One-sided (double A-side) singles: an explanation

[Rudy]

Thanks to @Michael Hagerty posting about "Tayco," I found this article regarding singles released as a double A-side.





BTW, "Mfrs" is "manufacturers."

I have thought over the years that a double A-side was done so that DJs would not have to question which song was being promoted as the hit, and it seems I was partially correct. One advantage is that if it is a true double A-side, where both sides are identical, it spreads the wear over two sides vs. one. (I've even seen promotional 12-inch singles in the early 1980s with identical sides, so it wasn't limited to just a small number of years.)

The article also divulges the roots of an instrumental (or non-melody) B-side.

In my ongoing shootout of the Michael Jackson Thriller versions, my most recent double A-side play has been "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'," which is the same extended version on each side.

 

[JOv2]

I always thought "double A side" meant that both sides of the single were equally recognized as the plug side. Examples were two of the Beatles' singles: We Can Work It Out / Day Tripper and Penny Lane / Strawberry Fields Forever.

 

[Rudy]

I always thought "double A side" meant that both sides of the single were equally recognized as the plug side. Examples were two of the Beatles' singles: We Can Work It Out / Day Tripper and Penny Lane / Strawberry Fields Forever.

Yeah, it's confusing, since I've seen the term used for a single with two plug sides, or a single with the same track on each side...

 

[Mr Bill]

Also, at a time when FM was overtaking AM, the double-sided single allowed the record company to do one pressing (Mono on one side for AM, Stereo on the other for FM) rather than two pressings for differentiations nt stations. At least that's how the RCA/A&M rep at my local Mom&Pop record shop explained it to me. That was Pal's Records in Canoga Park. The owners, Paul and Pauline Levy (the Mom&Pop), knew I was an A&M fan and introduced me to the Rep one day. He later gave me a bunch of promo stuff like catalogs, etc.

--Mr. Bill

 

[Rudy]

For sure, I would take a stereo/mono single with one song vs. having it processed with CSG.

 

[Michael Hagerty]

Thanks to @Michael Hagerty posting about "Tayco," I found this article regarding singles released as a double A-side.





BTW, "Mfrs" is "manufacturers."

Sometimes.

 

[Rudy]

True dat.

 

[Michael Hagerty]

Also, at a time when FM was overtaking AM, the double-sided single allowed the record company to do one pressing (Mono on one side for AM, Stereo on the other for FM) rather than two pressings for differentiations nt stations. At least that's how the RCA/A&M rep at my local Mom&Pop record shop explained it to me. That was Pal's Records in Canoga Park. The owners, Paul and Pauline Levy (the Mom&Pop), knew I was an A&M fan and introduced me to the Rep one day. He later gave me a bunch of promo stuff like catalogs, etc.

--Mr. Bill

So, this was actually a combination of things, a lot of it laid out in the run of issues of Billboard from the beginning of 1967 up to this issue (and probably beyond).

Short history:

Early promo copies were usually just store copies (different A and B sides) set aside to get different labels ("PROMOTION NOT FOR SALE") put on them.

And the main reason for that was accounting for taxes---to have a fixed number of copies that they could then include as a promotion expense instead of inventory for sale. They'd rather radio station staff not re-sell them, but that wasn't the reason for the labeling. This is also why, if a station was sent a stock copy instead of a dedicated promo copy (usually after all promo copies had been distributed) a hole would be drilled in the album jacket or the label of a single---so it could be deducted from inventory for sale.

And early on, labels were fine with DJs or program/music directors choosing to play a flip side. It might spawn a bigger hit (it did several times), it might spawn a two-sided hit (ditto) and it might spur album sales (all good stuff).

But by '67, some A&R guys at the labels were starting to chafe. They wanted focus. They wanted their A-side to be THE A-side.

Simultaneously, FM stations were starting to branch out in their programming. The FCC had ordered the end of 100% simulcasting of AM signals by October 1, 1966. That required additional expense and that meant management now needed to try to make money with the FM to offset that expense. Many of them chose popular music.

There was a subset of FM stations that grew out of this that positioned themselves between beautiful music and MOR (KMET in Los Angeles was a good example from 1966 until it went freeform in June of '68, as was KPEN in San Francisco), and another that essentially created what became known as Adult Contemporary (Drake-Chenault's Hitparade format is a good example). And there were even stations that tried to do Top 40 on FM with automation (KGO-FM in San Francisco).

The trouble was that those three formats needed current MOR or Top 40 hits to succeed. And in those days, singles would be released well in advance of albums. Often, albums weren't even recorded until the single proved itself to be a hit, so it could be months between the single falling off the chart and the album being released.

The singles were mono, the albums were stereo.

