Search This Blog

3/4/24

The Collecting of Budget Records: Why Do I Collect Them?


If you are reading this blog right now, you will likely know that I collect budget record albums. I imagine you would ask, "What is so appealing about budget records to the point you would fork over real money to buy these junk records"? The answer lies in the stories behind the various budget labels and the purposes for which the records were made. I find them to be endlessly fascinating. I am what you could call a history buff and enjoy the why and how of anything, so I find the research and the "field" research very entertaining. How do you get interested in this field of record collecting, you ask? Sadly, I can't give you a straight answer, as it grew on me until it became the primary focus of my collecting. Try it, and it may grow on you, too. I have also loved specific budget record labels, mainly Crown and other Modern Records-operated, Royale and other Record Corporation of America, Wyncote and Golden Tone, and other P.R.I worked labels.

Budget records need to be more understood in the record-collecting community. A guy once asked me as I was flipping through some records concerning what I ordered. I told him I collected budget records. At this point, he asked, "Who made those"? I answered his questions by explaining that budget records are a category, not a brand name, primarily manufactured between the '50s and '70s. Afterward, I was shocked that people knew so little about these fascinating records.

I will tell you the good and the bad about these records. First, there is a lot of junk out there (Easy listening to music, polka, etc.)! Some of this junk is worthwhile, such as some select 101-string albums and tribute albums. One of the suitable types of budget records is albums with name artists, the real fun being that the artist in small print usually makes up the majority of the album! Another great type of budget album is a knock-off record covering pop hits or albums of the day. These knock-off records' quality depend on how well the artist covered the record; some are good, and some are paint peeling awful, so listen carefully.

I now ask you a question, what do you collect, and what makes you manage it? Please put your answer in the comment section. I can't wait to hear what you have to say.

6 comments:

  1. Fascinatingly, our interest in budget labels is nearly identical. My favorites are Crown & Halo.

    As for myself, I primarily collect Hawaiian/Exotica records. My grandfather was an audiofile & esp. liked Hawaiian music. As a small child, I was drawn to this music & the idea that I would live in Hawaii eventually. At 5 years of age, my grandparents bought me a record player & my Hawaiian collection began then. MANY of my earliest LPs were the budget labels. I did move to Hawaii at 19, and at 51 I'm still here and have over 2,500 LPs of Hawaiian music.
    I love Hawaiian/Exotica, both the authentic & the "Spongebob Squarepants" luau music. I love the record jacket artwork, too. The fantasies, hopes, dreams, beauty, outright tackiness, etc. It represents many things to me.
    I do have special love of the Hawaiian budget label releases...and there are MANY. About 4 distinct studio groups recorded about a dozen numbers each, plus one Andy Williams Hawaiian Wedding Song vocal rip-off. These recording were then released in dozens of combinations, two from this session, three from that, etc., etc...each time giving a ficticious group name like "Luke Leilani & His Royal Hawaiians" or "Pete Kilanee & The Hawaiianers", etc. And the song titles were changed constantly. There was ONE group who recorded Hawaiian LPs on Crown called "The Polynesians" who were quite good & performed at various Polynesian nightclubs/restaurants on the Mainland. Their recordings were generally issued under their own name.
    I like to imagine what budget lps would be doing today if they were still around..who they'd be ripping off & imitating..:)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I enjoy the Polynesians albums also, however what I find most interesting is the fact that Crown never issued Polynesian recordings under any other name, if there were others artists that recorded Hawaiian music for them, they would give them a different name never the Polynesians. The Polynesians are one of the few groups that recorded for budget labels that the individual members of the groups are known still to this day. I find it interesting that Crown & Halo happen to be two favorite labels to collect also. When ever I see any thing by those two labels I grab it, unless I already have a copy of it in better condition. We don't have to imagine what a budget label album today would sound like, there are some cheap budget CD's that cover recent hit songs by no name artists, fake names and all!I believe these are found in some stores bargain CD section.

      Delete
    2. They're not always cheap either. The "Drew's Famous Party Music" CDS sell at full price or close to it...some have even been certified gold by the RIAA. I've seen whole sections in some CD departments devoted entirely to the Drew's line.

      Others, like the Countdown Singers, do seem to show up more often in the "bargain bin" though. For a while there were no-name CDS of original material (usually pretty bad "smooth jazz") packaged in cardboard sleeves like a miniature LP, which showed up in "dollar" stores; but that seems to have died out (or at least down...)

      Delete
    3. I've seen those bargin bin CDs and "Drew's Famous Party Music" ones in Walmart and Dollar Tree. They scare me.

      Delete
  2. The way I see it, SOMEBODY needs to collect these records.

    I'm actually LOOKING for one record "Bossa Nova" by The Brasileros on Diplomat (1962) in NM/EX+ condition



    ReplyDelete
  3. I don't have that many as I mainly collect records by my favourite artist - Prince, but my mother was quite poor and loved music. All she could afford was budget records that cost like $2 or $3 when a full priced major artist album was $7 or so. Here in NZ, we did not have lables like Crown or Gilmar, but a notorious one called "Music for Leisure" run by someone called Hogton Hughes who was very young when he started mostly pilfering songs off Pickwick records and numerous British cheap labels like Marble Arch and Embassy. He also recorded local polka, country, classical and easy listening artists. We also had the Solid gold series here which ran from 1971 to 1984 and had several spinoffs afterwards. Hughes also dabbled with Children's records and ran a racist label called Sambo records which featured a Maori child made to look like a stereotypical black "Topsy" or "Piccaninny" - this was as late as 1972!
    Solid gold, which I collect was not your TV series (Which did air here with our "Thats country" - NZ's answer to the grand ole opry as late as 1985!), was a series of records released every 4 or 5 months, that had 20 hit songs crammed on to a single 33rpm record. To fit that many songs, they were faded out before they ended (Each song got 2m 45s tops and by 1978 the average song was 3m 30s) and about 5 or 6 would be songs by local artists or obscure acts who had a song that spent 1 week at #37 or #89, so you got 14 hits, the vinyl was thin and cheap, hissed and popped like your budget albums and was just awful. They were sold at $5 a record and often saturation advertising was done, along with numerous tie in sets like 20 Dynamite hits and Disco Inferno (K Tel krap sold well here too), we also had the knock off albums like "20 super hits", "20 Country and Western hits" and the fact they were soundalikes was in tiny letters.
    Bright covers often in cheap cardboard sleeves with a badly pressed record with a plain cheap yellow or white label (Hallmark, Carnation or Music for Leisure). Most of the songs came off the English "Top of the Pops" knockoff series and lesser quality albums - like Englands Top 10 (Usually the budget albums that had soft core porn covers in the 70s).
    Yes I find budget and knockoff music heaps of fun!

    ReplyDelete