B-Sides

It wasn't just a U.S. thing; U.K. singles reviews in the trades during that time also weighed in on the "B" sides.

The practice of reviewing both sides of a single also carried weight in the jukebox trade, where a boffo review of a flip side might make the difference in tipping an operator's decision to buy the record for their boxes. Radio and retail may have concentrated on the plug sides, but it was on jukeboxes where customers were free to determine which sides would earn their coins. Page through a Whitburn book covering the pre-1955 era and you'll see a lot more entries where both sides charted in Billboard.

Music publishers were also keenly interested in knowing whether their songs made it onto the dark side of the single, since they stood to reap the same amount of mechanical royalty bucks on the "free ride" side as those earned by the hit song on the other.

My favorite "reviews" were on the back cover of comedy group the Credibility Gap's A Great Gift Idea album in 1973, where individual tracks were treated to spoof reviews in the stereotypical style you'd see in the trades and TV Guide. Take the cut that was a spot-on send-up of the Osmonds and the Jackson 5, which kicked off with a quickie faux radio jingle, "Moron music!":

YOU CAN'T JUDGE A BOOK BY ITS HAIR - Perennial chart-toppers the Asthma Brothers outdo themselves with this strong message ditty, backed by topnotch production values. Possible can't-miss potential. Flip: No info available.

If the trades were any indication, "No info available" was the most-released "B" side title in the history of the record industry. ;)