From Play School Play On to Russell Grant’s Zodiac Jukebox, the story behind every album released by BBC Records And Tapes.
Between 1967 and 1991, BBC Records And Tapes released more than seven hundred albums. These featured everything from collections of theme tunes and full radio plays to sound effects, academic lectures, Radio 2 house bands being let loose on synthesisers, and an unlikely assortment of public figures being invited to express their love of flowers. Some are welcome reminders of some of the BBC’s most popular programmes ever. Others are valuable documents of programmes that came and went and which in some cases there is little else left of now. Others still it’s difficult to fathom why anyone believed that their potential audience might extend beyond double figures. Then there are the dozens and dozens of albums of birdsong; so many, in fact, that they could probably drive even the most patient of listeners to eat worms.
From records based on Doctor Who, EastEnders, The Magic Roundabout, Play School, Not The Nine O’Clock News, The Singing Detective, Fawlty Towers and Top Of The Pops to records based on Disc A Dawn, The Hot Shoe Show, Rubovia, Pebble Mill At One, The Paul Daniels Magic Show and Hold Tight – It’s Lena!, from the BBC Radiophonic Workshop to Nick Berry, from Get Fit With The Green Goddess to John Peel’s Archive Things, from Let’s Have Another One! to Sound An Alarm!, Top Of The Box Vol 2. tells the story behind each of these albums and even a couple that weren’t released. Including all of the birdsong. So much birdsong…
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Top Of The Box, the story behind every album released by BBC Records And Tapes, is available here.
