Made in America. A profitable Album ?

[song4u]

Here are a couple of things some of you may not have seen before, from my youtube page:

I'm always struck by what John Bettis said: A voice like that, coupled with a spirit like that, won't come along again. I think it's not just the gorgeous voice she shared with us, but that wonderful spirit that reaches us who listen.

 

[newvillefan]

Thanks for posting that! As much as it pains me to see her so ill, this video is much better than the one with the tiny people dancing.

You're welcome

Every time I watch this and hear Karen sing "I could fly coast to coast", I expect the camera to pan up towards the ceiling, but it doesn't

 

[Rick-An Ordinary Fool]

I wonder if Richard was just getting use to the way she was looking with him being around her the most because after seeing that video, he should have put a full halt on all Carpenters business and got in touch with someone who knew about this field of illness and said Karen you seek help now or there is no more Carpenters. Richard was not fond of the Dr Karen went for therapy in NY so Richard should have searched for someone in the world who had credentials that could have helped her (we know money was not a issue they had millions) bring in multiple specialists.

It breaks my heart that the people around her couldn't see that something was just not right and rally around her to help. I know not much was known back then but my goodness it seems so obvious to me.

 

[newvillefan]

I wonder if Richard was just getting use to the way she was looking with him being around her the most because after seeing that video, he should have put a full halt on all Carpenters business and got in touch with someone who knew about this field of illness and said Karen you seek help now or there is no more Carpenters.

There is his quote "Karen, this is crap! Don't you understand? This is crap! This guy isn't getting anything accomplished...because you're in a hospital now!"

I do believe Karen was one tough cookie, who convinced Richard that nothing was really wrong, despite his fears. Had he known Karen would die in February 1983, I don't for a second think he would have put her through the rigmarole of the April 1982 recording sessions, which sound to me like they were pretty arduous to say the least.

 

[GaryAlan]

One interview has Jerry Weintraub talking about how he regrets getting Steven Levenkron ,"..he didn't know how to treat her."
I forget which TV documentary it was, as I know it is rare to get Weintraub on camera and interviewed.
I always bristled at the needlepoint Karen gave Levenkron, which says, "You Win, I Gain". (Photo in The Feb 1983 People).
No, Karen, You are the winner.

 

[Rick-An Ordinary Fool]

I always connected that saying to "You win, I lose" the common use of a game playing event. I have a hard time with that needlepoint to me it shows she was far from any kind of recovery and was she really serious at all? It should say, I Win, I Gain. Karen needs to be the winner not the therapist. I don't get it.

 

[Mark-T]

I agree, Chris. I remember seeing that the first time and feeling very sad for her.

 

[GaryAlan]

And, for all these years, I thought I was the only person who found that the Needlepoint Expression,
from Karen to her therapist, as very disquieting.
Yet, another reason I am thankful for this amcorner community.

 

[mr J.]

Recall, too, that MIA was the most expensive Carpenters album to do. (Fan Club Newsletter#75,June 1982)
Recall, Variety (1989,and reproduced in Randy's book,p.265 2nd ed'n.): Carpenters telepic boosts sales-
"...there's no telling how much we would have sold had we had the stuff on hand."
"...did little to boost Richard Carpenter's..Time.."
And, recall, Lovelines was not released until much later that year (of the TV Movie) and,thus, was not a part of the "sales boost".
And, in fans ask section: To what does Richard attribute the low chart listing of MIA? A: No top 5 single and less than
satisfactory promotion.
The assertion that: "..K&R back catalog sold extremely well .." seems to miss the point that I am underscoring--each album
did not move the same number of copies, nor was every album/cd stocked (at retail ) in the same quantities.
Saying some albums sold 2 or 3 times average, after the airing of the movie,provides no quantitative information as to what
the average number of sales is to begin with.
Mr. J: With all due respect, a quick calculation shows that your numbers do not add up. (4 albums times 30,000 is 120,000 per year, each
year, for the four albums you noted, and 1985-present (28 times 120,000) gives 3,360,000 sold.
Now, on your theory, and average sales alike for each Carpenters album we would arrive at roughly a minimum of
27 Million sold in the USA (and only in the cd era), the evidence does not support that number (24 Million is verifiable from RIAA, all eras ).
QED: Carpenters albums do not sell at the same clip each year, nor does each album maintain that clip. (e.g., recall The Singles 1969-1973
was certified at 7M copies in 1998 (25 years translates to 280,000 copies per year averaged out--that for their highest seller).
Scanning sales at the RIAA database simply does not translate to more than 533,000 copies per year, each year 1969-2014; and that is
an average sales number including all of the releases in the USA in that time frame.
"September 2,1989 LATimes:
A&M has annual sales of between $220 million and $300 million, according to analysts' estimates.
A&M currently has just one album in the top 100: "Surprise Attack" by the hard rock group Tora Tora Tora. However, the company has high hopes for a forthcoming release by Janet Jackson, whose last album, "Control," sold nearly 5 million copies in the United States.
Many in the industry expected that Alpert and Moss might wait until A&M climbed out of its current slump before selling the company.
And some sources close to the talks said Friday that Alpert and Moss may consider selling only a minority stake in their company.
Others say that if Jackson's album is released soon and sells well, Alpert and Moss may wait for a better offer."

