Just one thing makes me forget

Continuing my trip back in time through the album charts

16/10/83 : Labour Of Love - UB40


I'm not a reggae fan to any degree, but I believe this is a "reggae" album not admired by the purists.  I'm expecting it to be bearable (I didn't HATE the singles, even if "Red Red Wine" was somewhat ubiquitous), but I can't help but think there's a reason I've never bothered listening to it.

And well, the reason is that it's just dull.  One note and plodding throughout - we've had some poor albums recently, haven't we?  I can't even begin to imagine who would have bought this - probably the people who bought "Red Red Wine" I guess, but I struggle to imagine it was much played after the first spin.  But maybe people just liked stuff like this back then?  But it will not surprise you to hear that I've not got this album and I'm very much hoping my wife doesn't (she nods from across the room) so, in this case, I'm happy to drop back below 50% to 5/11.  

We're at #4 in the charts this week in their 5th week on a quite frankly astonishing 64 week run - and it managed a further 13 weeks on another 7 trips to the charts before FINALLY disappearing from view in February '86.  Although I say that, but it was re-released in conjunction with Labour Of Love II in '94, again with II and III in 2003 and there was a "best of LoL" released in 2009.  Sigh - that cow was well and truly milked dry.  Above it in the charts this week were  Culture Club and The Jam (both new entries) and Genesis - the next new entry was Ultravox at #11 and I'm looking forward to catching up with them again at some point.

Wikipedia has more on the album than I was expecting - apparently there's an accompanying film which features the band playing fictionalised versions of themselves who just happen to break into song from time to time.  I imagine it's perfectly dreadful.  It also tells me the band had no idea that Neil Diamond wrote "Red Red Wine" - most of the other tracks are written by reggae stalwarts, although "Guilty" was written by Chef from South Park.  The critics were much nicer about the album than me - they think it's smooooth rather than dull.  The public were also keen on it - #1 in NZ and The Netherlands as well as over here and it got to #14 in the US.  In 1988, obviously - I guess it just took its time getting over there.

"Customers also listened to" Men At Work, Marvin Gaye, Kim Carnes and The Eurythmics - an odd mix to say the least, which I suspect tells us that fans of reggae do indeed not love this album.  There's nothing particularly hateful about any of it, but it did offend me with its blandness - I will not be revisiting it.

09/10/83 - One of my all-time favourites
23/10/83 - A surprising first time listen

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