LPCDreissues: Looking forward to the past

Disc 1 Penny lane A Little Bit Me A Little Bit You My Baby Loves Lovin' United We Stand Something Groovin With Mr Bloe I Will Survive Lola Vehicle Gasolene Alley Bred Which Way You Going Billy Wild World Long As I Can See The Light Love Is Life Don't Play That Song You Can Get It If You Really Want It Woodstock Its Wonderful The Witch Think About Your Children Ruby Tuesday My Sweet Lord Stoney End Right Wheel Left Hammer Sham Disc 2 Brown Sugar It Don't Come Easy Surrender Soley Soley Softly Whispering I Love You Day By Day Got To Be There Mother & Child Reunion Back Off Boogaloo Automatically Sunshine Where Is The Love Back Stabbers Burning Love Guitar Man You're So Vain Dreidel C/Moon Wishing Well By The Devil Doctor My Eyes Drive in Saturday Hallelujah Day Honaloochie Boogie Live And Let Die You Can Do Magic Give Me Love (Give Me Peace On Earth) In 2001 there are rival hits albums in the NOW series and the HITS series, well 30 years ago the same thing occurred with the TOP OF THE POPS series and the HOT HITS series. They were scoring high chart positions and selling in their millions, and even though they were subsequently banned from the charts the sales continued. They were a significant part of the pop music buying fabric in the early 1970's. HOT HITS produced 20 volumes from which RPM present to you the top 50 tracks. HOT HITS were part of a much bigger HITS catalogue with other titles such as Soul Hits, Rock'n'Roll Hits, Hits '67, Hits '70 and our sleeve notes tell the story of this bigger picture. As examples from this period that lead up to the HOT HITS section we've brought in a few sound samples such as My Baby Loves Loving, United We Stand, Penny Lane, A Little Bit Me A Little Bit You. The whole catalogue was recorded by commissioned session musicians and singers, and included musicians like Larry Adler, and singers like Tina Charles, David Byron (Uriah Heep), Daniel Boone, Perry Ford, Dana Gillespie, R (&J) Stone, plus on the aforementioned four songs Elton John (2) and David Bowie (2). Recording quality throughout is of the highest order as many were made at top studios like Abbey Road. Notable to us are the magnificent sleeves that the HOT HITS series were housed in which boasted commissioned photo sets, unlike TOTPs solitary front cover stock shot. HOT HITS also had themes per album cover such as the sporting ladies on our Top 50 cover (taken from six of the originals), all of which you can see for yourself in RPMs lavish 40 page booklet which reproduces every original LP cover.