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Continuing my trip back in time through the album charts

11/09/83 : Fantastic : Wham!

Well, this is a thorny one and no mistake.  We know that compilation albums are a definite no-no, but what about greatest hits albums?  Queen's Greatest Hits was a definite "yes" and Little Mix's still felt natural to include because it was an "end of an era" thing (not soon enough for some, I realise).  But, at #2 this week, we have The Very Best Of The Beach Boys.  Which is undoubtedly a very fine album but, well, hmmm.  Even if I'm being generous, this was their 6th "best of" (the first one being released in 1966) and I can easily count another 12 that followed it (out of approximately 60 (SIXTY!) various Beach Boy related collections released over the years).  So, I think I'm going to reject it due a lack of cultural relevance - yes, this is a totally subjective decision but it's my totally subjective decision, so deal with it.  Also, over the years they've have six different "best ofs" reach the top 10, so I feel we probably need to nip this in the bud before things get out of hand.

So, at #3 this week, we have - ah, 18 Greatest Hits from Michael Jackson And The Jackson 5.  Oh, bollocky bollocks.  Actually, I was worried the cultural relevance argument might not hold here, but the latest track on the album was released in 1974, so I'm quite happy to play that card again.  Which is lucky, because I didn't want to listen to it (whereas I would have been fine to be made to listen to The Beach Boys).

Which brings us (finally!) to an interesting album.  Wham!'s debut effort is not, by any stretch of the imagination, a cool album (although it's cooler than Make It Big, their follow up) - but it is, imho, an album which has some fine tracks on it, some of which are indeed incredibly cheesy ("Bad Boys", "Love Machine", "Club Tropicana" - the list goes on) but they're definitely knowingly cheesy.  And they're all well put together tracks - I really like "Ray Of Sunshine" and "Nothing Looks The Same In The Light" (on which you can already hear George planning his solo sound) and I have to admit to having a soft spot for "Wham Rap" - even though it takes itself far too seriously and, at 6:44, I think even George's mum would admit the album version went on for waaaay too long.  

All in all, it's an odd album because it's easy to say it's dated and very much of its time - but it's not really like there was anything else similar around at the time.  And their follow-up was nothing like it either, with them full on chasing the teenage girl market.  But I liked Fantastic back then and I still like it now - it's a load of well crafted sing-along songs, some of which just happen to be 100% cheese (and it's a super cheesy album cover too).  My major problem with the album (which is probably nothing to do with the boys) is the presence of three instrumental remixes on the re-release (which of course is all you get online these days) - the original album had only 8 tracks on it.  This is another one I owned a taped copy of, bringing our running total to 7/16 - I think we can safely assume Mrs Reed would have considered this too cheesy to own at the time, but she sings along now when the singles appear on one of my playlists.  

After all the shenanigans previously described, we're at #4 in the charts this week - their 11th week out of a 45 week run, the first two weeks being at #1.  It then dropped out of the chart for a whole two weeks before returning for another 67 weeks - a fine effort indeed.  It then scraped together another four weeks across two more runs, finally disappearing from view in July '86.  #1 this week was Paul Young (his first week at the top) and the highest new entry was Rainbow at #11 (which I can totally live without in my life).

Wikipedia doesn't have a lot on it other than noting that the plan was for the boys to write it together, but it turned out that one of them was slightly better at that sort of thing than the other one.  It's interesting that there's no section on critical reception - I imagine they were pretty sniffy about the whole thing.  But the public just didn't care - it even got to the dizzy heights of #83 in the US, which did surprise me.

"Customers also listened to" Madonna, Bananarama, Spandau Ballet, Prince and Toto - wow, that list went places I really wasn't expecting.  For those of you of a younger vintage than me (which is more than a few people these days) who might not be aware of George's Wham! stuff, it's worth checking out because it's all part of the journey (and quite a fascinating journey he had).  For those of you of a similar vintage, I suspect you'll roll your eyes at being reminded of it - but still be tempted to listen to the odd track or two.

04/09/83 - The first album I bought
18/09/83 - Nope, not for me