Thunder is strong, lightning is death

Continuing my trip back in time through the album charts

06/03/83 : Thunder And Lightning - Thin Lizzy


I was never particularly in to Thin Lizzy, but I always felt they seemed somewhat underappreciated when compared with a load of groups in this area who basically just churned out any old shite and it was lapped up.  So I was interested to see what was going on here...

...and yeah, it's OK.  But only OK, I'd say.  The skills are there, particularly on the old gee-tar (which I assumed was Phil, but it turns out he was on bass) - but the songs aren't particularly memorable.  And when I say not particularly memorable, I couldn't tell you anything about any of them.  So it's not one I'll be rushing back to and certainly not one I or the lovely Mrs Reed have ever owned - 11.5/44.

We're at #4 with a new entry this week on their first week out of an 8 week run, which is the shortest run we've seen this year (although they did manage another 3 weeks a fortnight later).  Above it in the charts this week were U2 (another new entry), Michael and the Hotline compilation, which had climbed from #17, so was obviously getting good word of mouth.  In a busy week for new entries we've also got OMD (#5) and Spandau (#8 - and we've not mentioned them for a bit).  We've also got Joan Armatrading (#13) and Def Leppard (#19) - all in all a good week for new entries!

Wikipedia doesn't have a lot on the album other than mentioning that it's their final album and the one critical review mentioned which basically says "well, it's not their best - but they've done so much worse".  It did best here, but made a slight impact in Europe - although the lasting impression is that no-one overly cared about it anywhere then, and certainly not now.  We're not allowed to leave without mentioning my favourite Phil Lynott fact, which is that he was Leslie Crowther's son-in-law.  Can you imagine the Sunday dinners?  

"Customers also listened to" Rainbow, Saxon, Y&T and Tygers Of Pan Tang - and I'm intrigued to know what the latter two sound like.  This wasn't particularly memorable though - I hope my next visit with the boys is somewhat better.

27/02/83 - A rarely remembered gem
13/03/83 - A musical curio

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