You were history with the slamming of the door

Continuing my trip back in time through the album charts

08/12/96 : Falling Into You - Celine Dion

I am vaguely aware of Ms Dion, but before we consider her we have another "best of" to consider (and obviously reject).

Greatest Hits by Simply Red, anyone?  No, I thought not - that didn't take long now, did it?

Back to Ms Dion, I think I'd struggle to say we're breaking our run of surprisingly popular albums in this year - don't get me wrong, I liked the last one but I've no idea how it sold quite so many.  I can kinda see that this one was going to sell plenty but maybe not as many as it (more on this later).  I'm not quite expecting to hate it, but I'm also certainly not expecting to like it either.

And, having listened to it, I'm not sure I can really be bothered to have an opinion about it.  Nothing really stood out for me, except for the "It's All Coming Back To Me" and "All By Myself", which I knew was a cover, but I'd never have remembered it was originally done by Eric Carmen.  "(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman" was a less successful cover, but taking on Carole and Aretha's versions is a pointless challenge for anyone, I suspect.  "River Deep Mountain High" is a better effort - better than I was expecting if I'm honest but, as taking the album as a whole, it's all fine if you want a song to belt out with a glass of nicely chilled white wine (back then) or prosecco (now) but, well, I don't.  I also really didn't need 76 minutes of it - and no, neither of us have owned it, although I have a suspicion Mrs Reed would like at least some of it.  0/4 - considering I picked this year specifically to up the ownership numbers, I think we can safely say things haven't started well.

We're at #4 this week on her 38th week of a 98 week run (with the first week at #1), which were followed by further 16 week and 13 week runs - yeah, it did OK for itself.  Above it in the charts this week were them Spice Girls, R&J and Simply Red.  The highest new entry this week was Mark Owen at #33 - he didn't quite manage the post-TT success of some of his colleagues, did he?.  He must have been pleased though that he managed to beat another new entry at #36 - Emmer Dance by The Woolpackers, which was three actors from Emmerdale doing line dance numbers.  The mind absolutely boggles.

Wikipedia has a huge amount on the album (304 milliPeppers) which basically just say how well it did - 32 million copies sold and it was the best selling album globally in 1996.  There's no accounting for tastes, I guess.  I was somewhat surprised that there were 13 producers involved. in the album - it's rarely a sign of musical genius to have quite so many people involved.

"Customers also listened to" James Horner - did you get that reference?  I know I didn't - he did the Titanic soundtrack.  Which is probably what Celine is known best for, but this album is actually her best seller.  And I understand that people undoubtedly loved it and I know it wasn't aimed at me, but I'm afraid I really don't see the huge appeal.  I'm sure Celine can live with that though.

01/12/96 - Oooh, my favourite
15/12/96 - This one goes out to Alison