(i.e., No mention of Carpenters revenue as the strong point in the sale of A&M to Polygram. )

Rumbahbah, you are correct (in my opinion):
Their profile and standing was at a low ebb (say,1982),
and I would heartily appeal to anyone to provide evidence to the contrary if that is incorrect.

GARY-you're not doing your calculations the right way.

If an album has sold,on average,about 30,000 copies a year-that would be about 300,000 copies in ten years,600,000 copies in twenty years,and 900,000 copies in thirty years.

Christmas Portrait is currently K&R's best selling album(and has been for several years)-and it has sold approximately two million copies since Karen's death.If you divide that figure by thirty years,that would be an average of 60,000+ copies a year.

Christmas Collection,the #2 bestseller,has sold 400,000+ copies since it's release in 1998.That would be an average of 30,000 copies a year.

As you can see,the idea of a Carpenters catalog album selling 30,000 copies a year isn't hard to fathom,once you do the math.

 

[mr J.]

No doubt, this is driving over old terrain; but, yes, newer members do appreciate, and are able to contribute their own research on
topics such as this. And, as time passes, more documentary evidence may come to light on this, or any other, topic.

From my own personal experience, I started collected all of the Carpenters albums beginning in the 1980's, and I will say: it was tough finding them.
Record outlets do not (did not) "store" multiple copies on their shelves of the back catalog of the artists--they would never have had the space.
At least, in my circumstance, between 1980 and 1985, locating copies of all of the Carpenters recordings was very difficult. The albums
that had sold well were already in peoples' homes, albums that did not sell well were simply not stocked.
Seems to me that, at the inception of the "cd revolution", the record companies were willing to press cd copies of every vinyl album by
their best selling artists. Obviously, A&M would have created a cd copy of every Carpenters vinyl album,regardless of previous sales. They just would
not press the same number of cd's for the poor vinyl sellers. I dare say, it would be a poor business decision to make the same number of cd's
of "Made in America" as "A Song For You". So, in order to "keep" MIA in circulation, it would not have to have the same sales goals as the other
cd's. You can not have the same sales expectations of each Carpenters album, and then press the same amount of each album to sell. That makes no sense.
So, in order to turn a profit on sales of MIA cd's, keep expectations in line, and then only press "so many copies" for sale.
What constitutes a steady seller? You can not tell me that each Carpenters album was the same "steady seller", at the same level of sales: inconceivable.
"Ticket to Ride", also, came out on cd: you can not convince me that A&M would have pressed the same number for sale as, say, Horizon.
Fan Club Newsletter,July 1984: Singles 1969-1973 and Voice of the Heart, now available on cd.
Fan Club Newsletter,February 1986: Horizon, was remastered for cd release. Others will follow.(Close to you, Song for You, Now and Then,
and Christmas Portrait)
June 30,1986: Made in America, now on cd; followed by Ticket To Ride , Kind of Hush, Carpenters, Passage.
Entire domestic Carpenters catalog available on cd ,as of the last newsletter in January 1989.

At #12 in the UK, MIA sold 60,000 copies.
In the USA, at #52, what would we be inclined to come up with for sales? Where is that number? How to verify the number?
In the UK, Carpenters soundscan sales 1987-2004 are between 2.38 and 4.5 Million (2.38M is verified,total for those years).

Whether or not I believe what is being claimed for MIA sales, is beside the point.
My belief does not matter.
What matters is proof.
And, I have searched for documentary,verifiable evidence for sales figures of MIA, and I am unable to locate such.
(I discounted the publication which claims USA 75,000 sold and 75,000 returned to vendors--as it is undocumented and not verifiable.)
Please, someone--anyone--help us locate and document the actual, verifiable, number of sales for "Made In America"!
That would make my day!

