar | 17 | (44) | 15 | ||||
| Don't Stand So Close To Me | The Police | 10 | 11 | 9 | 8 | |||
| The Tide Is High | Blondie | 1 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 3 | ||
| Still Right Here In My Heart | Pure Prairie League | 10 | 1 | 28 | ||||
| Heart Of The Night | Poco | 20 | 5 | 19 | 33 | |||
| You're The Only Woman | Ambrosia | 13 | 5 | 17 | 23 | |||
| Whip It | Devo | 14 | 8 | 13 | 2 | |||
| Shaddap Your Face | Joe Dolce | (53) | (43) | |||||
| All Out Of Love | Air Supply | 2 | 5 | 2 | 3 | |||
| Together | Tierra | 18 | 9 | 30 | 23 | 29 | ||
| It's Time To Party Now | Ray Parker Jr. & Raydio | (61) | ||||||
| Never Knew Love Like This Before | Stephanie Mills | 6 | 12 | 5 | 5 | 8 | 11 | |
| Hold On Loosely | 38 Special | 27 | 3 | 32 | 5 | |||
| Hit Me With Your Best Shot | Pat Benatar | 9 | 7 | 2 | ||||
| Brass In Pocket (I'm Special) | Pretenders | 14 | 13 | 4 | ||||
| I Wanna Be Your Lover | Prince | 11 | 1 | 2 | 12 | 21 | ||
| Into The Night | Benny Mardones | 11 | 10 | |||||
| Hot Rod Hearts | Robbie Dupree | 15 | 24 | 15 | 31 | |||
| Games People Play | Alan Parsons Project | 16 | 18 | 8 | ||||
| I Was Made For Lovin' You | Kiss | 11 | 37 | 8 | 15 | |||
As they usually did with their two record sets, K-Tel also offered each record for sale separately as Certified Gold Volume 1 and Certified Gold Volume 2. Certified Gold is also available on twin cassettes or 8-track tapes.
The Canadian version of Certified Gold trimmed its American cousin down to twenty tracks while retaining just two songs - "Shaddup Your Face" and "Brass In Pocket" - from the two dozen on the U.S. Certified Gold tracklist. Aside from two Canadian ringers, I actually like the maple syrup scented Certified Gold quite a bit. (With nearly half of the album's songs missing the Top 40, it did horrible on the K-Tel Scale.) For the record, it has three certified gold singles and one platinum, million seller. The album is available on a single 8-track tape.
So you have a really good 22 track album (Spotify is missing Prince and Phil Seymour) and an almost as good 19 track album (Spotify lacks one of the Canadian ringers) just sitting there. What is a playlist maker to do? This one is gonna throw them together in a rousing celebration on Can- Am unity with one big 39 track Certified Gold playlist (they had two tracks in common) and listen to it for the rest of the day.
Next time out we'll be listening to Dimensions, our second to last K-Tel album from 1981:
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