Released in stereo in June, 1973, and then in quad in October of that year as part of U/A's initial batch of Q8 releases, Facts of Life made it to #6 on the Billboard R&B albums chart and yielded the #2 R&B hit single Nobody Wants You When You're Down and Out.
As with most other U/A quad issues (more info on the label's quad output here) Facts of Life was a Q8-only release. In the US, the original issues were in a white cartridge, with subsequent reissues in black shells, with no notable difference between the two. Canadian releases are in a gold "RCA-style" shell and were manufactured by Cinram - the original issues of the Canadian tape were not Dolby-encoded, but sometime in mid-1974 Cinram began issuing Dolby-encoded versions, which have the Dolby logo on the cartridge artwork below the album title. Both Canadian issues are far superior to the US versions sound-wise - the US-duplicated U/A tapes are amongst the worst sounding Q8s ever issued, oversaturated to the point of distortion and with high frequency response beginning to drop off somewhere between 6 and 8 kHz. The Canadian issues, by comparison (especially the Dolby-encoded tapes) are some of the finest issued, on par with the best Dolby-encoded CBS tapes, with frequency response well beyond 12kHz.
United Artists UA-DA043-H [Q8]
Discogs link: US Q8 [White Shell]
Wiki page for the album: Facts of Life
Side 1:
As with most other U/A quad issues (more info on the label's quad output here) Facts of Life was a Q8-only release. In the US, the original issues were in a white cartridge, with subsequent reissues in black shells, with no notable difference between the two. Canadian releases are in a gold "RCA-style" shell and were manufactured by Cinram - the original issues of the Canadian tape were not Dolby-encoded, but sometime in mid-1974 Cinram began issuing Dolby-encoded versions, which have the Dolby logo on the cartridge artwork below the album title. Both Canadian issues are far superior to the US versions sound-wise - the US-duplicated U/A tapes are amongst the worst sounding Q8s ever issued, oversaturated to the point of distortion and with high frequency response beginning to drop off somewhere between 6 and 8 kHz. The Canadian issues, by comparison (especially the Dolby-encoded tapes) are some of the finest issued, on par with the best Dolby-encoded CBS tapes, with frequency response well beyond 12kHz.
United Artists UA-DA043-H [Q8]
Discogs link: US Q8 [White Shell]
Wiki page for the album: Facts of Life
Side 1:
- Nobody Wants You When You’re Down and Out
- I'm Through Trying to Prove My Love to You
- Medley: Holdin' to My Baby's Love / Nobody
- The Look of Love
- All Along the Watchtower
- If You Can't Give Her Love, Give Her Up
- That's Heaven to Me
- Medley: Facts of Life / He'll Be There When the Sun Goes Down
- Can't Stop a Man in Love
- Natural Man
