It's a mighty long way down rock'n'roll

Continuing my trip back in time through the album charts

23/09/73 : Mott - Mott The Hoople

I'm vaguely aware of Mott The Hoople and know there's at least one track of theirs I know but I'm struggling to bring it to mind just at this minute.  I'm interested to listen to this album, particularly because there would have been no danger of me listening to it under any other circumstances - but I'm not particularly expecting to like it though. 

It's all pretty Bowie-ish, so it doesn't surprise me that it was popular at the time - but, I'd actually say it's more accessible than some of Bowie's stuff at the time (and certainly more accessible than what he moved on to do).  I actually didn't mind "I’m a Cadillac / El Camino Dolo Roso" despite it lasting for 7:40 - it gets pretty atmospheric at the end with some nice Eagles-ish guitar on it.  I'm going to go out on a limb here though and say that I actually quite liked most of this - it's interesting to compare it with Bowie from a couple of weeks ago, with it being similar but different.  I'm also going to talk about the title lyric because I recognised it from Billy Bragg's "Waiting For The Great Leap Forward" but its original placement was from the opening track "All The Way From Memphis" (and it's things like this that just make me love Billy even more).

We're at #7 in the charts this week on its fifth week of a 13 week run, with it peaking this week (this was their most successful album).  The top five this week are the usual fare of The Rolling Stones, Rod, Bowie, Peters & Lee and The Carpenters with the highest new entry being Max Bloody Bygraves at #13 - and yes, he's got four albums in the chart again this week.  And yes, Bowie has five.  But, you did read it correctly - there are TWO women in the top five this week and, for the first time this year, Karen isn't the highest.  Maybe 1973 isn't going to be such a bad year for the ladies after all - we've even got a new woman in the chart this week as well, with Carly Simon in at #40.  Is that six so far this year!?!

Wikipedia doesn't have a lot on the album but does tell me that "The U.K. front cover featured an illustration based on a bust of Roman emperor Augustus, the band's name written in a typeface simultaneously evocative of a 1920s Art Deco font and the "Future Shock" font inspired by computer-readable punch cards".  Well, like - duh.  Obviously.  Their entry tells me it's not surprising it's Bowie-like because he wrote "All The Young Dudes" for them (which is the track I knew that I couldn't remember) and he was encouraging when they were prepared to give it all up.

"Customers also listened to" Ian Hunter, The Tubes, Jo Jo Gunne and Mark Ronson - only one of whom I've both heard of and understand why they're there.  I liked this a lot more than I was expecting - this is the sort of album I was hoping for from 1973, although I'd have to say that, so far, it's offered up much finer selection of albums that I suspected it might.

16/09/73 - I struggle to understand the fuss
30/09/73 - Not quite the finest album of the year