The amount of disco 12s?

[Funkatronik]

Does any of you wise old men have any idea how many disco 12" singles were made in the golden era of disco? I'm interested in both the number of records and the number of titles. I've been trying to search for the discographies of major disco labels to get me started but haven't found them anywhere.

-Teemu-

[Soulman]

Ya gotta be kidding!!! If memory serves correctly 12" singles started appearing around 1975 here in the UK, but don't quote me. I think I've got around 5-600 from 75-80 not sure and I ain't gonna count them!

Later
Soulman

[QUINNY]

There are several (incomplete but authoritative) discographies on the net that I've come across. You just have to delve.
If you're talking 76 - 80 then there's probably at least 1500+ for each year. I used to buy about 350 - 400 per year and that only kept me up with about half of the disco top 50. There were lots of others issued that never saw such dizzy heights.
After 1980 I bought about 250 - 300 per year until I retired from DJing in 1987. My colleagues who were on mailing lists used to get at least 20 12" records a week.
If you look at another thread 'Thames Valley DJ Association' there's a guy there with 25,000 12" for sale. Don't know the time period involved.

[BrunoRepublic]

This would be very difficult to estimate, and the results would depend on how broad your definitions are. Most of the stuff was from the US, but there are loads of singles exclusive to the UK, Canada, various European nations, etc. There are a lot of releases that are so obscure that they had no distribution outside of a particular city. I still come across singles on labels that I'd never heard of before.

"Many thousands" is about the best guess I can give. It's truly staggering.

[NickNack]

I don't know how you're ever going to arrive at a valid number on this subject. As a dj, when disco was at its height ('78, '79) we were averaging 70 or so PROMOTIONAL copies a week from the record pool. Even if you take a slow week and cut that number in half, it's still a lot. Add these to the domestic and import 12"s we were buying to fill in the gaps and you can see some of us were into 300 - 400 a month. The phrase 'vinyl junkies' wasn't far from the truth. The number has to be staggering. I couldn't begin to tell you where to look.

[QUINNY]

Gawd Nicky, I would have drowned in that much vinyl. How did you ever programme it and how much of it was pure drek? I'm glad I was able to be selective by buying it, 'cos that much would have done my head in!!!! Still nothing by todays standards though. Did you read my post just before Christmas that showed there were 450 or so 12" dance releases in one week. Aah, freak out!!

[NickNack]

Gawd Nicky, I would have drowned in that much vinyl. How did you ever programme it and how much of it was pure drek? I'm glad I was able to be selective by buying it, 'cos that much would have done my head in!!!! Still nothing by todays standards though. Did you read my post just before Christmas that showed there were 450 or so 12" dance releases in one week. Aah, freak out!!

You're kidding, right? We LOVED it! Like kids at Christmas. Couldn't wait until Friday 'cause that's when we did 'the rounds'. First you hit the record companies themselves, just to make sure nothing came in that wouldn't be at the pool. Then you hit the record pool, provided feedback for last week's batch of music and then got your new goodies. Go home, scan a few and see what you can test on your Friday night crowd. Saturday, scan everything again and separate the winners from the trash before your Saturday night gig. You are correct though that there was a large amount of drek in these packages. But, if that's how you felt you had to tell the records companies why so they could (try to) get their act together. Feedback was a serious issue back then.

On top of this, you had to hit the stores that catered to dj's and get those imports. Many were selling at $10.00 a pop so your salary went to music :roll: . I had imports coming in through mail order and I still wasn't satisfied. It was all about getting your hands on that vinyl. :D Plus, once they got to know you at the stores they always held on to little gems for you because they "knew your head". They were just as excited to see us as we were being there. This was the game and if you weren't keeping up on the new music, you were going to be left behind.

[QUINNY]

Nicky: No, I wasn't joking. That amount of material would have given me serious problems in my head. Buying records, maybe 3 times a week did feel like christmas though. I guess maybe 10 a week or less satisfied me. I'm ever so humble, I am. Any more would have made me feel sorta undeserving.
Had I lived and worked in somewhere like New York, maybe I would have felt differently. Competition was fierce, eh? The record companies must have had a real love hate relationship with you guys and vice versa.

[Mixmachine]

You're kidding, right? We LOVED it! Like kids at Christmas. Couldn't wait until Friday 'cause that's when we did 'the rounds'. First you hit the record companies themselves, just to make sure nothing came in that wouldn't be at the pool. Then you hit the record pool, provided feedback for last week's batch of music and then got your new goodies. Go home, scan a few and see what you can test on your Friday night crowd. Saturday, scan everything again and separate the winners from the trash before your Saturday night gig. You are correct though that there was a large amount of drek in these packages. But, if that's how you felt you had to tell the records companies why so they could (try to) get their act together. Feedback was a serious issue back then.

On top of this, you had to hit the stores that catered to dj's and get those imports. Many were selling at $10.00 a pop so your salary went to music :roll: . I had imports coming in through mail order and I still wasn't satisfied. It was all about getting your hands on that vinyl. :D Plus, once they got to know you at the stores they always held on to little gems for you because they "knew your head". They were just as excited to see us as we were being there. This was the game and if you weren't keeping up on the new music, you were going to be left behind[quote]

this is exactly the way it was for me too, I guess we were all addicted to vinyl then, I also had to keep up with the local 'Salsa' latin labels and they were maily released in LP only with very few promos, this LP were more expensive than the 'domestic' ones, most of my salary was invested in records.

As far as how many 12" were released, I don't think anyone can tell for sure, I see old 12" of favorite songs on Ebay that I didn't know existed.

[bobbchap]

This is an easy one....How many 12" singles were released???...... :roll: ...oh about....I'd say.....LOTS? :-?