Stay in the light, don't take your eyes from the prize

Continuing my trip back in time through the album charts

25/08/96 : Free Peace Sweet - Dodgy

One I bought back in the day based purely on "Good Enough" - I seem to recall the rest of it was OK, if not exactly memorable.  But before I jog my memory, I have another "best of" to reject.

It's Neil Diamond's turn this time with his "Ultimate Collection".  Well, when I say "ultimate" it's obviously been followed by an "essential" selection, his "all-time greatest hits" and his "50th anniversary" collection.  The man has produced some sort of compilation album every five years from 1968 to the present day which is, giving some horrendous context, my entire life.  So I feel I can safely reject this and move on to Dodgy.

The title of which, I have to admit, I've only just realised is a pun.  I'm super speedy me, aren't I?  I think I just assumed it was all a collection of hippy-ish words and never had any reason to say it out loud - doh!  I didn't mind the album at all - "not exactly memorable" is a reasonable description, but it doesn't have any bad tracks on it either.  "Good Enough" is the highlight, but "Found You" is also a decent track that I'd completely forgotten about.  It never quite hits the heights of "Staying Out For The Summer" for me but it's not bad at all with quite a few of the other tracks being very Oasis-like, but better - like Oasis there's a strong Beatles-esque theme running throughout.  And the lyrics to "UK R.I.P" seem more depressingly relevant than ever 

"I'm beginning to understand - I'm getting wiser every day
This country is not United and the Kingdom's past away"

And it's one I owned as well, so we're up to 7/19.

We're at #8 in the charts this week - their fourth consecutive week at that position on their tenth week of a 39 week run (having peaked at #7 on its debut week), which was followed up by a further seven week run.  All in all, it seems like a decent effort for the lads and it was most definitely their high-point chart-wise.  The top five this week Alanis, Crowded House, The Smurfs, Oasis and Neil's aforementioned unmissable collection (which was a new entry).  There were no other new entries in the top ten - the next one is a Levellers live album at #13, which is either going to be ace or horrendous, I suspect.  And the next new entry is Limbo by Throwing Muses at #36, which I obviously bought and loved (but haven't listened to in ages).

Wikipedia has more on the album than I was expecting (115 milliPeppers) and it's quite an interesting read as far as these things go.  It tells me that The Beastie Boys were a strong influence, which I'd have to say passed me by entirely - but I'll give them Crosby, Stills and Nash though.  There's an interesting comment on "UK R.I.P." as well - they were "trying to distance ourselves from the jingoistic, xenophobic bullshit that Britpop was throwing up".  OMG - did Britpop lead to Brexit?!?  Discuss.  The critics mostly liked the album, although Wikipedia leads with a strange description of "a strong but underwhelming collection of songs" - there's also an amusing quote from "Melody Maker journalist" Caitlin Moran.  I wonder what she's up to these days?

"Customers also listened to" The Boo Radleys, Cornershop, Reef, Toploader and, errr, Snoop Dogg.  As Sesame Street would say, one of these things is not like the others.  I enjoyed revisiting Dodgy though and suspect I'd also enjoy revisiting their previous album, Homegrown.

18/08/96 - Better than I remembered
01/09/96 - An intriguing album