SYKBH - How MCA Records Failed
Posted: Sun May 10, 2020 8:02 pm
JIMMY BUFFETT’S SONGS YOU KNOW BY HEART
How MCA Records Failed
MCA Records acquired Jimmy Buffett’s ABC/Dunhill Records catalog when they consumed the label in 1979 for $30 million. MCA’s first Buffett release was 1979’s VOLCANO. ABC/Dunhill was originally Am-Par Records - the American Broadcasting Paramount Theatres company, which eventually evolved to just become known as the American Broadcasting Company, which is, of course, ABC. ABC gobbled up Dunhill and years later ABC/Dunhill died under MCA.
Jimmy Buffett, who had already released one album with Barnaby Records, signed to ABC/Dunhill Records in 1973 after Jim Croce died, who was a rising star on ABC/Dunhill. Buffett, who earned the nickname Cosmic Cowboy after A1A came out, went on to loosely create a new genre of music, which early on became known as the Key West Sound and, probably combined into, to some fans, from a lyric in Migration, Caribbean Soul, but got named, or more like branded in the ‘return to country’ era, Gulf & Western, in the mid 1980s. Nowadays some people probably just consider him beach music or something absolutely horrible, Yacht Rock.
On January 2, 1985, MCA Records released SONGS YOU KNOW BY HEART, a ‘best of’ compilation of Jimmy Buffett. To add to the horribly titled album, they sub-titled it with Jimmy Buffett’s Greatest Hit(s).
What is a greatest hit? One could go by how long it was ranked #1. So… which Buffett song was ranked at #1 for the longest selling single? No Buffett songs have ever been number one. Margaritaville did chart. It got to #8 on the Billboard Hot 100 - that’s just for radio play, and #1 for Hot Adult Contemporary Tracks - not exactly a feat that anyone would notice on a regular basis (it’s basically a chart for evening cocktail guzzling nostalgics).
Margaritaville went on to be one of the most played singles in the history of music on radio and spawned Buffett his own brand that turned into a store, a website, a record label and restaurants and all kinds of nick nacks made in China and priced to bleed the hardcore Parrothead sucker dry.
All the while, MCA Records continued to release new Buffett albums, but never seemed interested in really getting anything out of him (in 1987 he toured without an album released that year for only the third time, the previous two being 1975 and 1980). He took a break from recording after 1989’s OFF TO SEE THE LIZARD and didn’t release a new album until 1994. In 1992 Buffett formed his own record label, the highly imaginative Margaritaville Records, with MCA as distributor, and his box set of remastered selected songs BOATS, BEACHES, BARS AND BALLADS release remains the highest selling box set in history (and the only place to find the songs on this release that sound good, remastering wise). His deal with MCA Records still existed but he was able to do a bit more promoting using his own label. Likely because of that, his 1994 LP FRUITCAKES debuted at #5 on the Billboard Top 200 - his first ever Top Ten album. The success continued with 1995’s BAROMETER SOUP charting at #6 and 1996’s BANANA WIND charting at #4, his highest charting LP until 2004’s chart topping LP, LICENSE TO CHILL.
Although no details have ever been released, whatever deal Buffett had with MCA Records, it expired after his 1996 fall release CHRISTMAS ISLAND, because he signed with Island Records in 1997 and released two albums and an EP with Margaritaville/Island Records, 1998’s, DON’T STOP THE CARNIVAL, the 1999 CALALLOO EP and 1999’s BEACH HOUSE ON THE MOON.
Margaritaville Records, meanwhile, had already split jumped ship to Island Records with THE PARAKEET ALBUM in 1995, Marshall Chapman’s LOVE SLAVE and The Iguanas' SUPER BALL in 1996. Island was absorbed by Universal Music Group in 1999, which also owns MCA Records. With Island off to UMG land, Buffett dumped Margaritaville Records and formed his own new label, Mailboat Records, and released his label’s debut album TUESDAYS, THURSDAYS, SATURDAYS in late 1999 and was completely free.
What does that have to do with SONGS YOU KNOW BY HEART?
MCA did a second tier release of Buffett’s catalog of his Margaritaville Records albums at some point and all the interior artwork is in black and white. The original releases were in color.
MCA is cheap.
MCA is so cheap that they never updated SONGS YOU KNOW BY HEART by rereleasing it with more songs - songs that should’ve been on the original release, like Havana Daydreamin’, Coconut Telegraph, the Van Morrison cover of Brown Eyed Girl, Somewhere Over China, The Weather Is Here Wish You Were Beautiful and One Particular Harbour.
