The sun's gonna shine on everything you do

Continuing my trip back in time through the album charts

10/11/96 : Ocean Drive - Lighthouse Family

And finally, we get to an album from 1996 I've actually heard before - that took long enough now, didn't it?  I remember it being perfectly fine, but ridiculously successful, which made certain people very sniffy about it (see also David Grey and James Blunt).  I'd struggle to say many of the tracks have stuck in the mind though (which actually isn't so much the case for DG & JB - I could still along to them pretty well, I reckon).

And yeah, Ocean Drive is a bit like musical wallpaper, but it's very nice-to-listen-to wallpaper.  "Lifted" and the title track stood out for me because I remembered them, but the rest of them passed perfectly pleasantly whilst I sat out in the sunshine - it was perfect weather for it.  Yes, it's easy listening pop/soul which isn't going to challenge you, but being challenged all the time is such hard work - sometimes you just need to take the weight off.  And, even more amazingly, we actually owned it - we finally break our duck to get to the dizzy heights of 1/8.

We're at #7 in the charts this week on their 36th week of a 157 week run - lordy.  It managed three further runs of 9,13 and 3 weeks before finally disappearing in September '99 - but what's more interesting is that its main run wasn't its first run.  It initially charted for one week in November '95 and then completely disappeared from view until March '96 - this was because "Lifted" (which reached #61 in May '95) was re-released then and did slightly better this time around and kicked the whole thing off big time.  The album never got higher than #3 (in its 52nd week) but it managed a 48 week run in the top 20, which is a fine effort indeed.  

Above it in the charts were the Spices (a new entry at the top), Beautiful South, East 17 (another new entry), Simply Red and Boyzone.  And in a bumper week for new entries, we've also got Rod Stewart appearing at #8.

Wikipedia has surprisingly little on an album that spent 3.5 years in the charts and sold 1.8 million copies in the UK.  It didn't really do anything anywhere else, but I think the Family could probably cope with that.  I did a bit more investigation on them - can you believe that only one of them has a Wikipedia entry?  Paul (the writer) has pretty much kept under the radar, but Tunde (the singer) is still hanging in there - apparently he's working on a cover album of 70s classics, which I reckon might be OK.  If it ever comes out, that is.

"Customers also listened to" Simon Webbe, Gabrielle, Heather Small and Jimmy Nail.  Obviously.  I actually enjoyed this, even though I can't really remember any of it - it just smoothed on past me in the sunshine and was very enjoyable whilst it did so.  Am I going to listen to it on repeat for the next ten years?  No - but if I need something to put on on a summer evening, then I hope I'll remember it.

03/11/96 - A truly terrible album
17/11/96 - Not their best, I'm afraid