Sensational new find: unknown UK Top of the Poppers LP!

Blog posts like this don't come along too often. I can date my interest in Top of the Pops back to my early childhood, while I started properly collecting and cataloguing them maybe 15 years ago. So how amazing is this new find? A UK album by Top of the Poppers, which I had never previously seen a hint of, in all my time collecting and researching.

Here are some scans:

Some of this package will look familiar to the collector. The back-story is a little convoluted, so we'll start at the beginning. 1975 - and Pickwick decided to compile a single disco album from Top of the Pops tracks. Here's the cover, and it's the same graphic as on our latest find:

What happened next is not entirely clear, but let's take a guess at the correct sequence of events. It's now 1976 and Pickwick are starting to take an interest in issuing double albums - hence, the Top of the Poppers were subject to the 2LP treatment with the following:

This double album contained the former compilation LP as disc 1, adding a second 20-track disc to complete the package.

And so to the newly discovered LP - it's a re-issue of the double LP, but with artwork from the earlier single LP! The records inside are not re-issues in the usual sense, though. They are literally the same pressings, just housed inside a different cover (a single sleeve, by the way, not a gatefold).

And to cap it all, Pickwick squeezed in a third LP - the eponymous Mac and Katie Kissoon on its original Hallmark press, from 1975. Below is the original commercial sleeve:

This Pickwick triple album has no catalogue number, the original vinyl discs retaining their own numbering. This factor, accompanied by a complete lack of small print, makes dating this new discovery very difficult. We assume it compiles the previous releases, but...

Note the "40" on the front of the double LP above. This album appeared just as Pickwick were branching into their "50" series of double albums. Is it possible therefore, that they launched the triple album just before this idea began, then had a fast re-think and issued the double Poppers' album separately, to fit into their new branding initiative? That might explain why the cover art follows on from the very first LP. If so, the sequence of events changes, and the triple LP actually pre-dates the double.

There's no way of knowing for sure. If you know anything about all this, please let us know!

Meantime, we're delighted to add a new title to the UK discography Who'd have thought it??