HIT EXPLOSION [1983]

By the time Hit Explosion was released, I had purchased my last new K-Tel album (Chart Action '83) and honestly, I don't recall ever seeing it for sale anywhere until a used record store one vague day in the Nineties. Nor do I remember ever seeing the commercial above. For the record, Hit Explosion was copyrighted in July 1983 while Get Dancin' wasn't copyrighted until October 1983 although copyright dates have proven to be unreliable in determining actual release dates in the past. (Get Dancin' will be featured here sometime soon - there are currently four K-tel albums ahead of it on the shelf.)

So, yeah, this is not K-Tel's Hit Explosion from 1983. It is Ronco's Hit Explosion from 1977. It may the only time that a compilation album from the two "As Seen On T.V." rivals Ronco and K-Tel ever shared a title. I mentioned Hit Explosion way back in 2012 HERE and today we're once again ignoring that Ronco album instead focusing all of our attention on the 14 original chart blasting hits of today that make up 1983's Hit Explosion.

Chart blasting? Guess that adjective is appropriate considering the album's title and it certainly starts off with a BANG!💥Toni Basil's "Mickey", a Number One song for a lone week in December 1982, kicks off Hit Explosion. There are at least two other Number One Songs on the album; one by Rock and Roll Hall Of Famer Steve Miller and another by People's Choice Award-winning rock band Survivor. I'm not even going to pretend to know where the tracks by Rush, A Flock Of Seagulls, and Haircut 100 ended up on the charts but I feel fairly confident that the other nine tracks probably made the Top 20 - I remember hearing all of them on the radio quite a bit back in 1982-1983 so I expect the majority of them to have a strong showing on the Rock charts. And, based on that memory and my experience with the other sixty-seven K-Tel albums I've run through the Scale, I'm forecasting a score in the low 30s  - most likely 32 or less for Hit Explosion.

HIT EXPLOSION [1983]					29.93
		Billboard Top 40s
		Pop	R&B	DISCO	Rock	AC	CB
Mickey	Toni Basil	1		3			2
Vacation	Go-Go's	8		17	13		6
Steppin' Out	Joe Jackson	6		(45)	7	4	5
Favourite Shirts (Boy Meets Girl)	Haircut One Hundred	(101)		(41)	(50)
Do You Wanna Touch Me (Oh Yeah)	Joan Jett & The Blackhearts	20			21		29
Young Turks	Rod Stewart	5		(63)	23		5
Abracadabra	The Steve Miller Band	1		14	4	28	1
Shadows Of The Night	Pat Benatar	13			3		13
Gloria	Laura Branigan	2		4		28	1
Hold On	Santana	15			17	34	9
Space Age Love Song	A Flock Of Seagulls	30			(59)		35
New World Man	Rush	21			1		35
Keep The Fire Burnin'	REO Speedwagon	7			2		10
Eye Of The Tiger	Survivor	1		(59)	1	27	1

I was wrong; guessed a little high. Those three songs I was unsure of proved to be a handicap to the K-Tel Scale™ score. Had just one of them eeked into the Top 20, the album would have scored around a 31 and if two of the three tracks had made it, we'd likely see Hit Explosion crack the K-Tel Scale™ Top 10 with a score near 34. Haircut One Hundred? More like Haircut One Hundred And One!

In addition to vinyl, Hit Explosion is available on both cassette and 8-track tape with the vinyl's tracklisting intact though it should be noted that the latter format splits "Space Age Love Song" between Programs Three and Four, making for a unique listen. The vinyl and cassette versions of the album can be found with little effort for a couple of bucks each though the 8-track seems a little harder to find and therefore commands a premium.

K-Tel Canada appropriated the US artwork but skimped a bit as far as listing artists and songs on the front cover. The Canadian version of Hit Explosion contains sixteen tracks (only three carry over from the U.S.) and nearly half of those sixteen artists are Canadian acts whose singles failed to crack the Top 40 in the States. UK acts A Flock Of Seagulls and Haircut One Hundred both appear on the U.S. and Canadian Hit Explosion albums, though, for their appearance up North, they are represented by their respective highest-charting singles. Had those singles ("I Ran" and "Love Plus One") been featured on the American iteration of Hit Explosion, the album would have cracked the Top 10 in the rankings.

Over in Germany, Hit Explosion was released in 1982 and aside from similar artwork and the inclusion of a Kim Wilde track ("Cambodia") bears no resemblance to either of the North American releases of the album. I've provided an incomplete playlist above featuring a dozen of the album's eighteen tracks if you're curious to hear songs that were popular in Germany circa 1981 and 1982.

Through sixty-eight K-Tel albums run through the K-Tel Scale™, the average score currently stands at 28.36 making Hit Explosion "above average" with its score of 29.93. You can listen to Brandon's needle-drop digitization of Hit Explosion HERE.

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Next time around, the featured album will be the soft rockin' Heartbeat Of The 80's.