By the early Eighties, the 45 began dying a slow, humiliating death. The following decade, indie fans who snapped up Hüsker Dü’s “Makes No Sense at All” found their unlikely but fantastic cover of “Love Is All Around,” otherwise known as the Mary Tyler Moore Show theme song, on the flip.Īccording to the New York Times, the peak year for the seven-inch single was 1974, when 200 million were sold. If you flipped over Fleetwood Mac’s “Go Your Own Way” in 1977, you’d come across “Silver Springs,” the Stevie Nicks landmark that was dumped from Rumours. Some singles had picture sleeves or B sides of outtakes. For added head-scratching, each 45 was printed in a different color, from “deep red” to “dark blue.” (Yes, colored vinyl actually existed in the years immediately after World War II.) Not quite the stuff of the pop charts at that moment in history. The one most people will remember is Arthur “Big Boy” Crudup’s jumping-bean boogie “That’s All Right,” which became Elvis Presley’s breakout moment in the next decade, but the list also included a Yiddish song, “A Klein Melamedl (The Little Teacher),” sung by a cantor. Then consider those initial seven RCA releases, which, according to the label’s archives, ranged from classical to kids’ music to country. “They’ll come in, ask for a recording, and then ask me whether or not it can be played on the particular phonogram they have at home.” More often than not, he said, potential buyers left without forking over any cash. “My customers don’t know what to buy anymore,” a record store owner groused to the trade magazine Cashbox that month. The size of 45s alone, combined with the fact that different gear was suddenly required to play them, was enough to perplex the pre-rock music business. On March 15th, 1949, RCA Victor became the first label to roll out records that were smaller (seven inches in diameter) and held less music (only a few minutes a side) than the in-vogue 78s. If this is new information to you, start pulling out some of the records in your collection and check it out.When it arrived 70 years ago today, the 45 rpm single, a format that would revolutionize pop music, seemed less radical than simply confusing. You'll find this dating system used on some 45 rpm re-releases of RCA material originally issued earlier in the century on 78 rpm recordings. This dating system actually starts earlier in the century, as follows: Examples of RCA Victor regular releases and custom pressings are: A typical RCA matrix number contains eight digits of letters and numbers. In the list above, the letters: I, O, Q, V and Y are skipped. Notice that the system skips any letter that could be easily confused with a number. The following chart shows the dating information from 1950 to 1975: In 1955, RCA changed it's system slightly so that the first letter alone represented the year. The code is located in the first letter and number of the eight digit matrix number up to 1954. There is a code in the RCA matrix numbers that identifies when the record was mastered (it was usually pressed and released immediately thereafter). Their pressing plant in Indianapolis, Indiana pressed 1000's of local label releases in the area throughout the 1950's, 60's and 70's. RCA custom pressed a large number of local label records across the United States from the early 1950's on. Go To Discography of all RCA Pressings in our Database
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