THE ELITE [1981]

Back in January 2014, I first wrote about a K-Tel album whose proceeds benefited the T. J. Martell Memorial Foundation for Leukemia and Cancer Research. Turns out that wasn't K-Tel's first benefit for the Foundation - The Elite from 1981 predates that other album Let's Beat It by three years. (That album is currently scheduled to be one of the last from the Kollection in a post late in 2016.)  

The Elite is a star-studded affair with fifteen tracks from some of the biggest most recognizable names in pop music. It leans towards the adult contemporary or soft rock side of the spectrum with only Michael Jackson's "Rock With You" offering the slightest hint of an upbeat tempo. As seen in the vintage commercial below, The Elite was both a Special Release and part of K-Tel's Sound Celebration, their fourth quarter marketing campaign that also included Dimensions:

As The Elite was a fourth quarter release for the Holiday shopping season, we know it was released in October or early November 1981. The album's songs were originally released between 1974 and 1980 making this less of a K-Tel contemporary hit compilation and more of a very special release for a great cause. The Kenny Rogers track "Sweet Music Man" had originally been released in 1977 but was back on the charts as the b-side to "Lady", his current single, when The Elite was released.

The full-page ad below appeared in the November 7, 1981, issue of Billboard. It shows the album artwork in a blue/green/grey-ish hue - in the past thirty-four years I have only come across brown, grey or beige covers.

After much debate, the decision has been made to run The Elite through the K-Tel Scale in an unofficial capacity on account of its charitable intent. I'm predicting little crossover from Pop to other charts with the lone exception being the AC chart where I can see all fifteen tracks charting. Let's see what we got:

The ELITE [1981]							32.20
		Billboard Top 40s
		Pop	COU	R&B	Disco	AC	CB	WLS
Too Much Heaven	Bee Gees	1		10		4	2	3
It's My Turn	Diana Ross	9		14		9	18	23
Rock With You	Michael Jackson	1		1	2	21	1	1
Up On The Roof	James Taylor	28				7	32
Sweet Music Man	Kenny Rogers	(44)				29	(60)
The Logical Song	Supertramp	6					4	6
Longfellow Serenade	Neil Diamond	5				1	4	5
Evergreen	Barbra Streisand	1				1	1	1
She's Always A Woman	Billy Joel	17				2	18
After The Love Has Gone	Earth, Wind & Fire	2		2		3	3	12
Look What You've Done To Me	Boz Scaggs	14				3	13	9
When You're In Love With A Beautiful Woman	Dr. Hook	6				5	5	7
Dreaming	Cliff Richard	10				21	9	17
You Needed Me	Anne Murray	1	4			3	4	4
Fernando	ABBA	13				1	10	14

Just as I suspected, there was little crossover other than the AC chart - I actually removed the ROCK chart from the scorecard as none of the songs made it.  Ten Top 10s, four Number Ones and one song that just barely missed the Top 40. C'mon, Kenny!  Still a very respectable 32.20 score for The Elite, just shy of the Top 10 Leaderboard.

As usual for K-Tel releases, The Elite is available as both an 8-track and a cassette tape with no changes or alterations to the songs or the running order. The fifteen song playlist comes in just under an hour. The album is easy to find in any of the three formats with the vinyl the bargain, averaging between $1.50 to $2.00 in not too shabby condition. The Elite lived up to its Special Release status by also being released in Canada - with exactly the same tracklisting in the exact same order. Our buddy Brandon did a needle drop of his copy of The Elite and posted it on YouTube for us:  

The Elite was also released in Venezuela and The Netherlands. In the latter country, the Boz Scaggs and Diana Ross songs were replaced by Elton John's "Little Jeannie" and Leo Sayer's "Thunder In My Heart". In Venezuela, The Elite was a fourteen track album dropping the same two tracks that The Netherlands did but only adding the Elton John track.

In the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Greece and Scandinavia, The Elite was renamed The Platinum Album and featured the same fifteen songs as The Netherlands release of The Elite. In all of those countries, it was still sold as a benefit album for the T.J. Martell Foundation.  On the UK Album charts, The Platinum Album spent 11 weeks, entering at number 91 on October 3, 1981, peaking at number 32 on November 14, 1981, and falling off the chart on December 19, 1981. On its last week on the charts, the Number One album was another K-Tel compilation, Chart Hits '81, which was actually two albums bundled and sold as one: Chart Hits '81 Volume 1 and Chart Hits '81 Volume 2. On that same week's Top 100 Albums chart, there were six other K-Tel albums and two from their rival, Ronco.

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Next time out, we're taking a mostly mellow Night Flight with our first album from 1982 - the single greatest year in music history!