Only Yesterday Greatest Hits UK Release and Promotion

Fun Fact: "Only Yesterday" has the distinction of being officially the fourth album with the longest title to have reached the #1 spot on the UK album charts ever with 50 characters! "Only Yesterday - Richard & Karen Carpenter's Greatest Hits"

 
The UK edition was retitled Their Greatest Hits in the mid-1990s - certainly by the time it was back on the UK charts in 1996 following the airing of the 'Yesterday Once More' documentary on the BBC.

As far as I can tell, it was re-released on December 31, 1994 and recharted under the new Their Greatest Hits subtitle at a peak position of #28 in the UK. The only thing I can think of that triggered this was the UK TV coverage that accompanied Carpenters: The Untold Story, which was released the same year here. Richard appeared on a number of TV shows to promote the book. I distinctly remember this because I was in my second year at university at the time and my friends were already well aware of my obsession, so when a full double page article (which I’m sure was entitled “The Bittersweet Side of Miss Saccharine”) was published about the book in a national newspaper, one of them rushed up to me in the cafeteria, held the pages open and exclaimed “have you seen this?!”
 
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According to the Discogs website, the UK got two versions of the "Yesterday Once More" album - the 1984 version with the silver cover, and the 1999 black label version, from the "Digitally Remastered" series. The 1985 version, with the bluish cover, was NEVER released in the UK. It is, therefore, highly unlikely that the VHS video would have been available in the UK in 1985, under the "Yesterday Once More" title. In all my years of checking eBay listings, I've never come across a YOM video from the UK, only ones titled "Only Yesterday".

Carpenters - Yesterday Once More
 
As far as I can tell, it was re-released on December 31, 1994 and recharted under the new Their Greatest Hits subtitle at a peak position of #28 in the UK. The only thing I can think of that triggered this was the UK TV coverage that accompanied Carpenters: The Untold Story, which was released the same year here. Richard appeared on a number of TV shows to promote the book. I distinctly remember this because I was in my second year at university at the time and my friends were already well aware of my obsession, so when a full double page article (which I’m sure was entitled “The Bittersweet Side of Miss Saccharine”) was published about the book in a national newspaper, one of them rushed up to me in the cafeteria, held the pages open and exclaimed “have you seen this?!”

The #28 peak was reached on 7 September 1996 though, following the airing of the 'Yesterday Once More' documentary. The re-entry in the last week of 1994 was only at #99 for a single week.

However, it's possible that the switch in title for the UK market was made by the record company back in 1994, just that it didn't coincide with any particular Carpenters-related activity in the media (Interpretations was at #65 in the same week in 1994, but had been out for a couple of months by that stage). Maybe one of the record shops had it on sale at the time, hence its brief re-appearance on the chart.
 
According to the Discogs website, the UK got two versions of the "Yesterday Once More" album - the 1984 version with the silver cover, and the 1999 black label version, from the "Digitally Remastered" series. The 1985 version, with the bluish cover, was NEVER released in the UK. It is, therefore, highly unlikely that the VHS video would have been available in the UK in 1985, under the "Yesterday Once More" title. In all my years of checking eBay listings, I've never come across a YOM video from the UK, only ones titled "Only Yesterday".

Carpenters - Yesterday Once More

It's true, the UK only got the grey/silver version of the Yesterday Once More compilation, never the blueish US version, although another version with a different track list compared to both the original UK and US versions was released as part of the Remastered Classics series.

The 'Yesterday Once More' UK video is given a catalogue number (AMV 833) on the 'Only Yesterday' video sleeve, so presumably it did exist. I'd imagine it would have had the grey/silver artwork on the cover like the UK album rather than the US cover, as they'd have had to produce a PAL version rather than selling the US version of the video over here.

I suppose one of the reasons for its rarity is that VHS has been considered a bit of a dead format ever since the DVD came along and isn't very collectible, so whatever copies were out there may have been binned rather than being sold on the secondhand market.
 
Question for you UK members: From reading the responses here about ONLY YESTERDAY, particularly the video, I'm wondering if you folks didn't get the earlier 1985-ish video called YESTERDAY ONCE MORE. Other than the title, the two videos are identical. Here in the States, we got the YESTERDAY ONCE MORE video with the same ice-blue cover as the record and CD.

