That's some good jacket art. And I'm sure these all sold a million... on their original labels and in the original versions, that is. Yup, another fake-hits festival, and a fun one, even if the "stereo" promised on the jacket is actually messed-with mono. Here the Diplomat label resorts to the standard channel-switching game that's supposed to convince people stereo is happening when it isn't. It also tries to trick us with the different-EQ-in-each-track bit, where one channel is muffled but the other one isn't--as if this somehow simulates stereo. A real shame, because Synthetic Plastic Co.'s recordings were actually quite good, once you get past the noisy pressings and (in this case) the doctored sound.
However, these fakes are enjoyable and competent, and they'd sound worse in their 45 or 78 rpm EP formats due to wear and/or jammed-together grooves, so we're really not getting a bad deal here. Speaking of deals, I bought this at Goodwill on Wednesday, so I got the senior discount. For all I know, I paid about the same tab as the original buyer. So much for vinyl appreciating in value.
The tender love ballad I'm Gonna Change Everything has possibly the most entertaining lyrics of the bunch, imo. "I'm gonna start with the walls, take the pictures off the walls and burn 'em, Move the chairs around, take the window curtains down and burn 'em. Everything I see reminds me you were here. Yeah, I'm gonna change everything that holds a memory of you." Also, "Take the carpet off the floor, throw it out the door, it's filled with tears. Everything I find that brings you to my mind must disappear." I was half expecting, "Gonna stand back by the well, while I blow the house to hell, oh yeah." Things seem to be leading up to dynamite and a plunger. The title hardly prepares us for what we're going to hear--maybe the songwriters decided that I'm Gonna Destroy Everything had less commercial potential. Running Bear, meanwhile, is a great cover of a spectacularly un-P.C. novelty, and it's always nice to hear Heartaches by the Number, though I actually prefer it in its pop version. Country Boy sounds like Fats Domino, and I just looked it up and discovered why it sounds like Fats Domino... because it was! The original, I mean. This version is actually livelier than his, so great to have it. The usual cheap label carelessness in packaging, but sometimes that pays off.
To the fake country and western million record sellers....
DOWNLOAD: Country & Western Million Record Sellers
This Ole House
Wings of a Dove
I'm Gonna Change Everything
Four Walls
Country Boy
Wolverton Mountain
Young Love
Don't Throw Away Those Teardrops
Running Bear
Heartaches by The Number
Country & Western Million Record Sellers (Diplomat DS 2605; "stereo")
Lee
4 comments:
It is a nice cover. Don't think I've seen this one before.
Country Boys is very similer in style to the Keil Isles new Zealand version!
Definitely a cool cover. Because I forgot that I'd set my scanner brightness high (for a dark, murky label scan), the first scans came out bright yellow. I returned to the scanner's preset and got a perfect result. I was worried my ancient scanner was getting ready to meet the saints.
I wish Diplomat had put it out in mono. Maybe there's a mono edition. The Both Sides Now site, however, doesn't have a Synthetic Plastics Co. page (actually, there would be a ton of sub-pages, too), so I can't check there. Discogs only shows this edition, the "stereo" one. This was probably the one and only edition.
Oh, lordy, thanks for the laughs in this one, Lee!
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