Vinyl Voyage Radio

A K-Tel aficionado who goes by the name of HERC runs a site called K-Tel Kollection 1973-1983 . On this site he evaluates K-Tel albums based on his proprietary "K-Tel Scale." This scale is pretty cool and it produces a score that measures how good a K-Tel album was. The scale is based on numerous charts and each song is evaluated based on its chart placement and the formula then kicks out a number. The higher the number, the better the K-Tel album. I've been reading his site for awhile now. It is truly fascinating and it is very apparent that HERC knows his K-Tel. I recently mentioned his site in a post about the K-Tel album, Horizons . Back in January, I posited the question:  If you could put together the best of K-Tel in one limited edition collector's vinyl, what would you include? My choice would be an album I called Time Machine. This album features 14 of my favorite songs from previous K-Tel albums.  I even designed a cover: A couple of weeks ago,...

You may have by now heard the news: Columbia House is coming back in 2016. Yes, the company that helped fill out my record collection (and later my cd collection) is getting back into the vinyl business. I'm sure they won't have the same unbelievable vinyl offers like they had in the 70s and 80s. Remember those offers? 13 albums for $1.00! But the fact that they are going to be back selling vinyl is great news. And it got me thinking: if Columbia House can make a vinyl comeback, what about K-Tel? For those of you wondering, K-Tel is still around; they haven't gone anywhere. They had some financial troubles in the late 90s for sure, but they still have a nice catalog of music, numbering over 6,000 tunes. In fact, they still license that music for all sorts of projects--from movies to tv and commercials. They have tunes from Chuck Berry and Etta James. B.J. Thomas and Leslie Gore. The Buckinghams and Tina Turner. I am sure they have many of the tunes that filled thei...