Maybe it’s because Buffett was never a big seller. His tours sell out every year. But he was never a big charting artist.
What’s most likely is that MCA never cared. Does a label that says Hit(s) on a hits album sound like they know who they’re dealing with? Something must’ve been stirred up at some point - in 2003, a new hits release came out that was a combination of UTV, MCA and Mailboat Records. MEET ME IN MARGARITAVILLE featured the MCA catalog drawn songs being remastered again to modern levels.
UTV Records is a division of… Universal Music Group, which is under Universal Music Entertainment aka UMe… which owns MCA Records.
One could say that UMG, or UMe, is cheap.
They are. When it comes to Jimmy Buffett.
SONGS YOU KNOW BY HEART will always be Buffett’s biggest selling release. Its songs became warhorses for Buffett on his tours, and part of his setlist is made up of The Big 8 or 10 or 11, most of which is also known as the SYKBH songs - A Pirate Looks At Forty, CILCIA, Margaritaville, Cheeseburger, Volcano, Fins, Come Monday and Why Don’t We Get Drunk - all tracks from the album, as well as Brown Eyed Girl, One Particular Harbour and Southern Cross fitting into the category.
Of course there are more tracks that are known by heart and it’s enough to make it into a double or even triple album.
MCA could make a killing by rebooting SYKBH - a majority of the same people that bought the original will buy the new one because that’s just how it works.
Which is why it’s surprising that MCA hasn’t reissued it, properly remastered, of course, with additional songs, in a way that would make sense in regard to when it was released, 1985, and how it didn’t go past 1979. Here is a version that would include songs, in bold, through 1984:
Cheeseburger In Paradise
Coconut Telegraph
He Went To Paris
Fins
Son Of A Son Of A Sailor
A Pirate Looks At Forty
Margaritaville
Come Monday
Somewhere Over China
Changes In Latitudes, Changes In Attitudes
Havana Daydreamin’
The Weather Is Here, Wish You Were Beautiful
Brown Eyed Girl
Who’s The Blonde Stranger
Why Don’t We Get Drunk
Pencil Thin Mustache
Grapefruit-Juicy Fruit
One Particular Harbour
Boat Drinks
Volcano
How MCA Records Failed
MCA Records acquired Jimmy Buffett’s ABC/Dunhill Records catalog when they consumed the label in 1979 for $30 million. MCA’s first Buffett release was 1979’s VOLCANO. ABC/Dunhill was originally Am-Par Records - the American Broadcasting Paramount Theatres company, which eventually evolved to just become known as the American Broadcasting Company, which is, of course, ABC. ABC gobbled up Dunhill and years later ABC/Dunhill died under MCA.
Jimmy Buffett, who had already released one album with Barnaby Records, signed to ABC/Dunhill Records in 1973 after Jim Croce died, who was a rising star on ABC/Dunhill. Buffett, who earned the nickname Cosmic Cowboy after A1A came out, went on to loosely create a new genre of music, which early on became known as the Key West Sound and, probably combined into, to some fans, from a lyric in Migration, Caribbean Soul, but got named, or more like branded in the ‘return to country’ era, Gulf & Western, in the mid 1980s. Nowadays some people probably just consider him beach music or something absolutely horrible, Yacht Rock.
On January 2, 1985, MCA Records released SONGS YOU KNOW BY HEART, a ‘best of’ compilation of Jimmy Buffett. To add to the horribly titled album, they sub-titled it with Jimmy Buffett’s Greatest Hit(s).
What is a greatest hit? One could go by how long it was ranked #1. So… which Buffett song was ranked at #1 for the longest selling single? No Buffett songs have ever been number one. Margaritaville did chart. It got to #8 on the Billboard Hot 100 - that’s just for radio play, and #1 for Hot Adult Contemporary Tracks - not exactly a feat that anyone would notice on a regular basis (it’s basically a chart for evening cocktail guzzling nostalgics).
Margaritaville went on to be one of the most played singles in the history of music on radio and spawned Buffett his own brand that turned into a store, a website, a record label and restaurants and all kinds of nick nacks made in China and priced to bleed the hardcore Parrothead sucker dry.
