When rock and roll came along the companies designing and manufacturing record players had to catch up to the teenage dream. Pop music needed pop art delivery systems that reflected a generation’s infatuation with color and style. The drab old wooden players of our parents just wouldn’t do. We wanted to spin our records on stuff that was as fun looking as the music was fun to listen to. Eventually even the higher end stereo equipment, the gear outside of the financial reach of teenagers started to get groovy as well. It was the 1960s and everybody was getting hip.

Unfortunately, as beautiful as many of these designs are they weren’t remotely audiophile quality. With heavy unadjustable tonearms and cheap carts/styluses and speakers the size of clam shells, these were intended for fun not serious music listening. In recent years, the market has been flooded with cheap knock-offs of these cute record players. Don’t buy them. Vinyl records are no longer $1.99 and these players are toys—vinyl killers—that will chew up that 180 gram Mobile Fidelity copy of Blonde On Blonde you paid $49.00 for. The “Record Eater” (see the ad below) was inadvertently truth in advertising.

Here’s some cool ads from an era when pop culture really started to get crazy and magazine ads mirrored the new sensibility that said “yes!” to being cool.

Thank you rock and roll.