During the 1970’s TV ads for their compilation albums would pop up regularly. K-Tel themselves are a huge company who have had success in many markets over the years but this post looks solely at those famous records.
Summary
K-Tel released it’s first compilation album “25 Country Hits” in 1966. At the time compilation albums were a new thing in record shops. The album far exceeded expected sales and it wasn’t long before a second release 25 Polka Greats was released selling 1.5 million copies in The USA alone.
In the early 1970’s K-Tel set up the UK-based division of K-Tel Records.
K-Tel Records went from strength to strength building it’s business of releasing compilation albums that combined material from a number of popular artists onto a single theme album using the tag line “20 Original Hits! 20 Original Stars!”.
A smart move from the company was negotiating directly with artists and labels for the rights to reproduce their original recordings. In doing this K-Tel was securing a long-term asset by adding those recordings to their catalogue.
While most of the compilation albums relied on the pop charts of the day, there were some that focused on hits from a specific genre. Examples include: 20 Power Hits (1973), Gold Rock (1975), mainly rock-oriented and Modern Dance (1981) compiled songs of the growing synth-pop movement popular at the time.
K-Tel released their final album in 1987.
Where Did They Go?
In 1987 after a number of bad deals and investments K-Tel Records parent company filed for bankruptcy.
Today the company are still in business now earning it’s profits from from a catalogue of 200,000 songs it distributes world wide on the many digital platforms.
K-Tel Records has also produced a Canadian children’s music group called Mini Pop Kids, a series of recordings in which a group of Canadian children aged 10 to 14 sing family-friendly pop hits.
Commercial Break