cost of albums v beer

Subject: cost of albums v beer
From: theleveller
Date: 21 Sep 09 - 09:02 AM

When I first started work in London in the late 60s I earned £18 a week, which had to pay for everything including rent and food. Consequently, I bought very few LPs. I did, however, drink quite a lot of beer. This set me thinking about the comparative prices of beer and albums, and how that compared to today. A pint of beer cost around 2/- (10p) and an LP around 32/- (£1.60). In today's money, with beer around £2.50 a pint, an album would cost £40. So, is beer expensive today, or are albums cheap?

Subject: RE: cost of albums v beer
From: Dave MacKenzie
Date: 21 Sep 09 - 09:16 AM

I was on c£10 a week, bought a lot of albums, drank a lot of beer. Guess albums are cheap - I still think anything over 42/6 (£2.125) is exorbitant.

Subject: RE: cost of albums v beer
From: melodeonboy
Date: 21 Sep 09 - 09:19 AM

Hmm. It's difficult to say without knowing what job you did. But if we were to say, for example, that your wages have gone up roughly 20 fold and the beer's gone up roughly 25 fold, yet the price of an album has only gone up by a maximum 10 fold (and in most cases less), then my guess - and it is only a guess - is that the price of albums has come down significantly in relative terms, and the price of beer has gone up by rather less.

Subject: RE: cost of albums v beer
From: Mr Happy
Date: 21 Sep 09 - 10:36 AM

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Subject: RE: cost of albums v beer
From: melodeonboy
Date: 21 Sep 09 - 11:09 AM

Do what?

Subject: RE: cost of albums v beer
From: Mr Happy
Date: 21 Sep 09 - 11:16 AM

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Subject: RE: cost of albums v beer
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 21 Sep 09 - 11:24 AM

Oh, I didn't understand you the first time. That's different!

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: cost of albums v beer
From: Severn
Date: 21 Sep 09 - 12:03 PM

One difference.

I can go to flea markets, library stores and thrift stores and pick up the occaisional used LP, tape or CD. I DON'T DO used beer.......

Subject: RE: cost of albums v beer
From: treewind
Date: 21 Sep 09 - 12:36 PM

Mr. Happy's point is that if you post to Mudcat assuming a non-ASCII character set not everybody will see your pound signs properly. My browser is set for UTF-8 and I had to change it to ISO-8859-1 to make all the money amounts visible. Mr Happy's first contribution looks fine if your browser is set for Chinese...

The safe way to put in a £ sign looks like this on your edit screen: £

Anahata

Subject: RE: cost of albums v beer
From: Bill D
Date: 21 Sep 09 - 12:54 PM

£ also by holding alt key while typing 0163

Subject: RE: cost of albums v beer
From: s&r
Date: 21 Sep 09 - 01:12 PM

Makes more sense to compare the amount you spent in a year on those commodities with the amount you now spend.

Stu

Subject: RE: cost of albums v beer
From: Mick Woods
Date: 21 Sep 09 - 01:21 PM

The first album to break the £2 mark that I remember was in late 1969 Then Play On by fleetwood mac 42/6d. most albums were 37/6 then. I wrote about it in my school rag at the time asking people to boycott it ... ha ha! I didn't drink in pubs then (too young) but on tiptoes with a gruff voice over the pub off-licence counter I used to order a quart flagon of cider for 2/- woodpecker or for 2/6 strongbow (6d back on bottle!)

Subject: RE: cost of albums v beer
From: Les from Hull
Date: 21 Sep 09 - 01:48 PM

A great album, though. At least it had 42/6-worth of music on it. I seem to remember it lasting nearly an hour when other albums were considerably shorter. Gate fold sleeve, too.

Subject: RE: cost of albums v beer
From: GUEST,Graham Bradshaw
Date: 21 Sep 09 - 03:20 PM

It is quite interesting to look at these relationships between prices over the years. It is surprising just how many things have retained their relative value.

When I was running folk clubs back in the 70s, a good rule of thumb for entry prices was the equivalent of 2 pints of beer (now approx £5) and occasionally for a concert night 3 pints (£7.50).
In the 60s when I got my first car, a gallon of petrol was 4/11d (now 25p) which equated to 2 pints of beer (then about 2/6d). A good tailored suit was about the equivalent of a week's wages - probably still is, although I haven't bought one for years. There weren't supermarket suits in those days (although a John Collier off the peg was just under a tenner).
If you measure everything in pints of beer though, and forget the amounts of money, it is surprising how many things have stayed in kilter. Try it with your mates down the pub!!

