Budget cover albums
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A budget cover album is an album of cheap, often poorly made covers of popular songs. The budget albums had their heyday in the 1970s. One of the most famous cover labels was Embassy, operated by Woolworths. To distinguish between the original artists and the covers, the albums often featured small print next to the name of the original artists eg. as made famous by. This confused many buyers, and with the advent of original artist compilations in the 1980s, the genre has all but disappeared. Some cover album series are still going, eg. Kidz Bop, but many are now so-called "novelty" records.
A famous series of cover albums in the UK was the Top of the Pops series, which were released between 1968 and 1985. The pin-up girl covers of these albums now have a cult following of their own.