Well, my friends, the time has come

Continuing my trip back in time through the album charts

20/11/83 : Can't Slow Down - Lionel Richie

One I've certainly never heard - I'm expecting something that's not really my sort of thing, but bearable whilst sounding pretty dated.

And hmmm - it's really not my sort of thing but it is bearable.  It's not the whole story to say it sounds dated though - I was going to say it's more "of its time", but I think it's more accurate to say it's actually "after its time".  When you consider that a year earlier, Marvin Gaye was demanding "let's make love tonight" on "Sexual Healing" then Lionel being too scared to say "Hello" to a girl seems really rather coy.  The song's aren't dreadful but a lot of them do go on about a minute too long - they build nicely and then can't quite decide what to do with themselves so they just hang around before slowly petering out - "All Night Long" and "Hello" just about get away with it.  He does have a lovely voice though - I can't fault him on that front.

This is the first album we've met that neither of us have owned at least a copy of (4/6 running total) - and I'd have to say I'm not entirely sure who actually would have bought a copy over here.  But plenty obvious did, with sales of 1,891,896 on this side of the Atlantic (approximately, according to Wikipedia).  However, they really went mad for it in the US - with sales of over 10 million there, and the rest of the world helping to push it up over 20 million globally. 

We're at #2 in the charts this week in his fifth week out of a 136 week run and he popped up now and again afterwards to make it 154 weeks in total, with it last seen in May '87.  He managed 3 weeks at the top of the charts as well, but this week he was beaten to it by Culture Club.  There was one new entry in the top ten - Touch by The Eurythmics, which we'll certainly be seeing when we visit 1984 since it gets to #1 in February.  I was also interested to see 90125 by Yes debuting at #16 this week - and that was the highest it ever reached in the charts, whereas I remember it doing better than that.

Apart from the previously mentioned sales info, Wikipedia has very little to say on it except for the fact that it won the Grammy for Album Of The Year, beating Born In The USA and Purple Rain.  I can assure you I would not include it in that illustrious company and it has dated far worse than either of those classics - although interestingly, if you read my reviews you learn that I also never listened to either of them at the time.

"Customers also listened to" Marvin Gaye, Billy Ocean, Tina Turner and Whitney Houston - some fine voices there are no mistake.  As has Lionel, but he doesn't have a lot more than that for me, I'm afraid - at least on this album.

13/11/83 - All a bit of a mess really
27/11/83 - A fine, tight album