It doesn't really matter, when the judgements are said

Continuing my trip back in time through the album charts

15/09/96 : Mosely Shoals - Ocean Colour Scene

This is a fine mini-run we're on here - much more what I was looking for from 1996 than the Xmas horrors.  Although before we talk about that, we have to talk about this...

At #7 this week, we have The Smurfs with their seminal classic "The Smurfs Go Pop!".  Seriously, who could forget "Mr Smurftastic" or "Smurfhillbilly Joe"?  Which you could probably guess were loosely based on "Boombastic" and "Cotton Eye Joe", but I suspect you'd struggle to guess the original "inspirations" for "The Noisy Smurf" ("It's Oh So Quiet"), "Smurfland" ("Living Next Door To Alice") or "Find The Smurf" ("Love Is All Around").  Part of me is intrigued to listen to this, but I have to own up to being scared that I might accidentally hear some of "Mr Blobby & The Smurfs" which would undoubtedly cause my brain to explode.  

Oh well, I appreciate that novelty albums have, and always will, be produced, but at least they don't do well.  Oh, hold on - this had a THIRTY-THREE week run in the charts, spending 12 weeks in the top ten and peaking at #2.  And "I've Got A Little Puppy" (based on Technohead's "I Wanna Be A Hippy" with the "blatant drug references" removed) was released as a single and got to #4 - Wikipedia's comment on the track is "The high point of the remake is the refrain of "pooper, pooper scooper!"".  WTAF was going on in 1996?!?  Let's get back to Ocean Colour Scene for some sanity...

I like this album, but I find it quite hard to describe - some of it is actually surprisingly heavy with guitars to the fore whereas some of it leans more towards a more gentle folk-tinged rock.  It's generally quite backward-looking whilst somehow not sounding dated - which leads me to think it's a more carefully constructed album than I'd previously given it credit for.  The favourite tracks for me are "The Riverboat Song", "One For The Road" and "Policemen & Pirates", but I think it's got a high quality bar throughout - "Get Away" is a nicely atmospheric, psychedelia-tinged ending as well.  Also, there's some proper 90s haircuts on the album cover - what's not to love about that?  Anyways, as I say, I like the album but can't really explain it - but I can tell you I owned it taking us up to 5/16.

We're at #8 in the charts this week on their 23rd week of a 83 week run - it got pushed out by all the Xmas nonsense in '97, but returned for another nine weeks in early '98.  It never made it to #1, but spent a total of six weeks at #2 so can consider itself very unlucky.  The top five this week were R.E.M. Jamiroquai (both new entries), Alanis, Oasis (another album we'll be mentioning quite a bit for the rest of the year) and George.  There are no other new entries in the top ten - the next one is The Backstreet Boys at #12.  Shame I missed that one, eh?

Wikipedia doesn't have a lot on the album and it tells me even less, although I did learn that Mosely is a suburb of Birmingham and Muscle Shoals, Alabama was the location of several famous 60's soul recording studios.  It also mentions very much in passing in the personnel section that Paul Weller plays on the album - he's been quite generous with his time over the years with new bands and tbh that just makes he like him more.  The album only really did anything over here, but sold close to a million copies, so was certainly no slouch in terms of commercial appeal.

"Customers also listened to" The Bluetones, Ash, Reef and Longpig - that's a more interesting selection than most (even if, tbh, I never really got with any of them).  But I really liked, and still like, this effort from OCS, although I have to admit that none of their subsequent efforts hit the spot in quite the same way.  And, I couldn't really tell you how this hit the spot either - but it just did.

08/09/96 - I think I should like this more than I do
22/09/96 - An older and wiser George