And so, the FM stations, knowing they needed to capitalize on the music being in stereo, began petitioning the labels for stereo singles.

https://worldradiohistory.com/hd2/IDX-Business/Music/Billboard-Index/IDX/1967/Billboard 1967-02-11-OCR-Page-0026.pdf#search="stereo singles"

https://worldradiohistory.com/hd2/IDX-Business/Music/Billboard-Index/IDX/1967/Billboard-1967-08-26-OCR-Page-0030.pdf#search="stereo singles"

Two problems, one solution: Promo singles that were one song only, on both sides. One in mono, one in stereo.

Record companies occasionally would release promo copies with an A and a B side after that, but usually only if they thought they had a two-sided hit on their hands (Beatles, Creedence).

Eventually it became important to press consumer singles in stereo. But the stereo/mono promos continued until some point after I left music programming in 1981.

 

[Harry]

A&M got into the stereo promo 45 game sometime around 1967. In my searches, I've come up with a promo 45 copy of "Wade In The Water" by Herb and the Brass that's in stereo - and it's an alternate stereo mix to boot.

The flip side, "Mexican Road Race" is also stereo, but the standard mix.

As for the CSG stuff, A&M released some promo singles with a song in CSG stereo on the A side and mono on the B-side. A number of Carpenters promo singles are that way. It seems odd to me that they'd bother with the CSG crap that was supposed to do away with needing mono copies, and yet still put a mono on the flip side.

 

[Michael Hagerty]

As for the CSG stuff, A&M released some promo singles with a song in CSG stereo on the A side and mono on the B-side. A number of Carpenters promo singles are that way. It seems odd to me that they'd bother with the CSG crap that was supposed to do away with needing mono copies, and yet still put a mono on the flip side.

I read a story in the trades around 1973-74 that Richard Carpenter was listening to KKDJ in Los Angeles (an FM top 40) and the stereo promo 45 of their current record (I think it was "Top of the World", but it's been 50-ish years) was out of phase. Apparently there was a big freakout over that and Richard supervised the mixing and pressing of the new promo copies that replaced the originals.

 

[GDBY2LV]

102.7 on the dial. Humble Harv & Charlie Tuna or Tune-Ed. My favorite station at that time. Pop music in stereo over our local cable, and it was Los Angeles, not local. I could here that in the car.

 

[Harry]

I read a story in the trades around 1973-74 that Richard Carpenter was listening to KKDJ in Los Angeles (an FM top 40) and the stereo promo 45 of their current record (I think it was "Top of the World", but it's been 50-ish years) was out of phase. Apparently there was a big freakout over that and Richard supervised the mixing and pressing of the new promo copies that replaced the originals.

An article about Richard Carpenter and A&M and CSG can be found here:

Carpenters Stereo, Mono & CSG

What a fascinating article, I'd really like to hear from Harry, Rudy and Chris on this one... Caution: Stereo Can Be Hazardous To Your Mono Don Elliot and Richard Carpenter Broadcast Programing & Production Magazine Nov 1976

forum.amcorner.com

 

[Michael Hagerty]

102.7 on the dial. Humble Harv & Charlie Tuna or Tune-Ed. My favorite station at that time. Pop music in stereo over our local cable, and it was Los Angeles, not local. I could here that in the car.

That's how I listened to them in Bishop. Cable. And some enterprising person had a (legal? not?) 10-watt translator so you could drive around town and hear it. Charlie Tuna, Jay Stevens, Humble Harve, Russ O'Hara, T. Michael Jordan, Kris Erik Stevens and all too briefly Rich Brother Robbin.

There's a whole lot of it here: Mixcloud (Type KKDJ into the search box but beware: clips with the blue and yellow logo are from album rock KKDJ, Fresno, which took the calls after KKDJ Los Angeles became KIIS-FM)

 

[Michael Hagerty]

An article about Richard Carpenter and A&M and CSG can be found here:

Carpenters Stereo, Mono & CSG

What a fascinating article, I'd really like to hear from Harry, Rudy and Chris on this one... Caution: Stereo Can Be Hazardous To Your Mono Don Elliot and Richard Carpenter Broadcast Programing & Production Magazine Nov 1976

forum.amcorner.com

Harry: That's the article I read. I misremembered some facts---thanks for posting this!

 

[tomswift2002]

A&M got into the stereo promo 45 game sometime around 1967. In my searches, I've come up with a promo 45 copy of "Wade In The Water" by Herb and the Brass that's in stereo - and it's an alternate stereo mix to boot.

The flip side, "Mexican Road Race" is also stereo, but the standard mix.

