Redartz: Hello, music lovers! Have you ever looked over the Billboard Magazine Hot 100 Singles chart? Once upon a time, the "singles" referred to in that chart were 45 rpm singles. Yes, we're talking vinyl. But not LP's, or even EP's . No, these were the 7 inch discs that had the big hole in the middle. You remember; you usually had to pop an adapter into the middle in order to play the 45 on most turntables.
My parents never had 45s around; the first time I ever saw them was when our babysitter brought some over in a small carrying case. Not long after, they started showing up at school: during recess, our 3rd.Grade teacher would let us bring in records to play on the little phonograph. Mostly it was the girls who brought the records; seems like there were Monkees songs, Partridge Family, and other 'bubble gum' hits.
Once I was introduced to the Top 40 and all the fun of 70's pop, I started gravitating to the racks of singles when shopping with my folks. We had a Woolworth's in town, and they had a huge rack of 45s. The display was arranged numerically, with the current number 1 all the way down to number 40. Of course, they had a chart posted so you could find the disc you were looking for. They were generally about a dollar; much less than the 6 dollars LPs were priced at. Most of my friends at the time were buying LPs, and I did occasionally (it wasn't until high school that I really caught the album bug). But more often I just added to my growing stack of 45s, in one of those little suitcase-styled carriers. 
The first 45 I ever bought was "The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia" by Vicki Lawrence. Many more followed over the next decade and a half. Even in college, there would be songs I liked, but not sufficiently to justify purchasing the whole LP. So I added more 45s well into the 80s. Among those were included some interesting imports, colored vinyl, and many picture sleeves. By the time CDs became popular, I had a couple hundred singles.
Incidentally, for those of you who also had a stack of 45s, a question: did you find the quality of the vinyl deteriorated by the mid 80s? It got to the point where a single would start hissing and popping after only a few plays (and no, it wasn't a bad stylus: I was obsessive about replacing the diamond needle in that belt drive Akai turntable). Of course, the new CDs by then were replacing my vinyl purchases, much like most other people. The last 45 I ever bought was "Paranoimia" by Art of Noise with Max Headroom. And yes, it was a picture sleeve.
All those 45s remained on a shelf for years, collecting dust. Then a few years ago my wife bought me a USB turntable, allowing me to transfer all my old vinyl onto the computer. It took awhile, most of the 45s (and LPs) got converted to mp3. Some of them were too scratched to work with, but it was a pleasant memory trip going through the stack and recalling all those favorite songs. The ironic coda to the story: about a month after I unloaded all my vinyl, my nephew called. Seems he had just started a new hobby: he is now collecting vinyl records! I sadly told him he was a few weeks too late. At least I had a small stack of LPs remaining, which I gave him, so he wasn't totally out of luck...
Nowadays you still see 45s for sale cheap at yard sales and flea markets. Currently vinyl LPs have had a resurgence of popularity, but the same doesn't seem to be true for the singles. But that's okay, they will always hold a small spot in my memory (and a large space on my hard drive).
Now, if you'll pardon me, I'm going to go put on some earbuds and play some old stuff. Any thoughts about your 'stax of wax'?
9 comments:
Seriously???!!! You had to show "Crushed by the Wheels of Industry" by Heaven 17??? Ohhhh mannnn... my OCD is kicking in and it's going to be a Heaven 17/ Sheffield, UK Weekend!!!
The last single I bought was Harlem Shuffle by the Rolling Stomes in 1986. Just wanted to hear it over and over a few hundred times, lol! Still have it! I did keep my Beatles albums (and 80s new wave)! Just can't part with those emotional ties! Great blog idea!
Again I harken back to summer of 1973, after years of having some left-over Beatle 45's from my brother, I bought my first few 45s, my family now living in the small Wisconsin town (and off the farm..).
OMG, 'Seasons in the Sun', 'Live and Let Die', Harrison's 'Give Me Peace', 'They Way We Were', all the AM hits at the time. Listening to the neighbor's 'Crocodile Rock' next door..? All goodness.
I collect a fair amount of vintage 45 and EP covers now.. Some have the best art, and look good matted/framed around the house.
Nice to see Tracey Ullmann's "They Don't Know" which I loved - it reached #2 in the UK in October 1983, several years before her American fame. My father had a very low opinion of pop music, he was convinced it would rot my brain - he once said "This country started going downhill when the Beatles came along". As a result my only exposure to the Top 40 was occasionally watching the 'Top Of The Pops' TV show on other people's televisions. But I was a big comics fan anyway and so wasn't that interested in pop music (my father didn't really like me reading comics either but he tolerated them - if it was up to him my only reading material would have been Reader's Digest and proper books lol). But in June 1979 I got a portable TV in my bedroom and now I could watch anything I wanted, yay !! The only 45 rpm single I ever bought was "Last Christmas/Everything She Wants" by Wham! which I bought for my sister as a Christmas present in 1984 - she didn't have a record player but she was a big George Michael fan so I thought the Wham! single would be a sort of "souvenir" of her fandom...it seemed logical at the time. The UK Top 40 was recently in the news because, due to streaming, nine of the ten songs in the Top 10 were from one album - Ed Sheeran's "Divide".
Having my own portable TV meant I could watch Top Of The Pops every week and if I really liked a song I just taped it off the radio during Sunday's Top 40 rundown. In November 1983 I bought my first ever album - "The Best Of Blondie" by...er, Blondie.
Which was a cassette.
David_b- "Seasons in the Sun" was an early purchase of mine as well. Good idea about framing those pictures sleeves, wish I'd thought of that before getting rid of them. Do you frame them yourself?
Colin- yes, taping songs off the radio was another shared experience among us Bronze Agers. The sound quality may have suffered some, but at least you could listen to the song anytime you wanted...
I think my parents had a few 45s ... all country music, since that was their preferred genre. I still have some LPs, mostly early 80s rock, including a bunch of those K-Tel compilation albums.
I never collected 45s myself, but my uncle gave us a whole case of old ones in the late 60's. The early Beatles (on Capitol and VeeJay), The Beach Boys, a lot of 50's big band that had been my grandparents', including a couple from Jackie Gleason(!) and his orchestra. I grew up listening to all of those and many others.
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