Phwoar! It's "Top Of The Pops"!

Design classic? Or sexist 70's tosh? Or an lame excuse to put pictures of models from the 70's in this blog? You decide, as we travel back to a time of power cuts, the three day week, the Rubettes and Big D peanuts and examine the crumpet-tastic bri-nylon bargain bin world of the "Top Of The Pops" albums...

For anybody under the age of 30, all this will be a complete mystery to them, and the sort of thing only ever seen in a tatty corner of some charity shop. But back in the 70's, these albums were the equivalent of the "Now" series of compilation albums we see these days. Released by budget record label Hallmark (later Pickwick), the "Top Of The Pops" album (no connection to the TV series of the same name, of course) contained a selection of the latest Top 20 hit singles compiled onto one album, the albums being released periodically through the year.

So far, so good. But these are not the original tracks or artists, oh no, these are cover versions recorded to sound as close to the originals as the time and budget would allow (which usually meant it sounded a bit crap), and sung by session singers. Fascinating fact: early albums contained vocals by the likes of Elton John before he was famous covering the hits of the day! The records would then find their way to Woolworths and the like, where you could buy them for about half the price of a normal album. Voila - the latest sounds at half the price. Sort of.

The album covers however were very much of their time. Sex sells, and never as blatantly as in the 70s. Each album's cover would be made up simply of the logo, a tracklisting and a glamour model of the time (your equivalent these days would be, I don't know, Jo Guest, Keeley Hazell [right] or some other Zoo mag type) pictured in a suggestive pose, but not too suggestive. None of your FHM or Loaded poses back then, it was all a bit more innocent. And that was it. No clever fonts or graphics. And you know, it works. I know looking at it now, it's all bit daft and lame, and could rightly from today's point of view be a bit contentious, but I think these have a certain sort of charm in a way, and is certainly to my eyes no more offensive that a "Carry On" movie is now. The covers have got that kitsch value yes, but there's an honesty about them that I like. No pretence, you know what you're getting, there you go mate.

Now, I maybe biased. Nobody likes a good looking bird, sorry, woman more than I do, but it's not just the chicks. I have got a soft spot for these records, as they always cropped up in the record collection at my Nan & Grandad's when I was living with them in my early years. Never ever knew if they were theirs, my Mum's or my Auntie's but there you go, they were around. I loved rifling through all their records, and even at five I knew that the "Top Of The Pops" covers were a bit naughty, but why I wasn't sure. There wasn't any thoughts of sex going through my head back then, I was more bothered with "Look In" comic and whether Dr Who would defeat the Zygons next Saturday teatime. But I loved to listen to the records, and read the crummy sleevenotes on the reverse, and look at the blue labels going round and round on the turntable... The covers of the albums you see here are the actual ones that we had and that I used to listen to on the massive wooden Stereogram (look it up) we had in the front room (or parlour).

Throughout the seventies, these records apparently used to rack up massive sales, but soon other labels like Ronco & K-Tel got wise to this and released their own hits compilations, except they licensed the real tracks from the major labels for their albums, and soon these sales overtook the cheapo "Top Of The Pops" series, and so it went on, until the majors realised in the 80's they could make more money by releasing their own compilations, hence "Now That's What I Call Music 658".

I didn't know until I did some research on the web that these "Top Of The Pops" albums were amazingly still being released well into the 80's , as you can see here by these covers featuring the two top Page Three models of that time, Samantha Fox and the lovely Linda Lusardi (who'ss very nice in real life, according to the even more lovely Celia). Who was buying these albums God only knows, but as you can see the design hadn't changed much, but that logo was a mistake, looking dated even for 1984. You have to say that you'd perversely love to hear how bad their cover of Ray Parker Jnr's "Ghostbusters" would be, or how the months of production and mixing that Trevor Horn put into "Two Tribes" would be reproduced by the boys at Pickwick in their lunch hour. I shudder to think, except to say it's probably akin to the bad cover versions you hear in WHSmith's these days.

Of course, where there's a hit formula, there's imitations, and never more so that with the "Top Of The Pops" albums. Rival budget labels such as Music For Pleasure and Contour released their own hit cover compilations, but the designs for these were not as successful as Hallmark's classic design. Yes, the glamourous model's there but it's not as good a concept. I mean, what's the girl in the "12 Tops" photo meant to be doing? Get your feet off the seats, woman.

MFP's "Hot Hits" series at least had a theme, which was gorgeous girls in a sporty pose. Which was an excuse for busty models to be pictured playing football, rugby, tennis, boxing, scuba diving or motorcross. How some of these sports could ever look sexy I don't know, but by God the photographers and models tried their best to do it in these shoots.

Now, I remember this cover with the buxom archeress from when I was about five years of age, but as explained I wasn't in the business of caring who she was. It's only now looking back I recognize her as Caroline Munro, cult film actress, "Lamb's Navy Rum" poster girl and most importantly, the sexy helicopter pilot & Stromberg henchwoman Naomi from the classic 1977 Roger Moore Bond "The Spy Who Loved Me". Forget Barbara Bach, Caroline was where it was at, because she had that helicopter with machine guns and everything, trying to blow Bond's Lotus Esprit off the road. Cool. Of course it's only when you're older you notice she's bloody gorgeous. She was on a TV documentary I saw recently and she still looks good 30 years on.

Ahem. Anyway, back on subject, the designers for "Hot Hits" (well I say designers, probably some blokes in the office half heartedly shoving some Letraset onto some girlie pictures, thinking "that'll do" and then legging it to the pub), bizarrely even attempted to make skiing look sexy, with partial success as you can see below...

I'll leave you to decide whether the "Top Of The Pops" covers are classics of their time or not, but look at this last image, and if it doesn't make you smile you've got no soul.

Thanks to "www.easyontheeye.net", "http://welcome.to/cover-girl" and "www.freespace.virgin.net/love.day/coverheaven/index.htm" for some of the covers.