I've already mentioned this recently-but you can write to Richard (Carpenter Family Foundation in Thousand Oaks,CA) and ask him to verify MIA sales figures.The figure I received is 500,000 copies(as of 1992).

The recording artist knows the exact sales figures for each of their albums, because they receive royalty payments based on the number of albums sold.

 

[Rick-An Ordinary Fool]

Richard has said that Christmas Portrait should have been titled Karen Carpenter not Carpenters....with due to his addiction problem he was not interested in any more than minor piano work or occasional lead....imagine an album that Richard had the least to do with (out of all the Carpenters albums) and it becomes their "best selling album". What does this mean to you?

 

[aaflyer98]

Richard has said that Christmas Portrait should have been titled Karen Carpenter not Carpenters....with due to his addiction problem he was not interested in any more than minor piano work or occasional lead....imagine an album that Richard had the least to do with (out of all the Carpenters albums) and it becomes their "best selling album". What does this mean to you?

Yes. I'm sure Richard understands that one.

 

[Timmerman]

Hello. I'm a little late to this discussion, but I wanted to add something to the point GaryAlan made a while back:

At least, in my circumstance, between 1980 and 1985, locating copies of all of the Carpenters recordings was very difficult. The albums
that had sold well were already in peoples' homes, albums that did not sell well were simply not stocked.

This was my experience as well, but a little later in time. I started collecting the original Carpenters albums around 1991-1992.
Back then, at least in The Netherlands, the only original albums available on CD were "Close to you", "Carpenters", "A song for you", "Now & then", "The singles 1969-1973", "Christmas portrait" (the German edition) and "Lovelines". I made a list of the albums based on the "Only Yesterday" VHS which featured the covers during the overture preceding "We've only just begun". I was really happy with the booklet that came with "From the top" because that helped me to place them in chronological order and get some of the titles correct. Anyway, it frustrated me no end that many of the albums weren't available in stores (and apparently they had never been available on CD in our country). Most stores couldn't even back order them!
I managed to get "Ticket to ride", "Passage" and "Made in America" on vinyl, but it took me a couple of years to get them (and the others) on CD. I got "Passage" as a US import at a specialised store and had them order "A kind of hush" and "Horizon" for me as well. The latter came from Japan and was by far the most expensive CD I had bought up till then (my parents were not pleased!). "Voice of the heart" was another US import through a different store. However, "Ticket" and "America" were not on the import lists at these stores. I finally got them on CD when I went to London in the summer of 1995. The following year I completed my collection of original Carpenters albums when "An old-fashioned Christmas" was released as the second disc of "Christmas Collection". Of course, in 1998 with the Remastered Classics Collection all these albums (except the Christmas albums) were suddenly readily available at every store (and in their original mixes too).

To get back on topic, my thoughts on MIA: Loved it when I first heard it (at age 14/15), but as the years went on I've become increasingly disappointed with it. Not the individual tracks, but the album as a whole. In a way, I find it to be just as inconsistent as "Passage", but at least you could never call that album "bland". I find MIA as a whole to be bland. Perhaps "soft" is a better word. Whether it's the way Karen's vocals aren't as upfront as usual or whether it's the overall selection of the tracks, I don't know. Probably both. Considering what other tracks had been recorded by then, I'm surprised that a "refreshed" Richard would come to this selection. Again, I cannot fault the individual tracks (except perhaps the wedding song which in hindsight I find to be in very bad taste lyrically and inconceivable that Karen got them across her lips), but the album as a whole is currently probably my least favourite.

 

[GaryAlan]

Thanks, MrJ,
I concede that if Richard Carpenter has written to you with the sales figures for Made in America,
( he , the ultimate source of information regarding sales) then, MIA has performed better than is
otherwise indicated by any source I can locate.
Thanks for information, much appreciated.

 

[newvillefan]

To get back on topic, my thoughts on MIA: Loved it when I first heard it (at age 14/15), but as the years went on I've become increasingly disappointed with it. Not the individual tracks, but the album as a whole.

It's so funny, that's my experience exactly too! When I first discovered their music, this album was my favourite because it had a more sophisticated, modern sound and it always made me think of what would have come later in the 80s had she been around. As time has gone by, my enthusiasm for it has waned too, mainly because I think it's actually too lightweight and fluffy. 'Back In My Life Again is totally cheeseball, 'Somebody's Been Lyin'' is a sleeper track and 'I Believe You' just comes off as just plain corny (the lyrics are mainly to blame for that).