As for the CSG stuff, A&M released some promo singles with a song in CSG stereo on the A side and mono on the B-side. A number of Carpenters promo singles are that way. It seems odd to me that they'd bother with the CSG crap that was supposed to do away with needing mono copies, and yet still put a mono on the flip side.

The solo mono was probably created more for TV broadcasts and foreign countries (like Canada) where the CSG wouldn’t have been allowed. So they probably just stuck it on a 45 so that TV productions could use it or radio stations in other countries.

 

[Harry]

The solo mono was probably created more for TV broadcasts and foreign countries (like Canada) where the CSG wouldn’t have been allowed.

This is untrue. Canada, Japan, and the UK and other territories like Germany all had releases with CSG processing. We've even recently seen a WE FIVE album from Canada that even had its own CSG logo on top.

I know for a fact that the German FOOL ON THE HILL contains CSG processing, as does the Japanese THE BRASS ARE COMIN'.

 

[tomswift2002]

This is untrue. Canada, Japan, and the UK and other territories like Germany all had releases with CSG processing. We've even recently seen a WE FIVE album from Canada that even had its own CSG logo on top.

I know for a fact that the German FOOL ON THE HILL contains CSG processing, as does the Japanese THE BRASS ARE COMIN'.

A few years ago we were talking about this and how the American promo pressing of the “Calling Occupants” edited version was released with CSG and I think had “Can’t Smile Without You” (also processed with CSG), but in Canada the promo 45’s of the edited “Calling Occupants” has no CSG, and had stereo on one side and a mono fold down on the other side. The CRTC in Canada maybe allowed CSG on a test basis in the late 60’s/very early-70’s, however by the mid- to late-70’s, Canada had separate mono mixes, most likely because of a CRTC ruling. (The CRTC is Canada’s telecommunications regulator.)

Of course with records meant for consumer consumption, the CRTC may’ve not had any issues, because the records were not meant for broadcast.

 

[Harry]

Tom, I think that there may have been some incorrect assumptions in that old thread. I don't believe for a second that the Canadian authorities of the airwaves had any conception that CSG even existed let alone knew what it was. Heck, here we are more than 50 years later and the great masses still haven't a clue what it is or what it did.

There are several facts that ARE known:

- A US "Calling Occupants" promo single had the edited stereo version on one side and the full-length album version on the other side. The edited version has the CSG processing (unlabeled) and the album version is straight stereo.

- A US stock version of "Calling Occupants" had the edited version in regular straight stereo and "Can't Smile (single)" on the flip, also straight stereo.

- A Canadian promo of "Calling Occupants" had the edited stereo version on one side and the mono fold-down on the "A" plug side.

Years prior, Canada issued a "Merry Christmas Darling" single with CSG. You can clearly note the CSG in the matric number here:

So, I, at least, reject any notion that Canada - or any other territory - had any prohibition of CSG-altered tracks. I wish they did. Then we would have been able to find all those messed-up tracks the way they should have been!

 

[Rudy]

I'm thinking it might have had more to do with the distribution in each country deciding which singles should be released, and in what formats. It could be that A&M's US operations pressed singles in CSG where other countries simply used the stereo and mono tracks they had available and if not, folded down a stereo track to make a mono version. If they happened to receive a CSG master from the mothership, then, they'd have the option to use it. In addition, the CSG equipment was probably located only in the studio where the recordings originated from--I doubt many, if any, CSG processors were installed in vinyl mastering facilities outside the US.

I wouldn't put it past the CRTC to have some strange rules, either--they're the ones that eventually killed CKLW thanks to the then-new CanCon (Canadian content) rules that demanded a certain high percentage of Canadian-related music on the airwaves. (Despite CKLW broadcasting to the Detroit market and reaching probably an order of magnitude more US listeners all throughout the Great Lakes area than they did Canadian listeners--the CRTC didn't care, the rules applied equally no matter where a broadcaster was located.)

EIther way, we're all guessing. The only thing we're not guessing at was that CSG was a rather absurd solution to a problem that could have been solved simply through mono/stereo singles.

 

[Harry]

If they happened to receive a CSG master from the mothership, then, they'd have the option to use it.

The evidence there is that for years, any fan sought out a version of FOOL ON THE HILL by Sergio Mendes & Brasil '66 that wasn't plagued with CSG and to my knowledge, other than the mono promo version, the CSG survives to this day on that album, no matter which territory from which it comes. Same with Herb's THE BRASS ARE COMIN'.

 

[Rudy]

The evidence there is that for years, any fan sought out a version of FOOL ON THE HILL by Sergio Mendes & Brasil '66 that wasn't plagued with CSG and to my knowledge, other than the mono promo version, the CSG survives to this day on that album, no matter which territory from which it comes. Same with Herb's THE BRASS ARE COMIN'.

