| The Lovin' Spoonful discography | |
|---|---|
 The Lovin' Spoonful in 1965 | |
| Studio albums | 5 |
| EPs | 8 |
| Live albums | 1 |
| Compilation albums | 20 |
| Singles | 19 |
| Soundtrack albums | 2 |
The Lovin' Spoonful is an American folk-rock band which was originally active between 1964 and 1968. [1] During their original tenure, they released five studio albums, two soundtrack albums, four compilation albums, and fourteen singles in the United States. Between October 1965 and January 1967, their first-seven singles reached the Top Ten in the United States on Billboard magazine's Hot 100 chart, [2] [3] and the magazine's 1966 end-of-year issue ranked the group as that year's third-best-performing singles artist, after the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. [4] [5] [nb 1] Though the Spoonful achieved success during the transition to the album era, they and their label remained focused on the singles market; [7] the group's 1966 album Daydream was their only studio album to break the Top Ten of the Billboard Top LPs chart, [8] and its performance was bested only by a 1967 compilation album, The Best of the Lovin' Spoonful , [8] which RIAA certified for gold that year. [9] The Spoonful saw diminished success in 1967, [10] when only two of their singles entered the top twenty in the U.S. [3] [11] Following further chart disappointments, [12] the group disbanded in 1968. [13] [nb 2]
Contents
- Albums
- Studio albums
- Soundtrack albums
- Live albums
- Compilation albums
- Year-end rankings
- EPs
- Singles
- Year-end rankings 2
- References
- Footnotes
- Citations
- Sources
- External links
The Lovin' Spoonful's albums and singles were originally issued by Kama Sutra Records in the United States and by Pye International Records in the United Kingdom. [18] [19] The band was not directly signed to Kama Sutra but was instead signed to Koppelman-Rubin, an entertainment company, [20] which negotiated a deal with the label in June 1965. [14] As part of the arrangement, MGM Records distributed the records, which Kama Sutra released on its label for Koppelman-Rubin. [20] [nb 3] MGM's contract with Kama Sutra expired in 1967, and Kama Sutra's leadership founded Buddah Records (later renamed Buddha), transferring their five-year deal with the Spoonful in the process. [22] [23] The band's new contract ran until 1975 and had their compensation at seven figures. [24] [nb 4] In 2023, John Sebastian, the Spoonful's primary songwriter, sold the publishing and artist royalties rights for all of his compositions to AMR Songs, an American catalog marketing company. [28]
The Lovin' Spoonful's music has been regularly collected on compilation albums. [29] In the years after the band's breakup, many of their original multi-track master-tapes were lost and presumed destroyed. [30] [31] [nb 5] The group's earliest CD reissues were instead made from the best available stereo masters, [31] leaving the material sounding substandard when compared to reissues of other 1960s music. [33] In 2000, after the first-generation master-tapes were rediscovered, Buddha issued Greatest Hits , which was the first digital remaster of the band's material. [29] [34] BMG Heritage Records, a reissue division of Sony BMG, [35] issued digital remasters of the band's first four studio albums on CD in 2002 and 2003, [36] along with previously unreleased bonus material. [37]
