Plinky-plonk, plinky-plonk

Continuing my trip back in time through the album charts

30/01/83 : Richard Clayderman - Richard Clayderman

I remember my dad's parents really liking Richard and my dad (who is an accomplished pianist) despaired of them - "but he's not even any good!!".  I seem to recall it's pretty much musak of an Indian restaurant variety, but with a piano rather than a sitar - and I imagine I'm going to hate it.

But.  What's this?!?  

Oh, don't worry - it's not that I like it, it's just that I can't find it.  It's not on Amazon or Spotify - there's plenty of his stuff on there, but not this album.  I listened to a random "best of" album instead just to get a feel for it and I can confirm I very much don't like it - they're songs you recognise plinked out on the piano, with random notes put in the wrong place to make it "interesting".  It probably won't surprise you to hear that we've never owned this one - 13/49 (are we going to finish over 25%?). I am intrigued as to what exactly made this album so popular though - a heady mix of grandparents and Christmas, I'm guessing.

Because popular it most definitely was - we're at #2 in the charts this week which was its highest placing, but it did manage 8 weeks in the top 10 on its 63 (SIXTY THREE!) week run.  WTAF?!?  Men At Work kept it off the top and I was disappointed to see Joe Jackson's Night And Day at #3, because I would definitely have preferred to listen to that.  I also see that Incantation's Cacharpaya was at #10 - I actually imagine I'd hate that even more than I'd have hated this (but have no intention of finding out).  The highest new entry this week is Neil Young's Trans at #29, which is one of his I've not had to suffer yet.  And, from the sounds of things, suffer would be an entirely appropriate word because, on this album he mostly uses synthesisers and sings through a vocoder.  You know what, I can imagine hating that album even more than I can imagine hating Richard and Incantation.  Played at the same time.  What a week this truly was in the charts!!

So, is Wikipedia going to tell me this album was so successful?  The short answer is "No" - because there's no entry for this album.  Which seems odd.  The man's entry tells us how it started - Olivier Toussaint, a French producer, had composed a ballad for his daughter and auditioned 20 pianists to record it.  Philippe Pagès won the audition, realised no-one could pronounce his name outside of France, so changed it - and the single went on to sell 22 million copies globally.  And his albums have done OK as well - sales of over 70 million globally apparently.  The year-end list for the UK tells me it was the 27th best selling album of the year, amusingly one place higher than Chas'n'Daves Knees Up:Jamboree Bag No 2 (which I came very close to listening to one week).  And all of the above is, quite frankly, astounding.  

"Customers also listened to" - well, we'll never know, will we?  But I'm guessing James Last would be on there.  I'm happy to accept that there are going to be fans for all types of music, but I'm amazed so many went for this.  I'm also amazed about how it seems like the internet doesn't really want to acknowledge this ever existed - I don't think you shouldn't rewrite history, no matter how bloody awful it sounded.

23/01/83 - This is not a good album
06/02/83 - Yet another one I'd never heard