The 'Yesterday Once More' video was released in Australia - I got mine in 1987 - I think it had already been out a couple of years by then. You'd think it would have been released in the UK.
 
It's interesting that this was all "themed" to the UK artwork that appeared on the SING1 LP set, yet the corresponding CD set was severely limited. SING1CDDisc1.JPG
 
I was still a bit young to be buying music in 1984 but to partially answer Harry’s question, I’ve been to many record fairs, record stores and second hand music stalls across the UK over many years in the hunt for the odd treasure but I can honestly say I’ve never seen a single copy of that earlier Yesterday Once More VHS video anywhere. The album itself made #10 on the UK charts in 1984 but I’d agree with the above that a) VHS was still a bit of a luxury to purchase here back in 84/85 (most people used VHS machines to record TV) and b) I don’t think it must have sold that well or stayed in print too long, as I’ve never seen one anywhere.
I have the original video, and we didn’t even have a video player in those days. I had to go and watch it at my aunties house. I still have it now!
 
Here is a nice promotional flyer from the UK.
Music Week UK Oct 6, 1984

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If people back then only knew how rare this CD version would become, they'd be rich. I wonder how many people back in 1984 opted for the good old trusty LP or cassette version instead of the CD. This was the beginning of the CD age and CD players (at least home stereo ones) were quite expensive to own. One day I hope to add this UK CD set to my collection. That photo logo is still one of the best ever produced.

I got the 85' US version LP first and still remember loving this compilation, it was like the equivalent of the From The Top, in terms of excitement. I liked it so much that I bought the 25th Anniv CD set later as well. There were so many songs all in one place sorta like the "Sweet Memory Set"
 
When I first saw the CLASSICS VOLUME 2 set and read the little blurb that it was a straight re-press of YESTERDAY ONCE MORE, I opted not to get it. It seemed silly to spend the money on the same set just for the cover art. Nowadays I'd do that pretty quickly, probably, as a collector, but back then it just wasn't as easy to part with the bucks for something this frivolous.

Some months later, my program director must have told the A&M promoter of my love for the Carpenters, and totally surprised me with a new YESTERDAY ONCE MORE set in the mail. I was quite surprised to see anything from A&M coming to "little-ol'-me" - and I still have the bubble envelope!

So now I had two copies of YESTERDAY ONCE MORE. So, the wheels turned and I went to our AM music director, who had a copy of CLASSICS VOLUME 2 in their music library and offered a trade. He was fine with it, since all he cared about was the sound, which was identical. So that's how I ended up with both YESTERDAY ONCE MORE and CLASSICS VOLUME 2 without paying for both.
 
If people back then only knew how rare this CD version would become, they'd be rich. I wonder how many people back in 1984 opted for the good old trusty LP or cassette version instead of the CD. This was the beginning of the CD age and CD players (at least home stereo ones) were quite expensive to own. One day I hope to add this UK CD set to my collection. That photo logo is still one of the best ever produced.

I got the 85' US version LP first and still remember loving this compilation, it was like the equivalent of the From The Top, in terms of excitement. I liked it so much that I bought the 25th Anniv CD set later as well. There were so many songs all in one place sorta like the "Sweet Memory Set"
I'd imagine the CD issue accounted for a tiny, tiny fraction of the UK sales of this compliation at the time. 1984 was very early in terms of market take-up of the CD and I suspect most stores outside of the big flagship record stores in London didn't even stock this format at the time.

Strange that this was released on EMI Records rather than A&M - did A&M license this out for some reason?

No idea why they tweaked the sleeve for the US issue in 1985 either - the UK sleeve was fine as it stood.
 
Strange that this was released on EMI Records rather than A&M - did A&M license this out for some reason?

I don't think anyone knows the real answer to this question but it seems as though A&M and EMI had some sort of short term agreement where the music was licenced from A&M but interestingly the LP back cover and vinyl label don't actually state this, they only state "original sound recordings made by A&M Records Ltd". It may therefore have been a test-bed partnership or profit share arrangement rather than a licensing agreement. Either way, that CD was one of the shortest-lived releases ever. I think it was pulled within a matter of a week or two.
 
