Accessing the Full Crown Record Catalog For Free On YouTube- But Only With The Right Searches

I have spent considerable time discussing the Bihari Brothers' budget record labels in my blog posts in the past. Orchard Music had many recordings behind a paywall, approximately nine dollars per album. These recordings often included original vinyl releases that could be found in the dollar bins of record stores. This pricing strategy seemed unreasonable, considering one could easily purchase an original vinyl copy on eBay for about five dollars, including shipping, and have the added benefit of the album's cover art, which is often missing from online reissues.

In exploring the original Crown Records catalog, which can be referenced by going to http://www.bsnpubs.com/modern/crown/crownstory.html or on Discogs, I discovered by searching YouTube with the format "[artist name] Orchard [music/enterprises]," one can find videos featuring the Crown record label and occasionally,, original cover art. These recordings, provided by Orchard Enterprises or Music to YouTube, are the same ones available on iTunes or Amazon Music. To access complete albums, use YouTube's advanced search settings and select playlists. If the artist was a budget label artist, search in the format of "[artist name]-topic".

When searching, it's essential to modify generic attributions like "& his orchestra" to formats like "[Artist Name] Orchestra" or "[Artist Name] chorus" if vocals are involved. Orchard Music Enterprises often alters the original artist attribution names, using no-name groups or generic titles like "1000 Strings" for background music.

The artist names used by Orchard might slightly differ from the original Crown release, but YouTube's search algorithms usually handle these minor variations effectively. Once you identify the artist name used by Orchard, searching with that name plus "Orchard Music" or "Enterprises" should bring up the rest of the tracks for that artist on YouTube.

However, the original album's track listings may align differently from the initial Crown release. They are sometimes scattered across compilations made by Orchard, especially if the tracks have similar sounds or themes.

In exceptional cases, finding these recordings on YouTube may be challenging. I suggest alternative ways to obtain these recordings legally and ethically if necessary. Seeking out a vintage vinyl copy is a last resort, mainly when the original used a generic name or no name, making it challenging to identify the correct artist attribution used by Orchard Music Enterprises.

I had started compiling a list of all albums released by Crown Records until about 1964, but life events and a computer crash interrupted this project. Despite this, I found that the recordings are available online 99% of the time. Occasionally, I obtained and transferred a physical copy to see if YouTube's content ID would identify the artist/recording, which it did about three-quarters of the time, albeit under unexpected generic artist attributions. For albums from the Fazzio artwork period, many are compilations with some tracks readily locatable, but many seem to have tracks that are not so easy to find online in the early 2020s