Coffee table or Turntable?

Submitted by Douglas Wood August 11th, 2011
Certifikitsch Winner

Is it a magazine?  Is it a record?  It’s both!  This short-lived magazine, ECHO, from 1960 came out four times a year and each issue included four records that you can put on your turntable without even removing from the spiral binding!

As you can see, the graphics and design were hip and for $1.50 it was a pretty good deal.  Here’s what one of the records looks like:

This issue included an eclectic variety such as Shelley Berman (then the #1 comic in the country)…

…and Mary Martin singing with the real-life “Sound of Music” characters…

Not sure why this trend never caught on?

4 Responses to “Coffee table or Turntable?”

  1. Allee Willis

    Wow! I never even heard of Echo! Looks beautiful. For sure I would’ve been interested in this back in the day, though the performances featured would have been a little too conservative for me. But I absolutely love packaging like this and loved even more pulingl floppy records out of magazines or books and playing them.

    Do you know how long this was published?

  2. Douglas Wood

    From what I found on the Internet it looks like only four issues were ever published (1959-1960). The issue I posted actually has 6 records in it, not four as I originally said. And in case I didn’t make it clear– the records were designed to be played on a record player without having to remove them from the magazine. There’s a hole in the center of the mag and you just put the whole thing on the turntable.