All the while, MCA Records continued to release new Buffett albums, but never seemed interested in really getting anything out of him (in 1987 he toured without an album released that year for only the third time, the previous two being 1975 and 1980). He took a break from recording after 1989’s OFF TO SEE THE LIZARD and didn’t release a new album until 1994. In 1992 Buffett formed his own record label, the highly imaginative Margaritaville Records, with MCA as distributor, and his box set of remastered selected songs BOATS, BEACHES, BARS AND BALLADS release remains the highest selling box set in history (and the only place to find the songs on this release that sound good, remastering wise). His deal with MCA Records still existed but he was able to do a bit more promoting using his own label. Likely because of that, his 1994 LP FRUITCAKES debuted at #5 on the Billboard Top 200 - his first ever Top Ten album. The success continued with 1995’s BAROMETER SOUP charting at #6 and 1996’s BANANA WIND charting at #4, his highest charting LP until 2004’s chart topping LP, LICENSE TO CHILL.
Although no details have ever been released, whatever deal Buffett had with MCA Records, it expired after his 1996 fall release CHRISTMAS ISLAND, because he signed with Island Records in 1997 and released two albums and an EP with Margaritaville/Island Records, 1998’s, DON’T STOP THE CARNIVAL, the 1999 CALALLOO EP and 1999’s BEACH HOUSE ON THE MOON.
Margaritaville Records, meanwhile, had already split jumped ship to Island Records with THE PARAKEET ALBUM in 1995, Marshall Chapman’s LOVE SLAVE and The Iguanas' SUPER BALL in 1996. Island was absorbed by Universal Music Group in 1999, which also owns MCA Records. With Island off to UMG land, Buffett dumped Margaritaville Records and formed his own new label, Mailboat Records, and released his label’s debut album TUESDAYS, THURSDAYS, SATURDAYS in late 1999 and was completely free.
What does that have to do with SONGS YOU KNOW BY HEART?
MCA did a second tier release of Buffett’s catalog of his Margaritaville Records albums at some point and all the interior artwork is in black and white. The original releases were in color.
MCA is cheap.
MCA is so cheap that they never updated SONGS YOU KNOW BY HEART by rereleasing it with more songs - songs that should’ve been on the original release, like Havana Daydreamin’, Coconut Telegraph, the Van Morrison cover of Brown Eyed Girl, Somewhere Over China, The Weather Is Here Wish You Were Beautiful and One Particular Harbour.
Maybe it’s because Buffett was never a big seller. His tours sell out every year. But he was never a big charting artist.
What’s most likely is that MCA never cared. Does a label that says Hit(s) on a hits album sound like they know who they’re dealing with? Something must’ve been stirred up at some point - in 2003, a new hits release came out that was a combination of UTV, MCA and Mailboat Records. MEET ME IN MARGARITAVILLE featured the MCA catalog drawn songs being remastered again to modern levels.
UTV Records is a division of… Universal Music Group, which is under Universal Music Entertainment aka UMe… which owns MCA Records.
One could say that UMG, or UMe, is cheap.
They are. When it comes to Jimmy Buffett.
SONGS YOU KNOW BY HEART will always be Buffett’s biggest selling release. Its songs became warhorses for Buffett on his tours, and part of his setlist is made up of The Big 8 or 10 or 11, most of which is also known as the SYKBH songs - A Pirate Looks At Forty, CILCIA, Margaritaville, Cheeseburger, Volcano, Fins, Come Monday and Why Don’t We Get Drunk - all tracks from the album, as well as Brown Eyed Girl, One Particular Harbour and Southern Cross fitting into the category.
Of course there are more tracks that are known by heart and it’s enough to make it into a double or even triple album.
MCA could make a killing by rebooting SYKBH - a majority of the same people that bought the original will buy the new one because that’s just how it works.
Which is why it’s surprising that MCA hasn’t reissued it, properly remastered, of course, with additional songs, in a way that would make sense in regard to when it was released, 1985, and how it didn’t go past 1979. Here is a version that would include songs, in bold, through 1984:
Cheeseburger In Paradise
Coconut Telegraph
He Went To Paris
Fins
Son Of A Son Of A Sailor
A Pirate Looks At Forty
Margaritaville
Come Monday
Somewhere Over China
Changes In Latitudes, Changes In Attitudes
Havana Daydreamin’
The Weather Is Here, Wish You Were Beautiful
Brown Eyed Girl
Who’s The Blonde Stranger
Why Don’t We Get Drunk
Pencil Thin Mustache
Grapefruit-Juicy Fruit
One Particular Harbour
Boat Drinks
Volcano