Wow , I was just barely making over $3 from my crap job when "Some Girls" was the most recent Rolling Stones album , so I barely had any money for records. With younger people , the 60's were still a singles market , kids who were too young to work , but could scrounge the 60 cents for a single by not drinking milk for a week or something .
In many cases people probably were just as happy with a couple of singles than an iffy LP.....But , The Stones, who were putting out albums about every four months from 64 - 66 , more or less , were usually very consistent. Then , of course , Sgt. Pepper came out , and ALBUM ROCK was born..... Radio stations started playing long tracks and non - single cuts , but the Hot 100 kept chugging along. I'll still take "Their Satanic Majesties".
G. Wood said:
Not so sure about that...I remember albums were $3, less on sale. That was about an hour's pay for your average crappy job, just like the cost of a CD or album DL is about an hour's pay for the same crappy job today. More or less. Singles were something like 60 cents. So I don't really think that was it. The filler, yeah, maybe. But I think it was a holdover from 78s, which had been the standard for decades. Plus, radio was a strong factor, they played the hits, that's what the singles were.
David Kitching said:The reason singles were so important in the sixties was that LP's were so expensive. Another reason was the already mentioed filler tracks, I'd hear people saying how they'd bought an LP and there was a load of boring crap on it. And they wouldn't buy anything else by them.