Quote Originally Posted by mysterysinger View Post
Hip-O-Select was a miserable failure? Really? If so, it took several years and hundreds of releases to find that out. All the limited edition Motown releases seemed to sell out. How can that be failure? They sold what they set out to. I can't see that as a failure. Everything has a shelf life.
Universal has a major problem with promotion. When Hip-O started, around 10,000 Supremes sets were pressed. Eventually that would be strunken to 7,500 then 5,000 and now 3,500. I don’t believe for one second they pressed less because there weren’t any people buying them. They never promoted them. Put an ad in Billboard or Rolling Stone, do what Andy & George on Midnight Johnny’s Nightflight and have someone do a little promo on Sirius’ Soultown and 60’s/70’s stations. I guarantee you if they would print 10,000 copies today of Supremes A’ Go-Go and if given the proper promotion they would sell out of all 10,000 copies.

Now Hip-O made some release duds. The Rare Earth collection, Pops We Love You, etc. Who was asking for those? For years people have been dying for a Blinky collection, Vandellas 1968 Copa show, etc and those wishes have gone unanswered.