Here, as I watch the ships go by

Continuing my trip back in time through the album charts

10/04/83 : The Kids From Fame Live - The Kids From Fame

Oooh - live albums have always been included in write-ups so far, but I'm not sure this is quite the thing I had in mind when I let them in.  However, it's a live album of original songs by their actual performers, so I don't think there's any reason to not include it.  I liked The Kids From Fame back in the day, so part of me is intrigued to listen to it - but the rest of me is horrified as to what it's going to sound like.

But, before we find that out we've got a compilation album to consider - Chart Runners, which was at #7 this week, but had been as high as #4.  And I don't even remember it ever existing.  Looking at the track listing, the tracks I recognise are actually quite good and in some cases surprisingly cool as well - "Last Film" by Kissing The Pink, "Oblivious" by Aztec Camera and "Genetic Engineering" by OMD jump out at me but I wouldn't say I hate any of the ones I know.  So that gives us an initial DTR of 100% - there are 10/32 I don't know, so that's going to drop a bit I suspect, but even so it's a fine effort.  But it's a compilation effort, so we move on...

...to them kids.  And well, I think that, with the exception of some bizarre selections from #AOTD, this is a first.  And in what capacity is it breaking new ground?  Well, it's not available on Amazon or Spotify and there isn't some bizarre legal issue behind it (as we had with De La Soul and Aaliyah) - basically, it's just too shit for anyone to want to listen to it.  "Luckily" YouTube is able to provide the concert video so I started watching it but I'm afraid to say that was even worse because the quality of the dancing was so AWFUL that I just found myself cringing and had to turn it off.  But being a glutton for punishment, I listened to the original TKFF album which was available on Amazon and I can report that it's really not very good at all - I did remember a couple of tracks "Starmaker" and "Hi-Fidelity" and I can assure you that if you remember them with any kind of fondness, you should not listen to them because you will soon realise the error of your ways.  And no, neither of us owned this monstrosity - 10.5/38 which is our new low of 27.6% (so you know what's coming next).

We're at #8 this week which was its high point in its eighth week of a 28 week run - yes, more than Pink Floyd.  People are funny, aren't they?  The top five this week are Bonnie (the highest new entry), Michael, Floyd, Tears For Fears and Eurythmics and the next new entry is at #20 which is Mark Knopfler's soundtrack to Local Hero, which is fine music from a fine film.

Wikipedia doesn't have anything on the album, but their entry is quite interesting - basically the whole level of fame over here was a complete surprise which resulted in the whole thing falling apart when they came over on tour.  And let's just say when we get to 1982, we're gonna be surprised when we find out who had the second best selling album of the year.  I say all of this perfectly confident that I'll have forgotten all about it by the time we get there, because we ain't gonna to 1982 next, I can assure you.

"Customers also listened to" - well, we'll never know for the live album but for the one album we can look at, it's an interesting selection I can tell you.  Bucks Fizz, Bardo, Five Star, Elaine Paige and Angry Anderson - classic acts the lot of them (I shouldn't be mean about the Fizz really - I have a peculiar soft spot for them).  This was an interesting revisit though - I bet there are more of you out there that were into them Fame kids back in the day than are likely to own up to it, but believe me when I say these things are best left in the past.

03/04/83 - A proper classic 80s album
17/04/83 - Those boys, eh?