How do you get past the pops and hiss of LPs?

If you eat a bowl of Kellogs Rice Krispies while listening you hear nothing but the music.

Clean everything. The record, cartridge....maybe the cartridge needs replacing? I have found that the better the cartridge the less likely that you will hear pops and hisssssssss. Have fun good luck!

I recently grabbed from the janitor's basement a huge oldies collection with albums from 60's and played it on my Michell. They looked ugly but sounded with very small surface noise only at the beginning and almost nothing was heard in the middle or end of record.
Arm/cartridge plays the vast role in analogue setup on that issue.
I even have records with deep cuts playing descent with only a small pop.
Aged cartridges will certainly make a noise on even mint records so the cartridge replacement should stay first.

Kevin,

I second the cleaning, and it may be worthwhile to have a tech give your 'table a once over. Once you have the rig running nicely (and probably with a new cartridge) you ought to re-look at the records themselves. There may be a local used record store nearby, if you like the records why not replace them ($3 or $4 a copy)? The used emporiums I frequent are very fussy about what they take in, and will refund your money or give you a replacement if the record snap-crackle-pops. Welcome to the dark side my friend, Jeff