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Continuing my trip back through the 1971 album charts. 01/08/71 : Songs Of Love And Hate - Leonard Cohen Our second visit with cheery old Lenny - I tend to like his songs without liking the way he sings them, but let's see what we've got here. Well, if you like songs like "American Pie" or "A Hard Rain's Gonna Fall" which go on for hours and have a million verses which make no sense at all, then boy have I got a treat for you here! Seven of the eight tracks are over five minutes long and I'm sure Leonard had some clue what some of the lyrics meant, but they're certainly not transparent on first listen. A whole album of it is certainly too much, particularly if you're going in blind - but yet...  ...it's got "Famous Blue Raincoat" and "Joan Of Arc" on it, both of which are very fine tracks (although I prefer Jennifer Warnes's versions of both - and before you call me a heathen, even Leonard has said he that he prefe...

Continuing my trip back through the 1971 album charts. 08/08/71 : The Magnificent 7 - The Supremes & The Four Tops Part of me feels I should reject this because it's an album of covers - but it's an album of covers from The Supremes & The Four Tops recording together, so it feels like it could be pretty special. And it's got to be better than the Diana Ross albums we've had this year, hasn't it? Well, it might be an album of covers, but I knew remarkably few of them - "River Deep, Mountain High" and "Everyday People" obviously and there were a couple of others that rang a few bells, but mostly it was all new to me. And whilst it certainly didn't made the level of pretty special, it was all perfectly fine and definitely considerably better produced than Diana's offerings - but it was also all very forgettable. We're at #24 in the charts this week on their last week of a seven week run, with it having peaked at #6 in its second ...

Continuing my trip back through the 1971 album charts. 15/08/71 : Stephen Stills 2 - Stephen Stills Crosby, Stills and Nash have popped up on all sorts of albums over the years, but this is the first time we've ever met one of them in a solo capacity - and I'm kinda looking forward to it because I feel it's going to be different from most of what we've seen this year. Yeah, I didn't mind this - I think I'd struggle to say any of the songs are exactly top-notch, but none of them are dreadful, he's got a nice enough voice and there's some very fine guitar playing going on. If I had to quibble, I'd say t he production isn't quite as clean as it could be in places, which is a bit of a shame because it's distracting at times - but generally  it passes by pleasantly enough.  James Taylor  is the only thing we've had this year which is anything close to this and this just has more oomph to it, which was appreciated. We're at #22 in the chart...

Continuing my trip back through the 1971 album charts. 22/08/71 : Split - The Groundhogs The last entry was our second ever mention of Atomic Rooster and this is our second ever mention of The Groundhogs - and I don't have any clue as to what I'm going to get here. Hmmm - how to describe it? It's definitely rock, but it has more of a blues/psychedelic element than most of the proggier stuff we've seen this year - it feels more rooted in the late 60s than most of the stuff we've heard. And, like Atomic Rooster previously, it's not really my sort of thing but it's all perfectly listenable (except for the end of "Junkman" which is most peculiar) because it's well done with plenty of skill involved - I also really like the album cover (you can really imagine Dave Grohl going for something like that) We're at #27 in the charts this week on their 23rd week of a surprisingly lengthy 26 week run with it having peaked at a surprisingly high #5 in i...

Continuing my trip back through the 1971 album charts. 29/08/71 : In Hearing Of Atomic Rooster - Atomic Rooster Only the second ever mention for Atomic Rooster and I have a sneaking suspicion it's going to be weird prog which I find particularly unpleasant - always happy to be proved wrong though. Well, it is prog - but it's not really weird or unpleasant. I was reminded of Genesis's output from around this period - it might wander aimlessly around for a bit longer than strictly necessary, but there's nothing wrong with it and they obviously all know their way around their instruments. So, all in all, I'd say this was a pleasant surprise (if not exactly something I'm going to ever rush back to) - I'm also intrigued as to what the album title actually means. We're at #32 in the charts this week on their third week of a four week run, with it having peaked at #18 in its second week. The top five this week were TOTP Vol 18 (seriously?),  Simon & Garfunk...

Continuing my trip back through the 1971 album charts. 05/09/71 : Deep Purple In Rock - Deep Purple Our third visit with DP and our second this year and my expectations are very much that I'll appreciate the skill, but not the noise that they make with that skill. Well, well, well. Not only did I appreciate the skill, but I also quite appreciated the noise - wonders will never cease. It's good old-fashioned 70s rawk and I don't really have anything more to say about it - so let's  just crank up the volume and rock out.   We're at a year low of #34 in the charts this week on their second week of a five week run - but that was its third run and the first one was definitely the most successful, lasting 54 weeks and peaking at #4 in its second and sixteenth weeks. The top five this week were  Simon & Garfunkel ,  The Who  (a new entry),  The Moody Blues , TOTP Vol 18 (the third one we've seen in the top five this year) and  Rod Stewart , with there bei...