When you listen to the album in the context of the time in which it was released, it's no wonder that radio in the early 1980s wouldn't touch them. I also don't understand why they kept releasing single after single when they all (with the exception of the lead single) kept absolutely bombing in the charts.

 

[Rumbahbah]

Thanks, MrJ,
I concede that if Richard Carpenter has written to you with the sales figures for Made in America,
( he , the ultimate source of information regarding sales) then, MIA has performed better than is
otherwise indicated by any source I can locate.
Thanks for information, much appreciated.

I agree that it would seem that Richard's comments should be the final word on the sales of Made in America, but it's still secondhand information, so we've no way of verifying it and it just seems to be at odds with all the other evidence that does exist.

It's possible Richard made a mistake when quoting this figure or 'rounded up' the sales figures to 500,000 when they were nearer 400,000. Given that Ray Coleman's book isn't above inflating certain achievements like the performance of Made in America seemingly in order to placate Richard, I have to remain sceptical on this issue - it simply isn't definitive and objective enough to be treated as the unchallengeable gospel truth on the matter.

As Soundscan didn't exist for much of Richard and Karen's career, none of us can really be certain of accurate sales figures for albums today. All that is certain is the RIAA awards that they earned, which gives a snapshot of sales at the time that the awards were made and thus a minimum sales figure for the album today. Made in America couldn't achieve a gold award by the late 1990s. Go figure...

 

[Glenpwood]

Made In America probably has had a half million copies pressed in different formats in the USA since 1981 but MIA as an LP also was a big cut out bin title for years, which means Richard & Karen weren't paid royalties on those unsold sets and they cannot be counted toward an RIAA certification. A&M probably did anticipate a big comeback in 1981 and pressed more copies than the public ultimately wanted back then. If you go to Ebay or Discogs it remains the easiest and cheapest Carpenters title to buy sealed. Also, Richard missed the boat by not leaving Made In America or Passage in print on CD or Tape for a good chunk of the nineties while folks re-purchased their old albums. I tried to purchase them back in the early nineties only to be told they were out of print. I ended up buying Passage as a German import from HMV due to this. They finally came back out in 99 when they reissued the entire catalog but that was right as CD sales were peaking. Had they been left in circulation stateside like Voice Of The Heart was they might have crossed gold.

 

[mr J.]

I was about to add that: Tower was known for carrying an entire back-catalog, but I know that by the time the 1990s rolled around, economics caught up with them, and they slashed back catalogs from their stores. Prior to that, though, they were well known for back catalog. I can't think of any other store that did this, especially locally here in town.

BTW I have to agree with @ThaFunkyFakeTation that MIA wasn't such a great album--only two songs on that album appeal to me these days, and to be honest I can't remember anything else. Well...other than "I Believe You" which to me is.....naah, I'll be nice and not say anything about it. (To put it nicely, that track will never spin in this house ever again. )

To me that album was a novelty when it came out, but it did not last long on my turntable. A few spins and I was grabbing Passage or A Song For You instead.

I can't speak for every Tower store in the US-but the NY stores carried K&R's complete catalog,as well as just about anything that was in print,until they closed in late 2006.Even when the remastered discs came out in early 1999,Tower had three copies of every album in stock on the day of release.

I have to admit-the one thing I miss about Tower Records was their amazing selection.

 

[JeffM]

There are so many factors in whether an album is commercially successful or not. Supergroup albums with long gestation periods in the studio can cost a bundle. Sometimes, probably more in the 60's-70's than now, an LP can be profitable without being a huge hit; for example, Columbia would know just about what it cost to make, say, a Ray Conniff album and how many on average it might sell; so producing it below a certain cost would likely yield a profit.

Sometimes labels are overconfident on questionable product; Warner's Elektra hyped Richard Simmons' "Reach" LP so hard it brought in triple-platinum advance orders (3 million copies); their production manager, who was more sensibly cautious, cut back the pressing order by 2/3 and shipped 1 million. The album tanked, and Warner was swamped with unsold returns. The end of the story is wilder yet. Warner's central return warehouse in Chicago was about to be flooded by a sudden snow melt; management there moved the top product to "higher ground" and put all the unsold Simmons LPS on the floor to soak up the flood waters...Warner's made a killing on the insurance! (This true story "borrowed" from Stan Cornyn's book "Exploding.")

