Rich here with a bet that you might not have previously heard the term "Explotio," which was the practice of selling sound-alike records of current hits to unsuspecting music fans. For example, in the wake of the British Invasion, dozens of albums flooded the market featuring photographs of four shaggy-haired boys in partial shadow (much like the photo on the "Meet the Beatles" album cover). Sometimes, the misleading name of "The Beetles" or "The Newest Sounds from England!" scrolled across the top. And it was only after the buyer slapped the album on the family hi-fi did they discover it wasn't The Beatles at all but an anonymous group hired by a fly-by-night recording company. Unsurprisingly, among the most frequent customers for these fake Beatles albums were parents of young fans who had no idea what the actual Beatles faces looked like or didn't notice the intentional misspelling of the band's name.
For the most part those Beatles knock-off albums disappeared after a year or two, although existing copies in mint shape are worth a lot of money these days in the collectors' markets.
However, one particular record label, HIT RECORDS (of Nashville) made handsome profits for many years in the Explotio business, releasing hundreds of 45's of current Top 40 hit records for 39 cents, which was roughly half the cost of the single by the original artist at the time. The quality of the imitation performances ranged from quite good to piss-poor. In either event, the recordings were made quickly and released cheaply, and an undiscerning fan might think she'd gotten a pretty good bargain to own her favorite song.
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