Japanese production from the Victor Corporation, later to become JVC and now part of the JVC Kenwood group of companies.
This was released in the days when Victor Corporation were directly involved in the music industry
Sadly I cannot find any reference to who the performing artists were...just simply referred to as The Beat Pops. They are obviously accomplished musicians, very tight sound!
You may think "Oh no, another "daggy" album from a bunch of unknowns" but in fact this music is really cool, very jazz flavoured pop - trumpets, beautiful sax, guitar and drums are the main instruments. Has it's funny "Japanese" moments, such as Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Da. The song is cruising along (trumpets/sax) and sounds great then in comes the lead guitar, weird random playing like some frantic guitar solo along with the other instruments, it just sounds a bit strange. Overall the main strengths of this album are the trumpet and sax, the guitar is just a bit too freaky for me at times!
All songs are covers
No vocals - instrumental only
The Beat Pops - Beat Spectacular!
Stereocolor Records (the export division of Victor Corporation JAPAN)
Cat# YS 5001
19?? (Not stated anywhere on the cover or record label but this has a very 70's - 80's feel to the music)
Gatecover is in very good condition, very heavyweight card used. Funny, they use the graphic of the female on the cover for marketing but in fact there is not a single note sung by a vocalist - she is just window dressing! Another interesting detail is that front graphic. In Japan, to have a female dancing in what appears in the photograph to be a club atmosphere is extremely risky (unless they had a special "dance licence") - it has been illegal for females to dance in most clubs until only recently. So that graphic back in the 1970's-80's would have raised a few eyebrows. The law was enacted after WWII to try and clamp down on prostitution in the club circuit and remained in place for many many years until only recently.
No tears, no writing, no seam splits, very light edge wear due to handling but inside the gatefold cover (monochrome printing) there are some mildew "spots" - I have stabilised these but they cannot be removed.
New plastic inner sleeve
Vinyl (120g) is in very good visual condition, inspected under a white halogen light source and I can only see a couple of very short extremely light scratches on each side. I then played the entire album and there is an elevated level of surface noise - either there remains some dirt in the grooves (already washed/vacuumed twice) or the polymer used was of a poor quality. This surface noise is only apparent during low level passages of music, once the Beat Pops get into their rhythm, the noise is buried by the music! Overall its a great listen - upbeat background jazz feel and a nice play
New outer protective sleeve
All songs are instrumental only
Stated only as being played by the mysterious Beat Pops (cannot find any information who they were)
Tracks: Manchester And Liverpool, Aquarius, I Started A Joke, Love Child, Shot Gun, Get Back, La Pioggia, Ob La Di Ob La Da, Indian Giver, Touch Me, White Room, Proud Mary