G

Subject: RE: cost of albums v beer
From: GUEST,Graham Bradshaw
Date: 21 Sep 09 - 03:25 PM

Oh, and I forgot to mention, an LP at around £2.00 in 1969 was equivalent to about 8 pints of beer. Nowadays it's nearer to 5 pints. Music is not valued in the same way these days, and is seen much more as a throwaway commodity. Also, the big record companies had a complete stranglehold then - the emergence of the indies and single-artist labels has had an effect in breaking that monopoly.

G

Subject: RE: cost of albums v beer
From: Folknacious
Date: 21 Sep 09 - 03:47 PM

Who needs LPs, we're folkies. Drink lots of beer and sing loudly yourself. It may be crap but if you're pissed enough you won't notice and you'll imagine that nobody else will (first law of floor spots).


Sorted!

Next?

Subject: RE: cost of albums v beer
From: GUEST,woodsie
Date: 21 Sep 09 - 03:51 PM

That must have been an expensive pub in 1969 Graham. I was only paying 18p a pint when I started work in 1971 in London and an album was about £2.20 then that's about 12 pints an LP. Pint is about £2.80 and albums about £10 or even cheaper about 4 pints an album! I agree an album was a considerable purchase and a treasured possesion back then. Les I agree about the brilliance of "Then Play On" album shame that the original UK version is not available on CD though.

Subject: RE: cost of albums v beer
From: JHW
Date: 21 Sep 09 - 03:59 PM

Yes that still happens.
Better still though in the 30/- LP days they would ask at the door if you were a singer and very often that would get you in for free
AND Free Beer.

Subject: RE: cost of albums v beer
From: MikeofNorthumbria
Date: 21 Sep 09 - 04:23 PM

What about the cost of guitars versus beer?

In 1960 my first guitar, bought second hand from a junk shop, cost three quid and was absolute rubbish – strings way off the fingerboard and almost unplayable. In a proper music shop then, you would probably have paid between ten and twenty for a decent student-level acoustic (new, and with a case thrown in).

At that time, I was paying around eighteen pence for a pint of beer. That makes thirteen-and-a-third pints to the pound, so my three pounds would have bought me about forty pints. Fifteen pounds – the price of a playable axe then - would have got me two hundred.

Today, at around two pounds and seventy-five pence per pint, forty pints would set you back one hundred and ten smackers. For that, you can get a very decent guitar new, and a better one second-hand.   And the cost of two hundred pints in today's money is five hundred and fifty pounds – for which you can purchase an excellent guitar.

So friends, my conclusion is that these are better days for guitarists, if not for beer drinkers.

Wassail!

Subject: RE: cost of albums v beer
From: Dave MacKenzie
Date: 21 Sep 09 - 04:32 PM

What's all this 18p about? I thought we were talking in real money.

Subject: RE: cost of albums v beer
From: MikeofNorthumbria
Date: 21 Sep 09 - 06:31 PM

Eighteen pence = one and a tanner, mate.

Wassail!

Subject: RE: cost of albums v beer
From: Dave MacKenzie
Date: 21 Sep 09 - 07:16 PM

Eighteen pence = one and a tanner, mate.

Wrong! 18d = one and a tanner, 18p = three and seven (approx)

Subject: RE: cost of albums v beer
From: Mick Woods
Date: 21 Sep 09 - 11:31 PM

Also 1971 it was 18p as decimalisation had been introduced!

Subject: RE: cost of albums v beer
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 22 Sep 09 - 12:21 AM

I know its a lot harder to roll a joint on an I Pod screen than it is on an album cover.

Subject: RE: cost of albums v beer
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 22 Sep 09 - 03:09 AM

Lol!

Subject: RE: cost of albums v beer
From: Dave MacKenzie
Date: 22 Sep 09 - 04:22 AM

Money stopped meaning anything at decimalisation - the only price change I can remember after that is when I moved from Newcastle to London in '78 and beer went from 5/- to 8/- a pint! Though the next St George's Day, Watneys were selling a pint for 1/- if you had the right coins.

