Here at the K-Tel Kollection, we've dedicated ourselves to subjectively reviewing and objectively rating K-Tel various artists compilation albums from the United States with the more-than-occasional Canadian album tacked on for nearly five years now. Heck, we've covered a whole series of annual Canadian multi-artist comps. We've even featured a few K-Tel-styled '80s compilation albums from Australia that were NOT issued by K-Tel. Yet we've all but ignored the largest catalog of actual and authentic K-Tel compilations in the world, those from the UK, where the albums actually appeared on the charts and led to the Now That's What I Call Music phenomenon that spawned an entirely new chart (the Compilations Chart in 1989) because they were dominating the albums chart. So we stats lovers here at The Hideaway returned to the drawing board armed with not just one but two slide rules (how many you got lying around?), our trusty ol' Texas Instruments TI-30 (original model) along with the pointy thingy that makes circles and, after typing the seven-digit number below into the calculator then flipping it upside down while snickering amongst ourselves, we devised an all-new formula for the UK-Tel Scale™ to objectively rate UK K-Tel albums from a unique UK chart perspective.
The primary source of chart information for the UK-Tel Scale™ is from the Official Charts Company website - Billboard could learn a thing or two from these guys on how to build a reasonably intuitive interactive chart site. Whenever a single can't be found on the OCC, we'll reference the singles chart from New Musical Express. (Whenever you see an asterisk(*) after a song title in a scale chart, that signifies that NME data was used.) Whenever appropriate, we'll also be linking to entries from the excellent site A Pop Fan's Dream, which actually served as an inspiration for both the K-Tel Kollection and our regular Now That's What I Call Music features over on The Hideaway. As of this moment, exactly none of these compilations reside here in The K-Tel Kollection but, in the interest of brotherhood and diplomacy, we'd like to extend each and every one of them an honorary place on the shelf as all immigrants are welcome! After perusing the extensive K-Tel UK albums discography, we've decided to begin our UK-Tel series with 1979's Night Moves and proceed forward through the catalog numbers. We will only be covering albums that strike our fancy but we will be covering them in order of their catalog matrix numbers, which in the UK appears to be in the format NE XXXX. Night Moves is NE 1065 for those of you scoring along at home.
- "Dreaming" - Blondie
- "Video Killed The Radio Star" - The Buggles
- "Every Day Hurts" - Sad Café
- "Lost In Music" - Sister Sledge
Paul Young (not to be confused this Paul Young) was the voice of Sad Café and he may sound familiar to some of you as he later shared lead vocal duties with Paul Carrack in Mike + The Mechanics with his biggest chart success being 1986's "All I Need Is A Miracle", another one of our all-time favorites here at The Hideaway. How about a few more TV appearances from those first four tracks?
The tracklist for Night Moves is fairly eclectic if only because 1979 was an awesome year for music: Disco was still huge with appearances by Sister Sledge and Anita Ward; the New Wave was rolling in with Blondie, The Buggles, and Madness; and there's also Smooth Jazz from The Crusaders and Spyro Gyra as well as a Reggae tune. Before we get to the debut appearance of the UK-Tel Scale™, the videos below are the songs not yet available on Spotify US - would love to hear from a Spotify fan outside the States, to see what their library is like.
The Jags are the only act of the four with a bonafide Billboard Hot 100 single with "Back Of My Hand" entering the chart dated June 7, 1980, at number 86 then climbing four spots up to 82 before the single disappeared. After hearing this song just one time we're on a quest to obtain more power-pop from The Jags.
The Darts, led by singer Rita Ray, sound like a Sixties doo-wop throwback. Dad might have liked them if he had heard them. I borrowed a friend's double disc anthology to hear more of their sound.
Upon first blush, I sort of liked this song. Then I watched this other video from Top Pop (which is not the same as Top Of The Pops as some may assume) and now I never need to see or hear this "Bang Bang" again.
