World Record Club
The World Record Club Ltd. was the name of a company in the United Kingdom which issued long-playing records and reel-to-reel tapes, mainly of classical music and jazz, through a membership mail-order system during the 1950s and 1960s.
In addition to titles imported from recording companies like Everest Records and Westminster Records, which it obtained on franchise, it made a series of recordings of international artists using its own engineers. Although often of great musical interest and very acceptable technical quality, these recordings do not appear in shop catalogues of the time as they were not available new through record shops.
The label was taken over by EMI in 1965 but continued to be used as a sub-label for mail order, covering a wide range of musical genres, and distributing in South Africa, Australia and New Zealand.
Australian World Record Club[edit]
The World Record Club had a special franchise in Australia, and operated from 1957 to 1976. The registered office was in Hartwell, a suburb of Melbourne, Victoria, with the postal address being P.O. Box 76, Burwood. Stores were provided in central Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth, where records could be auditioned and picked up. Subsidiary clubs under its control in the early years were the Light Music Club and the Record Society, but both were later absorbed into the WRC itself.
Each year a selection of LPs would be made available, and subscribers needed to order them in advance. A catalogue listed the proposed records with descriptions, initially one per month but soon increasing to four and by 1970 to eight or more, for the forthcoming six months or year. Supplementary catalogues also appeared, listing additional releases to widen the repertoire. One of these was the Connoisseur Series, which made available classic performances from the past. Others were The Basic Library series and All-time Best Sellers (which enabled new members to fill gaps in their collections), The Living Bible narrated by Sir Laurence Olivier, and 24 Great Plays of Shakespeare.
Subscribers would send in their order forms and, as the records became available, they would be mailed out or could be picked up at the metropolitan outlets. Most of the selections were from the catalogues of companies in the EMI or Decca groups. Whereas some were re-issues, for example the Decca Der Ring des Nibelungen 19-LP set, many were issued in Australia exclusively by the WRC.
The club also recorded local artists, bands and orchestras, particularly in light music or shows such as "The Maid of the Mountains". One of their more unusual releases was "15 Australian Christmas Carols" by William G. James. For this they used the Sydney Symphony Orchestra and the New South Wales State Conservatorium Choir, conducted by Sir Bernard Heinze.
In 1963, WRC records sold for 35 shillings (Aus$3.50) or 37 shillings and sixpence (Aus$3.75) if posted. Equivalent discs in commercial record stores sold for 57 shillings and sixpence ($5.75). By 1970 the price per disc had actually fallen slightly to $3.39, plus 30 cents packing and postage. These prices were made possible by the policy of pre-ordering – the club had only sufficient records pressed to cover the orders received, and so there was no overstock nor wastage. They were produced at the manufacturing plant of EMI (Australia) Ltd. in Sydney, although some esoteric discs were pressed elsewhere. An LP of sitar music was released in 1968 that was made in India. Some 7-inch discs for children were also produced.
Subscribers were encouraged to order multiple records per month, with bonus Dividend LPs being offered at a rate of one per three monthly pre-selections. Though the Dividend LPs were offered at a bargain price of only 15 shillings each (Aus$1.50), their quality was equivalent to that of the regular issues. Members who introduced a new subscriber to the club were rewarded with a free record, which they could select from a list of a dozen.
In the first five years the record labels were a plain aqua colour, with the WRC logo and text in black. Around the circumference was a stroboscopic pattern to assist in checking turntable speed. Later records had a mid blue-green label, with an 18th-century image of a military trumpeter or fanfare-player in livery, as a background design to the overprinted label text.
The album covers were often striking – innovative, colourful and modern, although some were criticised as being too drab. The WRC set up its own artistic studio at its offices at 330 Flinders Lane, Melbourne, and the sleeves are still regarded as a high point in Australian graphic design of the 1960s. They occasionally won awards, although some subscribers preferred more traditional record covers, and made their opinions known in the 'Viewpoint' page of the Club magazine. Many of the texts were written by James Murdoch.
In the early years, multi-disc opera sets were lavish productions, the records in each set being presented in a red leatherette case with a folded silk ribbon opening tab. The discs in their plastic sleeves were separated by heavy sheets of gold card, bound into the box. A full libretto of nearly A4 size was included. A golden metal medallion was set into the middle of the front cover of the case, adding a touch of luxury and quality.
By 1970, the club was making its musical offerings also available as tapes, either on reels or as 8-track cartridges. Subscribers ordering reels needed to specify the tape speed required – 3+3⁄4 inches per second or 7+1⁄2 inches per second. To promote the sale of cartridges, the Club ran a promotion whereby a member could purchase five 8-track cartridges of their choice plus a car stereo cartridge player for $98.50.
The Club at that stage was also selling mini hi-fi systems which ranged in price from $355 to $608. These were assembled for them in Australia by Bang and Olufsen, a Danish company. The quality components used included Labcraft turntables, B&O pick-up arms, B&O amplifiers and Beovox speakers.
Each month subscribers received a copy of the World Record News, a slim magazine which provided interesting articles on music, its history, composers, artists and records. It also contained additional information about the next month's releases, supplementary catalogues with order forms, and special promotions. Readers' technical queries about music reproduction were dealt with by Eric Cleburne in a regular column, "Sound Advice". Any possible perceptions that the cheap prices of the records meant a lower overall quality were dealt with in another regular column, "Don't quote us – quote the critics!" in which reviews of WRC releases from independent sources were reprinted.
The Editor-in-Chief of the magazine was a New Zealander, Harvey Blanks, who was responsible for most of the content. This was always of a very high standard, erudite, informative, enthusiastic and reliable. He wrote many articles on music and composers which appeared regularly in the Club magazine as a feature "The Golden Road" from mid-1963. These were later incorporated into his book "The Golden Road – a Record Collector's Guide to Music Appreciation" (Rigby, 1968). Mr Blanks, chief executive officer John Day and director of repertoire Alex Berry were responsible for which records were selected for release, and many Australians owe their enduring love of classical music to the astute recommendations of these three gentlemen. The selections were particularly perspicacious – many are still regarded nearly fifty years later as first-choice performances. A large number have been re-released on CD by the parent companies. Recordings of outstanding technical quality, as from the catalogue of Everest, were also released, if their artistic merit justified their inclusion in the programme.
New Zealand World Record Club[edit]
The WRC operated in New Zealand between 1960 and the mid-1970s and provided a valuable service to music lovers in provincial towns, which lacked the record shops and selections available to collectors in the main centres. The Club took full-page advertisements in the New Zealand Listener magazine offering a choice of any three LPs for ten shillings to new members. Members received a magazine listing the upcoming monthly releases for that year, which had to be ordered in advance.
The magazine featured a classical music column "The Golden Road" by World Record Club editor-in-chief Harvey Blanks. This was published in book form in 1968 by Rigby in Australia and Angus and Robertson in the UK and was offered for sale through the magazine. Five years in the making, it remains a highly readable and informative handbook for classical music devotees.
The WRC had showrooms in Wellington (in Farish Street), in Christchurch (in Cashel Street) and Auckland (in Albert Street), with sound booths where it was possible to listen to LPs from the club's catalogue. LPs were pressed at a factory in Lower Hutt.