"How To Plan The Perfect Dinner Party." "Astrology For Young Lovers." "What To Do If The Bomb Falls." "Holiday Magic Facial Exercises." "How To Play Winning Bridge." All are actual album titles. (You can’t make this kind of stuff up.) They’re relics from a time when the record player also informed and educated. They may not swing with a boogie beat, but they’re usually found in very playable condition. Grownups handled them, and the need for repeated listening to an album of tips on how to make dinner a success was presumably minimal.
Every spoken-word record crate needs one or two audio system test records. These albums consisted oftones, along with wow, rumble and tracking tests, and more gimmicky stereo music for checking separation between channels. Since phonographs are no longer mass-marketed, it stands to reason that no test records are being made. Those that survive are also relics, of a pre-CD era when vinyl ruled.