Various – Super Bad

For mass market compilations that have stood the test of time, this one is surely hard to beat. I imagine this LP has been an education for many who encountered it since its release in 1974 when individually these tunes were harder to find and we can count the tracks that would have an enormous influence on music over the next 50 years.

For myself, this is one of the longest surviving records in my collection, picked up for 50 cent in a charity arounnd the mid 2000s. First introduction to proto club tracks from the likes of Cymande, Timmy Thomas, etc. As my own tastes evolved I've come to recognise there isnt a dud on here. A great job from the team who put this together way back.

The First Majestic album not to use the 20 Hits Title and the first to be issued on Cassette its a great album i do have in my collection The first Majestic album to use the 20 hits title was 20 Power Hits in 1969.

B6 Why can't we live together by Timmy Thomas also ended up on the Australian Majestic/K-tel Compilation album called Rock Explosion

A12 I'm Gonna Love You Just A Little More Baby by Barry White ended up on Majestic/K-tel Australian issue called Rock Explosion

K-Tel(as Majestic) in Australia realised that in order to put 24 songs on an LP(12 per side) was going to involve some severe editing. So K-Tel(Majestic) cut back to 20 tracks(10 per side) in order to get more songs in a side appearing in their complete form, or as many as possible. Later K-Tel LPs here would reduce the number of tracks back to 8 or 9 a side, Dropping the "20(insert name here) Hits" titles freed K-Tel up to issue albums with less tracks, so that the tracks could be included unedited. "Less is more!"

this was issued in Australia with entirely different track listing with 20 tracks rather 24 that practise stopped in country in 1969

All of these are from 1974, but my copy says 73; its NU-427, which isn't an option. How come it isn't on here

This album was produced in an era when records were extremely expensive. Some of the tracks on this were quite hard to find - Timmy Thomas, Cymande for instance. I actually this album being d on the tv at the time and a couple of days later some of the cool kids were carrying it around at school.

K-Tel wanted to give value for money but it was a kind of law of diminishing returns ... it looked good on paper (and on the tv) but when you got hold of the thing it turned out not to be quite as good as it seemed. K-Tel had to pay for all those adverts somehow... and groove-cramming was the way forward. The sound quality is pretty dire and many of the tracks are curtailed before their time. Most teenagers couldn't tell the difference back then anyway.

This was an era when multi-artist chart hit compilations were mainly of the non-original artists, soundalike variety and pitched just less than a quid (Hot Hits, Top Of the Pops etc... way, way before NTWICM). This album probably came in at £1.50, something like that, but as it was all original artists represented good value at the time.
Wouldn't give it house room now though.... it's a '70s thing.

my copies are totally fine - great comp with some superb soul music

There are a couple of problems with this offering from the budget compilation label K-Tel. How can this be? There's some brilliant soul and funk tunes on here sure enough, and some interesting not so well known tunes alongside the classics, but this is an awful lot of tracks for one slab of vinyl. In order to squeeze the tunes on every one has been dramatically cut short, which kind of defeats the point as far as funk is concerned. Mammoth jams such as Superwoman and the fantastic Yes we Can Can by The Pointer Sisters are reduced to 2 minute snippits which seem to consistently fade out just as they start to get going. Aretha's Mocking Bird is ittedly a short tune anyway but weighs in here at a pointless one minute thirty.
There's another problem too. On my copy side one plays fine; but on side two the pressing isn't central causing the tracks to have a wobbly quality which of course spoils your listening experience considerably.
It's such a shame that this wasn't done better, perhaps by spreading the tracks over two discs or just by not having as many tracks, but maybe this was a teaser to encourage listeners to buy the albums that the songs were lifted from! One good thing it has done is brought a funk amateur like myself to some brilliant tunes such as Sly's If You Want Me to Stay and Millie Jackson's Hurt So Good, so I guess I should be grateful...