Compilation Fixation

1972 was the year when television-advertised budget albums began in the UK. Canadian infomercial company K-Tel, which was found by Philip Kieves in 1962, moved into the music business when it marketed its first compilation album, 25 Great Country Artists Singing Their Original Hits, which had been released on the Artistic label in 1964. K-tel took a thousand copies and sold them in Canada without permission. After paying off the record label, they began putting together their own albums for marketing on TV and radio. The success led to the company wishing to branch out.

In Australia, the Majestic record label was making budget compilation labels and they even released their own version of the Artistic record, called 25 Great American Country & Folk Artists Singing Their Original Hits. K-tel went to Australia and bought Majestic. In the early 1970s, they hired Don Reedman, whose twin brother Peter worked for Majestic, and took him to the UK to set up K-tel International (UK) Ltd. The business began releasing compilation albums that combined material from a number of popular artists onto a single theme album using the tag line "20 Original Hits! 20 Original Stars!"  They negotiated directly with artists and labels for the rights to reproduce their original recordings, in the process also securing a long-term asset through adding those recordings to their catalogue.

The first album Reedman compiled was 20 Dynamic Hits, released in 1972. It hit the UK Albums Chart on June 10, 1972 at #4. The following week it went to #1 where it stayed for eight weeks.