That makes sense, as the master tape would have been processed through the CSG processor before being duplicated and sent out worldwide.

With singles being a grey area, and with so many variations (consumer single, multiple promo versions, consumer single reissues, etc.), it's only a guess as to how each country might have made their own production masters for each single. I suppose if they received a single mix/edit directly from A&M that had CSG, they'd probably use it, but otherwise if they're on their own to make a 45 RPM single from existing tapes, anything could happen.

 

[Harry]

That makes sense, as the master tape would have been processed through the CSG processor before being duplicated and sent out worldwide.

With singles being a grey area, and with so many variations (consumer single, multiple promo versions, consumer single reissues, etc.), it's only a guess as to how each country might have made their own production masters for each single. I suppose if they received a single mix/edit directly from A&M that had CSG, they'd probably use it, but otherwise if they're on their own to make a 45 RPM single from existing tapes, anything could happen.

And an example there was the "A Song Of Joy" that was actually a Hispavox track with no CSG at all, but when A&M released the single, it was laden with CSG. And yet A&M's own album version didn't have it.

 

[Mike Blakesley]

I used to always think that the idea of the single was two-fold: Get radio airplay, and give the consumer TWO samples of the artists' work, therefore hopefully increasing the chance of selling more albums.

So it was always kind of strange to me when singles would come out with an instrumental version on the B-side (as if anyone needed that), or a clearly sub-standard song (a few Carpenters singles come to mind) or a song that had already been used as a B-side one or two times before. All of those seemed to defeat the purpose I had discerned for the little records. So it's kind of cool to have some clarity after all these years that there really was some reasoning behind it all.

I didn't realize, however, that there was ever confusion about which side was the A-side. I always thought that's what radio promotion guys were for. But I'm sure glad the confusion existed, because without that phenomenon the TJB might never have been as big as they were, because "A Taste of Honey" could have forever remained a disregarded B-side. It's always kind of fun to speculate how one or two people (like in this case, a few radio programmers) can change the course of events and see ripple effects still going on years and decades later.

 

[Michael Hagerty]

I used to always think that the idea of the single was two-fold: Get radio airplay, and give the consumer TWO samples of the artists' work, therefore hopefully increasing the chance of selling more albums.

So it was always kind of strange to me when singles would come out with an instrumental version on the B-side (as if anyone needed that), or a clearly sub-standard song (a few Carpenters singles come to mind) or a song that had already been used as a B-side one or two times before. All of those seemed to defeat the purpose I had discerned for the little records. So it's kind of cool to have some clarity after all these years that there really was some reasoning behind it all.

One other element of that: Record labels that thought they had an album with three or four possible singles on it didn't want to give away six or eight of the album's songs on 45s and risk depressing album sales over the chart run. So unique B-sides (not on the album), stuff from prior albums or the weakest material was used as a hedge against that.

Sometimes, in the case of new artists who didn't have a wealth of material---hadn't recorded an album yet---it was literally the two best songs they had. And in the case of a group with exactly one song, but an undeniable smash, release the instrumental backing track or an extended version on the B-side and you've got a 45.

 

[Michael Hagerty]

I didn't realize, however, that there was ever confusion about which side was the A-side. I always thought that's what radio promotion guys were for. But I'm sure glad the confusion existed, because without that phenomenon the TJB might never have been as big as they were, because "A Taste of Honey" could have forever remained a disregarded B-side. It's always kind of fun to speculate how one or two people (like in this case, a few radio programmers) can change the course of events and see ripple effects still going on years and decades later.

"A Taste of Honey" is just one case of a jock or PD/MD flipping a record and making it a hit. Others (by no means a complete list):

• Kiss' "Beth" was the B-side to "Detroit Rock City" until CKLW MD Rosalie Trombley flipped it and told Casablanca they had it wrong.
• The Doobie Brothers' "Another Park, Another Sunday" stalled in the 30s because several key stations were playing the flip, "Black Water". It still took WB a year to figure that out and release "Black Water" as an A-side.
• Booker T. & the M.G.'s "Green Onions" was a B-side.
• Chain-reaction B side action: Chicago released "Color My World" as the flip to "Make Me Smile". It got enough traction that Columbia issued "Color" as its own A-side, with "Beginnings" (which had been released two years earlier and failed to chart) as the B-side, and radio flipped it again, though many consider "Beginnings"/"Color My World" a two-sided hit.
• Elvis Presley's "Hound Dog" was the B-side to "Don't Be Cruel".
• Rod Stewart's "Maggie May" was the B-side to "Reason to Believe."
• ....and this one I never knew: Bill Haley and the Comets' "Rock Around the Clock" was the B-side to "Thirteen Women (and only one man in town)".