I've never been closer - I tried to understand

Continuing my trip back in time through the album charts

17/07/83 : The Luxury Gap - Heaven 17

I remember listening to this, not minding it and then never listening to it again.  More fool me, eh - let's see what I think after a gap of 39 years.  However, first we have to describe a very lucky escape...

...because at #5 this week we have Julio by - the one, the only - Julio Iglesias.  Uh-oh.  Oh well - "rules are rules" I thought, so I started listening to it.  And loving it, obviously.  But, because the first track was in Spanish, I thought I'd read up about it on Wikipedia.  And - guess what?  It's a GREATEST HITS album!  Yay!  Part of me thought it would have been nice to listen to it because I remember my dad's mum liking him - but then I actually listened to it and realised this was not going to be the case.  So it was summarily ditched - phew.

So back to Heaven 17 - yeah, overall, I quite liked it.  "Crushed By The Wheels" is a very cool opening track - much funkier than I remember.  And "Temptation" is still a top track - the version they did with La Roux some 25 years later still sounded pretty fresh. And let's not forget to give Carol Kenyon the credit she deserves for those backing (and often not so backing) vocals.  The album as a whole is a bit "clever clever" in places, but it mostly keeps itself the right side of the line and I feel harsh complaining about someone showing ambition.  I'm really not sure what was going on with that album cover though.

In terms of the overall sound, there are definite comparisons with The Human League which is no surprise since two of Heaven 17 were founding members of that band.  I'm also hearing hints of Let's Dance Bowie as well - except this came out six days before Let's Dance, so I guess they were there first.  And there's definitely a Pet Shop Boys vibe in there as well - so basically what I'm saying is that this is pretty damn 80s.  And it's an 80s sound that neither of us have ever owned, so we slip back to 9/24.

We're at #7 in the charts this week which is a record low chart position (but probably not for long!) - it was on its 12th week out of a 32 week run.  It managed four more weeks across two more runs, finally disappearing in February '84, having peaked at #4.  Above it in the charts were (deep breath) Yazoo, Wham!, Michael Jackson, The Police, Julio and David Bowie.  We even manage to sneak a new entry into the top ten - Robert Plant at #10.  The next two new entries are Bauhaus (#13) and Killing Joke (#29) - both of which are names to take people of a certain age (just slightly older than me, I'd suggest) straight back in time.

Wikipedia tells me that Virgin Records didn't set a budget for the album which meant they spent ages on it and even orchestrated three of the tracks.  So I went to check out which tracks those were, but was far too distracted by the fact that Sarah Gregory is credited on "Who'll Stop The Rain" with "screams".  It also tells me that Heaven 17 didn't play their first live gigs until 1997 - which seems really rather odd.  The album did well though - being the 17th best selling album of the year in the UK.

"Customers also listened to" - we're going to get some very 80s names here aren't we?  Oh yes - Blancmange, King, Soft Cell and The Teardrop Explodes.  I'm looking forward to listening to the King album again - that's bound to pop up at some point!  I must admit I'd completely forgotten this album even existed but I was pleased to be reminded of it - I enjoyed it.

10/07/83 - One I'd forgotten even existed
24/07/83 - Not nearly as good as I remembered