If you were unfamiliar with the vocal talents of Ms. Tzuke before watching this video, you're very welcome. This song is what I like to call a "sleepy-time" song, one that I would enjoy falling asleep while it played softly. The first vocal comparison that came to mind was Christine McVie - what do you guys hear? And, finally, the following non-performance video which also happens to be the only song that failed to chart:
Are you ready for the first ever public appearance of the UK-Tel Scale™? I have no predictions as I am unfamiliar with the UK charts but before we get to it, just a few more words about the configuration of the formula and the Scale itself:
- because K-Tel albums actually charted in the UK, their chart performance figures into the total score along with their individual songs, which is in yellow at the upper right of the chart below
- the leftmost column is the chart debut date and is in dd/mm/yyyy format
- PK stands for peak position on chart - songs placing outside of Top 40 receive zero points and receive fractional values for LG and AC factors
- LG stands for length of stay or longevity on chart in weeks and applies only to initial chart run - no revivals, reprises or re-releases are taken into account
- AC stands for acceleration or how many weeks it took single (or album) to reach peak position after chart debut
- the UK-Tel Scale™ will continue to be analyzed, tweaked and adjusted - currently, it is not compatible or comparable with the original K-Tel Scale™ though that may happen someday, someway
NIGHT MOVES [UK 1979 NE 1065]
|
27.714
| ||||
| PK | LG | AC | |||
| 24.11.1979 | 10 | 9 | 4 | ||
| 29.09.1979 | Dreaming | Blondie | 2 | 8 | 2 |
| 22.09.1979 | Video Killed The Radio Star | The Buggles | 1 | 11 | 5 |
| 22.09.1979 | Every Day Hurts | Sad Café | 3 | 12 | 7 |
| 11.08.1979 | Lost In Music | Sister Sledge | 17 | 10 | 6 |
| 18.08.1979 | Street Life | The Crusaders | 5 | 11 | 5 |
| 18.08.1979 | Reggae For It Now | Bill Lovelady | 12 | 10 | 6 |
| 04.08.1979 | Just When I Needed You Most | Randy Vanwarmer | 8 | 11 | 7 |
| 08.09.1979 | The Loneliest Man In The World | The Tourists | 32 | 7 | 6 |
| 08.09.1979 | Back Of My Hand | The Jags | 17 | 10 | 7 |
| 20.10.1979 | Can't Get Enough Of Your Love | The Darts | (43) | 6 | 4 |
| 02.06.1979 | Ring My Bell | Anita Ward | 1 | 11 | 3 |
| 28.07.1979 | Bang Bang | B.A. Robertson | 2 | 12 | 7 |
| 11.08.1979 | Angel Eyes | Roxy Music | 4 | 11 | 4 |
| 14.07.1979 | Stay With Me 'Til Dawn | Judy Tzuke | 16 | 10 | 6 |
| Skin Tight | Noosha Fox | ||||
| 15.09.1979 | You Can Do It | Al Hudson & The Partners | 15 | 10 | 5 |
| 16.06.1979 | Wanted | The Dooleys | 3 | 14 | 8 |
| 05.05.1979 | (Everybody) Get Dancin' | Bombers | 37 | 7 | 4 |
| 21.07.1979 | Morning Dance | Spyro Gyra | 17 | 10 | 6 |
| 01.09.1979 | The Prince | Madness | 16 | 11 | 6 |
Night Moves finishes with nine Top 10's, including two Number Ones, for a rather modest score of 27.714 to establish a baseline going forward. If the two songs that missed the Top 40 would have come in at number 40, the album's score would have been just over 29 after adding in both the longevity (LG) and acceleration (AC) factors. Currently, the theoretical maximum score an album can receive, assuming the highly improbable scenario that has both the album and all of its songs debut at Number One on the charts, is 43.000. In the creation and ongoing evolution of the Scale, we've run a total of 26 different non-K-tel comps through, including NOWs, Ronco, Telestar, Ministry Of Sound, Rhino, etc. - with some albums having as many as 60 tracks and the highest scoring album, when run through the current UK-Tel Scale formula, nearly scored a 38.
🎧🎧🎧
Please send us your comments, questions, and concerns via email or in the Comments box below yet keep in mind that any anonymous comments will probably be read but definitely not published. Finally, here's the pixelated cover art of the next album we'll be featuring in the UK-Tel series:
No comments:
Post a Comment