Picture sleeves
Printed From: Top 40 Music on CD
Category: Top 40 Music On Compact Disc
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URL: https://top40musiconcd.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=4375
Printed Date: 12 June 2025 at 4:13am
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Topic: Picture sleeves
Posted By: Hykker
Subject: Picture sleeves
Date Posted: 05 November 2008 at 12:27pm
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The Paula Abdul thread made me realize how common picture sleeves had become in the 80s. Prior to that, they were quite rare, and generally limited to a label's top acts. It seems though that right around the '82/'83 "Hot Hits" era a large percentage of singles had them. Columbia even had custom ones for promo copies where the B side wasn't listed.
I'm guessing the reason for this was that this was an attempt to revive the sagging market for 45s by including a possible collector's item. |
Replies:
Posted By: Yah Shure
Date Posted: 05 November 2008 at 2:23pm
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Plus with the advent of MTV, the visual element suddenly became an important marketing factor. And the more 45s there were in eye-catching pictures sleeves at retail, the better the likelihood of some impulse buys. Those formulaic pictures sleeves of the '60s and '70s began to look like they were from the dark ages in comparison.
Likewise, compare the original 1977 Star Wars movie posters with the 1997 20th anniversary edition, and they're light years apart in style and overall impact. |
Posted By: torcan
Date Posted: 05 November 2008 at 2:37pm
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Actually, picture sleeves were quite common for '60s singles, but largely disappeared during most of the '70s. As mentioned, by the early '80s they were quite common again. By 1989 they started to die down, and were almost non-existant through the '90s.
45s still sold quite well at the beginning of the '80s, but by the middle part of the decade sales had declined. Fewer singles were certified gold in the last half of the '80s than in the first half. A lot of that likely had to do with the introduction of the cassette single. In looking at what singles had sleeves and what didn't, there were some surprising omissions besides the Paula Abdul single. For the record, I love picture sleeves. I've probably got close to 6,000 picture sleeve singles and am always on the hunt for more. My wife wonders where I'm going to put them all! :) |
Posted By: Hykker
Date Posted: 05 November 2008 at 4:35pm
Much as she denies it, my wife is as much of a packrat as I am, so I don't get too much grief about my various collections. I wish I'd taken better care of my picture sleeves back in the 60s. Around '67 or so I started storing picture sleeves separately and keeping the records in regular sleeves (by this point I'd gotten my first radio gig, and would salvage sleeves from throwaway 45s...it wasn't until later I started buying good quality shucks. About 10 years ago I was cleaning out a storage room at a station I worked at and found several cases of them in various colors. I think I'm set for life on shucks now!). |
torcan wrote:Posted By: torcan
Date Posted: 12 November 2008 at 6:14pm
| What was kind of maddening at the time was that when vinyl singles started to fall out of favor during the '90s, there were still a number of picture sleeves released promotionally only. Over the years I've found promo-only 45s with picture sleeves for acts like Black Crowes, Blind Melon, The Wonders and even a Beatles record. All were released in the '90s. The Black Crowes, Blind Melon and Wonders singles eventually came out as "stock" copies, but without the picture sleeves. |