Who buys this stuff? Or: Opposite of “Select”

After a few promising Motown releases and a reissue of the A&M/Phil Spector Checkmates Ltd. LP, Hip-O Select seem to be squandering opportunity.

Their 4 November announcement promised a “long-awaited and previously-unreleased” Peter Frampton live recording, four “classic” Pointer Sisters albums and a Paul Williams A&M compilation among 20 new Hip-O Select releases in the coming weeks. The fact that these are being spotlighted does not encourage hope for any of the remaining discs.

Warner Music Group’s Rhino Handmade have released a lot of collections I’m not particularly interested in, but they haven’t filled me with revulsion, either. Universal Music’s holdings encompass the libraries of Decca, Polydor, Motown and Verve. With such a huge slice of recording history for them to draw upon, I can’t fathom this flirtation with the 70s banality that nearly suffocated popular music in North America altogether.

NP: Rock ’n’ Roll