Subject: RE: cost of albums v beer
From: melodeonboy
Date: 22 Sep 09 - 07:32 AM

I wouldn't have wanted Watney's - not even for a shilling!

Subject: RE: cost of albums v beer
From: Dave MacKenzie
Date: 22 Sep 09 - 07:41 AM

And sharing a pub with Pan's People?

Subject: RE: cost of albums v beer
From: Will Fly
Date: 23 Sep 09 - 07:04 AM

In the late 60s I used to buy American imports of obscure country ragtime groups, jug bands and fiddle ensembles on labels like Folkways from the HMV shop in Oxford Street in London. Some of those albums then were 3 to 5 pounds sterling at that time. That was expensive. In real purchasing terms today, albums have risen very little in price compared with alcohol.

Subject: RE: cost of albums v beer
From: theleveller
Date: 23 Sep 09 - 07:38 AM

"I wouldn't have wanted Watney's - not even for a shilling!"

You didn't buy Watney's beer - just rented it.

Subject: RE: cost of albums v beer
From: Mr Happy
Date: 23 Sep 09 - 07:45 AM

Great laxative tho'!

Subject: RE: cost of albums v beer
From: GUEST
Date: 23 Sep 09 - 07:45 AM

Plus its rare to pay full price for a CD these days

Though folk albums seem to try and buck the trend and are generally dearer at gigs than CDs for acts from other musical pigeon holes

Subject: RE: cost of albums v beer
From: GUEST
Date: 23 Sep 09 - 07:46 AM

Define pigeon?
Voice stage right:
"Evidence and examples please"

Subject: RE: cost of albums v beer
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 23 Sep 09 - 11:49 AM

"Define pigeon
Pigeon= a bird about as useless as an unnamed guest, and filled with similar amounts of crap!

Subject: RE: cost of albums v beer
From: Dave MacKenzie
Date: 23 Sep 09 - 02:57 PM

I did go home rather sober that night. I also heard that most of the workers in the Watney's factory in Mortlake always drank in the Young's pub across the road. The only time I ever drank Watney's through choice, the alternative was Tartan, and I never met anyone who'd worked at S&N who'd drink that!

Subject: RE: cost of albums v beer
From: number 6
Date: 23 Sep 09 - 03:16 PM

Lonesome EJ .... that was very good .... brought back some forgotten memories   LOL !!!

biLL

Subject: RE: cost of albums v beer
From: GUEST,Graham Bradshaw
Date: 24 Sep 09 - 07:12 AM

I also had a friend who worked at the Mortlake brewery - I think he was in Sales or Admin (offices anyway). He used to get a daily beer allowance of 3 pints of Red Barrel - which had to be drunk on the premises. I guess all the management employees got the same. Don't remember him ever drinking it outside socially though.

All our gang used to favour Youngs mainly, otherwise it was Whitbread, Ind Coope and the dreaded Friary Muck! Come to think of it, there were loads of small breweries back then, all later to be swallowed up, and most purveying what we now call 'real ale'. Only back then, we rather disparagingly referred to it as 'cooking bitter'. Oh how times and fashions change.

Subject: RE: cost of albums v beer
From: melodeonboy
Date: 24 Sep 09 - 07:19 AM

I once had a badge with "DD is K9P" on it. It actually ruffled a few feathers!

Subject: RE: cost of albums v beer
From: GUEST
Date: 24 Sep 09 - 07:23 AM

Beer in the USA is less than a $1.00 a pint.(16 oz)

The supper primo stuff heavily hopped "Sierra Nevada - Torpedo" is $1.50 a pint.

ALL music is now free at the university. But if you were to buy a CD they are $15.00

A Colorado brewery used to have free beer for employees - they stopped when a widow won a lawsuit over her husband's liver failure.

I don't want to go to Britain. Too expensive. I hate lawyers.

Subject: RE: cost of albums v beer
From: Dave MacKenzie
Date: 24 Sep 09 - 11:20 AM

You don't want to visit Norway then - over £5 a pint (20fl ozs), though with British brim measure glasses, you're lucky if you get half a litre in your pint.

1 US pint = 0.473 litre
1 UK pint = 0.568 litre