Same year…
Same cover…
Oddly different playlist…
And just enough chart-fibbing to keep things interesting
Whether it’s a stamp…
A comic book…
Or a record:
It’s fascinating when you realize you own a variant you didn’t know about.
Such was the case when I looked at my copy of K-tel’s late 1975 Music Express.
I picked it up on a Canada cross-country train trip a couple of decades ago.
The train stopped in Edmonton just long enough for me to cross the street to a store that had a box of LPs in front at $5 or less. I snapped up a few before hearing “All Aboard!”
I remember listening when I got home and then filing it away.
What didn’t register with me was that I was listening to a Canadian version of the album – with significant differences from the U.S. version.
(Anyone who wants to listen to the U.S. version can do so here.)
The U.S. versions were produced in Minnesota, while the Canadian versions came out of K-tel International Ltd. in Winnipeg and Montreal.
On the Canadian version, listeners heard a lot of homegrown talent:
April Wine, Wednesday and the Toronto-based rock group Shooter on Side One,
And Gino Vannelli, the Stampeders, and soloists Charity Brown and Patricia Dahlquist on Side Two.
Comparing the two versions brings up several curiosities.
For example, on the Canadian version of Music Express, there are five Top 40 hits by American artists that do not make the U.S. version:
- Johnny Rivers’ remake of “Help Me, Rhonda,”
- Gladys Knight and the Pips’ medley of “The Way We Were/Try to Remember,”
- Ambrosia’s “Holdin’ On to Yesterday,”
And two Top 5 hits:
- Michael Murphey’s “Wildfire,”
And War’s “Why Can’t We Be Friends?”.
Instead, the U.S. version inexplicably repeats two tracks from its earlier 1975 collection “Sounds Spectacular:”
- Frankie Valli’s “My Eyes Adored You,”
- And Disco Tex and the Sex-O-Lettes’ “Get Dancin’.”
Both versions include what may have been the cheesiest Top 10s of the year:
- David Geddes’ “Run Joey Run,”
- And Austin Roberts’ “Rocky.”
(I only qualify that sentence because there was so much cheese to choose from in 1975…)
Indeed, the U.S. version includes Tony Camillo and Bazuka’s “Dynomite” as well as Johnny Wakelin & The Kinshasa Band’s No. 21-peaking “Black Superman (Muhammad Ali).”
As is typical on K-tel collections, the U.S. version of “Music Express” includes a few tracks from previous years:
- Harry Chapin’s “Cat’s in the Cradle” and the Doobie Brothers’ “Long Train Runnin’.”
It also has several major hits left off the Canadian version, presumably to make room for the Canadian tracks:
- KC and the Sunshine Band’s “Get Down Tonight,”
- Barry Manilow’s “Mandy,”
- Sammy Johns’ “Chevy Van,”
- 10cc’s “I’m Not in Love,”
- Jigsaw’s “Sky High,”
- And the Ritchie Family’s “Brazil.”
About those Canadian tracks? They’re not bad:
- April Wine’s “Tonite Is a Wonderful Time to Fall in Love,”
- And Charity Brown’s “You Beat Me to the Punch” both have a retro sound to them. (Brown’s is a remake of a Mary Wells tune, co-written by Smokey Robinson.)
Vannelli’s “Powerful People” is a heavily trimmed version of a six-minute-plus album track.
- And Dahlquist’s “Keep Our Love Alive” is a poppy composition from pre -“I Go Crazy” Paul Davis.
The album touts “All Top 10 Hits,” but this claim is false no matter which version you’re listening to.
In the U.S., “Black Superman” failed to make the Top 10 in Billboard, Cashbox or Record World. Of the homegrown tracks in the Canadian version, only the April Wine and Charity Brown songs hit the Top 10.
And the Rivers and Ambrosia tracks missed the Top 10 in both countries.
So, in place of the usual “Top Shelf/Decent/Yuck” categories, I’ll play record exec in Canada:
Given that I have to keep the seven Canadian tracks, here’s how I would have selected the remaining 13 tracks:
Side 1:
“Love Will Keep Us Together”
“Sky High”
“Get Down Tonight”
“Tonite Is a Wonderful Time to Fall in Love”
“I’m Not in Love”
“Jackie Blue”
“Here Today Gone Tomorrow”
“New Orleans”
“Wildfire”
“Why Can’t We Be Friends?”
Side 2:
“Philadelphia Freedom”
“The Rockford Files”
“Swearin’ to God”
“Black Superman (Muhammad Ali)”
“You Beat Me to the Punch”
“Keep Our Love Alive”
“Dynomite”
“Train”
“Powerful People”
“The Way We Were / Try To Remember”
Left off:
From the U.S. version:
“Mandy”
“Cat’s in the Cradle”
“Brazil”
“Get Dancin”
“Long Train Runnin”
“Chevy Van”
“My Eyes Adored You”
From the Canadian version:
“Help Me Rhonda”
“Holdin’ On to Yesterday”
From both versions:
“Run Joey Run”
“Poetry Man”
“Rocky”
How about you? Assuming you had to keep the seven Canadian tracks, which U.S. tracks would you use to fill it out?
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