 

[mr J.]

Made In America probably has had a half million copies pressed in different formats in the USA since 1981 but MIA as an LP also was a big cut out bin title for years, which means Richard & Karen weren't paid royalties on those unsold sets and they cannot be counted toward an RIAA certification. A&M probably did anticipate a big comeback in 1981 and pressed more copies than the public ultimately wanted back then. If you go to Ebay or Discogs it remains the easiest and cheapest Carpenters title to buy sealed. Also, Richard missed the boat by not leaving Made In America or Passage in print on CD or Tape for a good chunk of the nineties while folks re-purchased their old albums. I tried to purchase them back in the early nineties only to be told they were out of print. I ended up buying Passage as a German import from HMV due to this. They finally came back out in 99 when they reissued the entire catalog but that was right as CD sales were peaking. Had they been left in circulation stateside like Voice Of The Heart was they might have crossed gold.

A&M deleted Passage and Made In America,not Richard.The decision to take an album out of print is made by the record label,not the recording artist-and this is always due to an album not selling a minimum number of copies.

A&M deleted Passage,Made In America and Ticket To Ride in 1992 and reissued them in 1999.

The Made In America LP was a big cut-out bin title probably because most people were buying cassette tapes by the early 80's-LP's were falling out of favor.Likewise,when the CD era exploded in 1987,most record buyers started buying CD's-and cassette tapes subsequently stopped selling-and wound up in the cut-out bins,also.

 

[JeffM]

A&M deleted Passage and Made In America,not Richard.The decision to take an album out of print is made by the record label,not the recording artist-and this is always due to an album not selling a minimum number of copies.

That's true in general, and true of the Carpenters, though not necessarily the case with all artists and labels. Some performers have always owned their master recordings, and have been able to take them along when changing labels (the Four Seasons are a classic example) while others have bought back their masters in order to better control their release (Herb Alpert himself, Neil Diamond, Joni James, even Lawrence Welk!) So there are numerous instances of recordings going out of print for reasons other than weak sales.

 

[Rumbahbah]

A&M deleted Passage and Made In America,not Richard.The decision to take an album out of print is made by the record label,not the recording artist-and this is always due to an album not selling a minimum number of copies.

A&M deleted Passage,Made In America and Ticket To Ride in 1992 and reissued them in 1999.

The Made In America LP was a big cut-out bin title probably because most people were buying cassette tapes by the early 80's-LP's were falling out of favor.Likewise,when the CD era exploded in 1987,most record buyers started buying CD's-and cassette tapes subsequently stopped selling-and wound up in the cut-out bins,also.

I can't speak about the situation in the US but in the UK this definitely wasn't the case. LPs were the major format until about 1990/91, when record companies made a concerted effort to attempt to phase out vinyl (which ironically didn't work in the long term), presumably in favour of CDs. CDs had been stocked fairly widely since about 1987-88, but didn't start selling in significant quantities until about 1990, partly because initially they were double the price of LPs/cassettes and because not many people had a CD player at that stage. Cassettes tended to be more popular with younger music buyers, but were always secondary in terms of sales to LPs and (later) CDs, although they were still selling reasonably well up to the late 1990s.

 

[GaryAlan]

Please keep in mind that I have no means available to verify/authenticate all of this data:
This is Carpenters USA sales data from one source:
Yr.....Chart...Last Cert....Album Title......................................RIAA Award.....Album Sales......Comments/Notes
Rel...Peak....by RIAA

