Entertainment For Lively Minds
Freebies with singles
Ah, 'formats'. Remember when some singles were released on more formats than you could count on two hands? I worked in a record shop in the mid-80s and remember the label reps arriving laden down with multiple version of what was essentially the same thing. I later swapped sides and got to drive around in a Ford Sierra estate (and later an Astra, then several Mondeos) filled to the gunwales with 'formats'.
Freebies were nipped in the bud a couple of years before, however. A few stick in my mind:
01. Thomas Dolby - Europa and the PIrate Twins 12" single, shrinkwrapped with a free copy of his album The Golden Age of Wireless. No, it wasn't the other way around - I spent a whole £0.99 on that from Larry's Record Bar.
02. Kissing the Pink - The Last Film 12" single, wrapped in a free T-shirt of the lowest-possible quality.
03. Annabel Lamb - Riders on the Storm 7" single, replete with free VHS of the video for the song. It was this release, I seem to recall, that nailed the coffin of free gifts with singles.
Any more for any more?
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Monday lunchtime
Vibes Records in Bury. A regular run to hoover up all the "limited edition" releases. Once bought an Elvis Costello 7" that included a free copy of Get Happy LP.
Chart return shop natch.
Elvis here too.
I got my free copy too, of course I'd had the album for months already... and of course I still have both copies along with however many CD versions I've had to buy! I think it was the Elvis gift that accelerated the rules on free gifts.
I also got a free neckerchief with a Moondogs single but apart from that I can't think of any other freebies.
Once the rules came in.
Once the new chart eligibility rules came in, the only things that could be bundled with singles were badges, stickers and postcards.
So instead the labels just increased the numbers of different versions of a single that could be issued. So as well as the 7" we got the 12", coloured vinyl, picture discs and many other strange variations.
Some labels would stagger the date over which some of these limited edition variations would be released in an attempt to prolong the single's lifetime. Interlocking picture discs were one such gimmick, but there were many more.
Eventually the chart compilers saw sense and limited the number of variants to four, whilst at the same time mandating that all valid formats had to be released at once.
I got a free T-Shirt...
... with a Psychedelic Furs 12" - possibly "Pretty in Pink".
I remember...
..in my local (Disc`n`Tape Accrington) a punter purchasing one of Rod Stewarts `80s efforts complete with rather natty Adidas t shirt. Punter opens packaging checks out attractive "freebie" and departs leaving the Rod single still nestling on the counter.
I have a single by a band called The Candy Harlots
that came with a pair of women's panties with a lifesize lipstick mark and the name of the band emblazoned on them. I'd like to have been a fly on the wall at that creative meeting, I can't begin to imagine the ideas they rejected.
Not a freebie as such...
but I have got a Donny Osmond single with a signed poster sleeve.
Oh, and a Jonathan King Greatest Hit LP with a free gold flexidisc saying how much better than The Beatles he is, or similar guff, AND a white sticker on the sleeve containing his autograph. Any takers?