I Think We're Alone Now (Bastien)

I Think We're Alone Now

I see where this has been recently revised by you. The medium used as first, I am very certain, is incorrect. Since SHS insists on first medium, that should be the single. You are apparently not aware that until fairly recently, artists had to prove themselves with at least one single that sold well before the label would commit to an album. Therefore in nearly all cases up to the 1970s before AOR, the first single had to precede the album. I leave the research to you. I would suppose the recent book by Tommy James would have the info for this specifically.

A parallel is that when a small (local or regional) and a large (national) label release the same record the same year. It is almost always the smaller label that released first. The smaller label leases the master to the larger to get wider exposure. The case where it is not is when a third party has sold the master to both labels around the same time.

There is almost no reason for a major label to lease a master to a smaller label in the same year. There are a few cases when a major has given up on an artist or failed to promote a record successfully. Then a smaller label has sometimes picked up the master much later and had a hit with it.

You had a number of these first media with the major label release set as first medium. Over 90% were wrong, now corrected. The first label releases are often well known, BTW. But you must research that instead of assuming the major label was always first.

History