SPIN-OFF SINGLES
In 1970, MFP launched their singles line with the creation of the Surprise Surprise sub-label. The imprint specialised in children's records, and each was numbered in sequence. Most of them were of no relevance to Hits/Hot Hits, but a few were pulled from the albums, and these are detailed below. In total, there were at least 136 singles issued by MFP and we know of 19 with Hits/Hot Hits tracks on. If you know of any we've missed, we'd love to hear from you! Apart from the three singles on the Double Top label (see below), all of these releases were mono, despite the fact that the parent albums were practically all stereo. |
Surprise Surprise series 1 (early 1970 - early 1972)
These singles were numbered in sequence, and numbers 1 to 16 were all released at once to launch the series. The catalogue numbers were No. 1, No. 2 etc up to No. 19, whereafter they were given proper catalogue numbers with the FP prefix. Some of these are known to have been issued with labels in more than one colour. A few we have not audio-checked but have good reason to believe are from Hits/Hot Hits (and we'd appreciate any corrections). There were 66 released over nearly two years, and the following ten are of interest to us:
Double Top (early 1972)
Simultaneously with the release of Hot Hits 9 at the start of 1972, MFP introduced the Double Top label which was not marketed at children. A batch of three singles emerged, all with tracks from the current album, but they must have sold poorly as the project was immediately dropped. The three releases are as follows:
Surprise Surprise series 2 (early 1972 - 1975?)
When Double Top was introduced, the Surprise Surprise children's imprint was re-started with a new catalogue number sequence starting 10001. (Double Top was numbered starting 20001.) These would continue appearing for several years, and there are a few which pull tracks from the hits LPs we are documenting:
Overseas...
Overseas editions of the singles above are rare, but there are a couple known to us - interestingly, both the same record, although this is likely to be just conicidence. There are likely others in existence, which will be posted here as and when we can identify them...