I was so lucky back then. My late friend, who had one of the 3 largest soundtrack collections in the world. He traded every soundtrack released in England, and most of Europe, for a copy of every soundtrack released here to his contact in London. It also included every cd, or set released by Carpenters. They shipped a package to each other every week for over 25 years. My friend had over 10,000 vinyl albums, 1000 45’s, and probably 15,000+ CDs in his 3 bedroom home. The collection was donated to the USC School of Film for students to listen and study around 2012. It took a moving van to transfer them from Bakersfield to Los Angeles. The collection took up most of the space in his home. He bought 2 of everything that had at least a couple of cuts of movie score. He didn’t bother with soundtracks that were just pop/rock compilations, like Footloose or Dirty Dancing. He kept one copy for himself, and mailed the other to England. That’s how I was able to get the EMI vinyl and cd of YOM, The Original British box set, original Interpretations, which is very hissy compared to the U.S. version. Sounds like a cassette, and many cd singles or other compilations up through 2009 when he passed. Then Amazon and EBay became the go to sources for most releases I couldn’t find in the store here. That also started my extreme fondness for composer John Barry. I ended up with about 6 copies of Body Heat, which was extremely rare, until it was bootlegged a few years ago. Great jazz score. Southern Cross/Label X. The vinyl plays at 45 rpm. The CDs used to sell for $300 and up, until 2005. They were all hand numbered 1-2000. The bootleg copies all have the same serial number. We had to buy a whole case of each cd-vinyl, to get them from the label. The label never paid Mr. Barry any royalties for his work. My friend bought 25 of each, cd and vinyl, to use for trading for rare items he wanted for his collection, and the Barry Fan Club in England. It was only available here and Japan. Those were fun times.
 
Either way, that CD was one of the shortest-lived releases ever. I think it was pulled within a matter of a week or two.
I am now having serious FOMO regarding not bidding on this on eBay.

Would love it if someone could send a WAV of "Those Good Old Dreams" on this CD 🙏
 
I was so lucky back then. My late friend, who had one of the 3 largest soundtrack collections in the world. He traded every soundtrack released in England, and most of Europe, for a copy of every soundtrack released here to his contact in London. It also included every cd, or set released by Carpenters. They shipped a package to each other every week for over 25 years. My friend had over 10,000 vinyl albums, 1000 45’s, and probably 15,000+ CDs in his 3 bedroom home. The collection was donated to the USC School of Film for students to listen and study around 2012. It took a moving van to transfer them from Bakersfield to Los Angeles. The collection took up most of the space in his home. He bought 2 of everything that had at least a couple of cuts of movie score. He didn’t bother with soundtracks that were just pop/rock compilations, like Footloose or Dirty Dancing. He kept one copy for himself, and mailed the other to England. That’s how I was able to get the EMI vinyl and cd of YOM, The Original British box set, original Interpretations, which is very hissy compared to the U.S. version. Sounds like a cassette, and many cd singles or other compilations up through 2009 when he passed. Then Amazon and EBay became the go to sources for most releases I couldn’t find in the store here. That also started my extreme fondness for composer John Barry. I ended up with about 6 copies of Body Heat, which was extremely rare, until it was bootlegged a few years ago. Great jazz score. Southern Cross/Label X. The vinyl plays at 45 rpm. The CDs used to sell for $300 and up, until 2005. They were all hand numbered 1-2000. The bootleg copies all have the same serial number. We had to buy a whole case of each cd-vinyl, to get them from the label. The label never paid Mr. Barry any royalties for his work. My friend bought 25 of each, cd and vinyl, to use for trading for rare items he wanted for his collection, and the Barry Fan Club in England. It was only available here and Japan. Those were fun times.
I used to collect soundtracks until home video provided me with access to the main themes, usually via end credits.

I still buy soundtracks special to me, and have ended up with a rare one myself- THE SHINING on LP.
 
Nice! The last one I bought was the new vinyl expanded edition of Interstellar. Excellent score. I have about 300 CDs and vinyl scores in my collection. About 25% is John Barry. My favorite is Somewhere In Time. Probably the best seller of his career. I have the gold cd of that and Dances With Wolves. Robert Wood the President of the John Barry Society fan club actually came here for a week, in the late 80’s. He was hilarious! He had many British slang words to share.
 
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