Music Machine

The year was 1977; millions were stricken with Saturday Night Fever; plucky prime time duo, Laverne & Shirley, had stolen the hearts of an enthralled (possibly drunken) viewership and merrily skipped to the top of the ratings chart, while The Fonz proved he was still the coolest by jumping a shark. 

Thousands of Pet Rocks – jettisoned by owners who could no longer care for them – had turned feral, formed aggressive packs and began instigating rockslides and blockading roadways throughout Southern California. 

Just when it looked as if life in the polyester-paved, 1970s fast lane could get no more dizzying, the gargantuan dancing robots began appearing.

The first reported sighting was in a strip mall parking lot outside Kalamazoo. Gobsmacked onlookers initially mistook the unsettling scene for a misguided (but harmless) radio station promotion. Before long, a massive robo-army began assembling mountains of space-age electronic equipment upon open lawns and flower gardens around the globe.

Condensed, high intensity bursts of often disparate original hits (by the original stars) issued from strategically placed, mega-watt speaker towers. This 'round-the-clock aural assault reached far into the ionosphere, fused with the gamma radiation present there and blanketed the Earth in a powerful, contiguous grid of self-oscillating electromagnetic energy that projected a previously unknown, biologically disruptive frequency; scrambling the minds of the citizenry and stymieing all attempts by law enforcement and the military to intervene.

Once the ensuing propaganda campaign was launched, it quickly became apparent that the flailing metal behemoths were controlled by sinister corporate conglomerate, K-Tel International, as part of their latest bid to subjugate the minds and pocketbooks of an impressionable populace.

Music Machine (1977 K-Tel TU 2560)

K.C. & The Sunshine Band, Kenny Rogers, Wild Cherry, Rose Royce, Abba and David Soul were key elements of K-Tel's nefarious master plan ... and then there was the seductive promise of not one, but two bonus miniposters(!) for all who would willingly relinquish a specified sum of money without resistance.

Public records of K-Tel's Music Machine operations were swiftly and systematically suppressed by certain government intelligence agencies and remain classified to this day. Most surviving eyewitnesses claim to have "forgotten" everything they saw or will freeze up and blankly stare off into the middle distance as soon as the subject is broached.

Recently, a piece of damaged broadcast footage surfaced on YouTube via a mysterious private archivist known only by the code name "UFO Cult VHS." This chilling, but historically significant document is the only reliable account we have of those bleak, terrible days.

Additional Data:

View complete track list at Discogs

Canadian pressing with alternate track list