Music For Pleasure, MFP; the three letters that perhaps best denote the bringing together of all things both 'cheap' and at the same time 'nasty'. Whether we like it or not, every man-jack of us has got at least one MFP album tucked away. A scatter-gun approach of releases to make grandma giddy and keep the kiddies quiet at one and the same time: MFP had it all. Hundreds of albums released over the best part of 20 years. Check out your own collection...hmm, that Pink Floyd 'Relics' Reissue, that's an MFP...your old faithful Monkees 'Best Of'...that's an MFP too...all those 'Hot Hits' '70's compilation albums, the poor mans' 'Top Of The Pops', that are often gazed at but seldom spun, you know what I'm sayin'...even the Pinky & Perky album that your auntie gave you when you were nowt but a nipper...yep, you guessed it...MFP !

So what's the story with MFP then? What we know is that once again, in the style of the day, every massive major label had a little offshoot dedicated to the budget reissue of it's own back catalogue drawn from all corners of the murky world of pop, and MFP did the nasty for EMI. At its inception in 1965 the Music For Pleasure record club operated out of the wonderfully named Astronaut House in Middlesex, formed as a joint venture with the massive Hamlyn publishing house. The company caused a mighty media stir by simultaneously releasing 78 (count 'em) different LP's with the bargain price tag of 12s. 6d. (that's 62½ new pence to me, and quite probably doesn't mean a deal to our friends in the Colonies). Normally in those days the damage for your vinyl addition would be a shocking 32s. That's about £1.50 in real money, so it's sad to see that that most of these precious items haven't really held their value...

By all accounts things were fairly chaotic at Astronaut House in the early days, with neither EMI nor Hamlyn shouldering the responsibilities for such trifles as royalty payments, with each thinking that the other was handling things. Despite all of this many, many LP's made it out to the shops and MFP ticked over nicely as a loss leader, the baked beans of the record industry, if you will. Something strange happened around 1973 when a parallel series of MFP releases appeared under the 'Sounds Superb' banner. As the normal shit was still being shoveled out on the usual plain old MFP imprint, I can't really think of any reason why this happened apart from Hamlyn pulling out of the deal, and let's be honest, it didn't really fool anyone. It was still cheap and nasty rubbish. On the torture went throughout the 70's, but as with a lot of other medium sized labels operating under the wings of large companies around the turn of the '80's, poor old MFP started to run into choppy waters as the major companies rationalised, merged and generally destroyed their own industry in their efforts to generate cold hard cash to pour into the bottomless and Godless pit that was called compact disc technology. Thanks for that, we don't think. As far as we can tell MFP turned into little more than a distribution network, albeit one that spanned the globe. Nowadays the only evidence of MFP is to be found in South Africa, where it is the merchandiser of all things for the modern audio/video age except the vinyl it was famed for. EMI were bought out by their partners the Gallo Group in 1999, and so at least the name and the logo survive to this day, if not the spirit.

So, why on earth is any living soul still bothered about such a terrible label ? Well, as with other greats like the majestic Contour, MFP managed to knock out its own original releases to mix in with the reissues that dominated its schedule. Way too much utter rubbish to mention here, and featuring the usual culprits too; Harry Secombe, Shirley Bassey, The Spinners. Why oh why? But yet again, if you look hard enough amongst the grooves then some great moments do crop up. As always we are here to guide you through this particular minefield.

What we have here then are the highs and the lows of our own personal MFP stash. We have put ourselves at great personal risk to enlighten you, dear surfer, as to the giddy mood-swings that are contained in as many MFP platters as we have knocking around. Like the little girl with the little curl, these beauties are often very, very good, but when they are bad they are horrid ! What MFP teaches us is that when collecting Cheesy albums, a world of pleasure can very often also be a world of pain...

 Come feel the pleasure and taste the pain with us...