1969....150....none....Offering / Ticket To Ride..................................................400,000.....
1970....002....1998....Close To You..........................................PLAT x 2........2,600,000.....
1971....002....1998....Carpenters..............................................PLAT x 4........4,200,000.....
1972....004....1998....A Song For You......................................PLAT x 3........3,100,000.....
1973....002....1998....Now & Then............................................PLAT x 2........2,300,000.....
1973....001....1998....The Singles: 1969-1973..........................PLAT x 7.......7,500,000.....
1975....013....1998....Horizon....................................................Platinum........1,250,000.....
1976....033....1976....A Kind Of Hush........................................Gold.................700,000.....
1977....049....none....Passage............................................................................425,000.....
1978....114....1998....Christmas Portrait....................................Platinum........2,700,000.....1.92m-SScanJan13, cert 500k in Jan 1981, SP-4726
1981....052....none....Made In America...............................................................400,000.....
1983....046....1998....Voice Of The Heart..................................Gold..................600,000.....A&M-4954
1984....144....1998....Yesterday Once More..............................PLAT x 2........2,300,000.....A&M/Silver Eagle SE-1024 (Feb'84), A&M SP-6601 (Apr'85)
1984....159....none....Christmas Portrait-The Special Edition..................see note below.....A&M-3210, sales included with 1978 version (above)
1984....190....1998....An Old Fashioned Christmas...................Gold..................700,000.....A&M-3270
1987....-----....none....A&M Classics, Vol 2: Carpenters........................................50,000.....A&M-6750, 2cds, deleted early 90's
1989....-----....none....Lovelines...........................................................................350,000.....A&M-3931
1990....-----....none....Only Yesterday / Their Greatest Hits.................................100,000.....A&M-397186
1991....-----....none....From The Top......................................................................70,000.....53k-SScanNov04, 4-disc multiplier for cert, deleted 2001
1992....-----....none....Christmas With The Carpenters........................................100,000.....Time-Life R105-19, TV-mail order, 2cd but 1-disc multiplier
1993....-----....none....Carpenters Collection........................................................150,000.....Time-Life SUD-21, TV-mail order, 1cd
1995....-----....none....Interpretations...................................................................100,000......A&M 31454-0312
1997....-----....none....Greatest Hits And Finest Performances..............................50,000.....Readers Digest RC7-183, mail order, 3cds
1998....106....2000....Love Songs...............................................Gold.................675,000.....
1998....-----....none....Reflections...........................................................................85,000.....
1998....-----....none....Christmas Collection..........................................................400,000.....364k-SScanDec12, 2cds but 1-disc multiplier
2000....045....none....The Singles: 1969-1981.....................................................500,000.....445k-SScanDec12
2002....172....none....The Millennium Collection..................................................250,000.....230k-SScanApr13
2002....-----....none....The Essential Collection: 1965-1997...................................25,000......A&M-34162, 4-disc multiplier
2003....-----....none....Carpenters Perform Carpenter............................................50,000
2004....101....2004....Gold...........................................................Gold.................525,000.....442k-SScanMar07, 2-disc multiplier for cert
2004....-----....none....As Time Goes By.................................................................30,000.....
2010....-----....none....40/40....................................................................................30,000.....2-disc multiplier
+ domestic US sales of foreign-pressed albums..................................................385,000

TOTAL US ALBUM SALES............................................................................33,100,000
Total Soundscan-registered album sales (1991 - Dec 2006) = 6,000,000
Note: The 1978 'Christmas Portrait' album was issued (on CD-only) in late 1984 as 'Christmas Portrait - The Special Edition' - and this 1984 album included a significantly different track list and mixes. Billboard allowed the 'Special Edition' album to chart separately and it actually peaked at #159 in early 1991. Because of the popularity of that 1984 edition after it was released the original 1978 version of the album was deleted in the late 1980's and has (as of mid-2013) never been reissued in the USA - only the Expanded edition has been available in the Soundscan era and has registered nearly 2 million in Soundscan-era sales. The sales listing (above) assumes the RIAA is combining the sales of both versions of the album for award/certification purposes - although this remains unclear.
Source: http://www.greasylake.org/the-circu...ters-and-mannheim-steamrollerusa-album-sales/

 

[Glenpwood]

A&M deleted Passage and Made In America,not Richard.The decision to take an album out of print is made by the record label,not the recording artist-and this is always due to an album not selling a minimum number of copies.

A&M deleted Passage,Made In America and Ticket To Ride in 1992 and reissued them in 1999.

The Made In America LP was a big cut-out bin title probably because most people were buying cassette tapes by the early 80's-LP's were falling out of favor.Likewise,when the CD era exploded in 1987,most record buyers started buying CD's-and cassette tapes subsequently stopped selling-and wound up in the cut-out bins,also.

Ticket To Ride may have been pulled in 1992 but it was back in 1995 as i easily bought one from HMV. It was on the Universal budget label Rebound. That version stayed in print until just before the remasters came out. I remember having to pull it from my cd stores inventory to return to the label for credit.....

 

[Harry]

Ticket To Ride may have been pulled in 1992 but it was back in 1995 as i easily bought one from HMV. It was on the Universal budget label Rebound. That version stayed in print until just before the remasters came out. I remember having to pull it from my cd stores inventory to return to the label for credit.....

Correct. TICKET TO RIDE had an A&M issue, a Rebound issue, a Remastered Classic reissue, and another budget Excelsior label reissue.

Harry