N.U. R.O.C.K. [1982]

Technically, today's album is not a K-Tel album.  Just look at the labels:

But then you see the address on the back of the album cover:

Anyone who has watched the pretty decent documentary As Seen On TV: The K-Tel Story can tell you that K-Tel was so huge that by 1982, they were being approached with fully-packaged albums that they just had to distribute.  From the git-go, the company's distribution channels had been different from the traditional label as K-Tel Records were stocked in grocery stores, convenience stores, drug stores and discount department stores.  It wasn't until the late Seventies that their albums began showing up in record stores, often as part of a huge cardboard display featuring three to seven other K-Tel titles.  It appears that N.U.R.O.C.K. from 1982 is one of those distribution deals.

The album is another one of my favorites from 1982, the greatest year in pop music history though half of the dozen tracks are copyright 1981.  The tracks from Bryan Adams, Triumph (Canada's other power trio), Krokus (the other AC/DC) and Rainbow were my first exposure to these great acts and in short order after purchasing this album, I had their albums with those songs.  Thanks to an anonymous friend of this site, I have begun using this site for possible K-Tel album release dates and according to its database, N.U.R.O.C.K. was "published" July 8, 1982.  Three other K-Tel albums were published that date:

Neon Nights has already appeared here and After Hours is due up next after N.U.R.O.C.K. while Hit Express may very well be the first entry in 2016.  From then on albums will be posted in chrono/matrix order.  There are currently no plans to retroactively update the 57 previously published album entries at this time but the master discography has been updated and may be published when all the other albums have been posted.

The only 45 I had then and now from this new album is 38 Special's "Caught Up In You" and after the buying spree mentioned above, I had all the albums the other songs were from including 38 Special's Special Forces.  All except albums from Shooting Star and The Dregs, that is.  Sorry, guys.

I took the liberty of running N.U.R.O.C.K. through the K-Tel Scale not expecting much and it didn't dispel that notion.  Despite four Rock chart Number One's, N.U.R.O.C.K. only has five Top 40 Pop hits and no crossovers (other than the eleven on the Rock chart) and it ended up with an embarrassingly low score of 10.92.  Still the album occupies a special place in my heart and memories and even with two copies, I am always on the look-out for more.  Some of you may even own it on 8-track or cassette.

Ten of the album's twelve tracks are currently on Spotify.  So yay for that.  No idea what is holding up Joan Jett's Boardwalk Records output.

Here's a fun fact: only John Cougar and The Dregs appeared on American Bandstand lip-syncing their contributions to the N.U.R.O.C.K. album.  As alluded to earlier, join us next time as we go full adult contemporary with the After Hours and The Chart Soaring Hits Of Today: