Originally Posted by
Sotosound
How many potential buyers would really have cared about who wrote and produced the songs?
I know that we care, but I’ve learned over the years that the majority of record buyers generally just bought what they liked the sound of.
My wife, for instance, likes a bit of soul music but couldn’t care less about who wrote or produced what. She just likes what she likes. Her friends are similarly motivated, and many of them call early to mid-70s soul “Motown” even though most of it isn’t.
So, if they liked the “Floy Joy” single by The Supremes then they might have bought the latest album by The Supremes, especially if it was clear that it included the hit single.
That’s why we saw stickers on LPs to point out that an album contained a hit song. That’s what would have caught the buyer’s eye.
That’s a view from the UK based upon disappointment that it isn’t otherwise.
[[As a mobile DJ in the late 70s and early-to-mid 80s, I had to accept, for instance, that when I was doing a 60s night I would get requests for The Pointer Sisters and ABBA. The average punter just wasn’t very discerning.)
Is it any different in the USA? Did the people who placed records high in the charts, as opposed to we specialists, go deeply into who wrote or produced what, or did they normally just buy an album because it contained some songs that they liked by an artist that they liked?