She said the man in the gabardine suit was a spy

Continuing my trip back in time through the album charts

09/09/73 : Greatest Hits - Simon And Garfunkel

For a change, I'm considering a greatest hits album - I think it hits the mark for both culturally relevant (Bridge Over Troubled Water was in its 187th week of a 244 week run) and timely (this was released a couple of years after their first (of many) acrimonious break-ups).  But, most importantly, if I listen to this I don't have to listen to The Osmonds singing about how great it is to be a Mormon.  SOLD!

Having said I'm going to write about it, I don't exactly know what I'm going to say - you either like them or you don't.  Personally I prefer the slightly more upbeat numbers - "The 59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin' Groovy)", "The Boxer" and "Cecilia" would be high points, but I do like "America" as well for its poignant lyrics.  If you like a bit of folk and, for some particularly obscure reason, have never heard any S&G then check it out - but I suspect that's a very unlikely state of affairs, with them being more likely to act as a gateway drug to other less conventional folk or a confirmation that you just don't like folk, thank you very much.  This is the closest we've come to owning an album so far this year - it wouldn't surprise me if we had it, but the lovely Mrs Reed is a massive fan of Live In Central Park and owning both feels somewhat unnecessary.  I think this has a cooler album cover though - if only for Paul Simon's moustache.

We're at #6 in the charts this week on their 61st week of a 195 week run (rubbish compared with BOTW!) - it's managed another 199 weeks over 41 separate runs, with it last being seen on a six week run last year, so I wouldn't write it off just yet!  But although it spent its first 18 weeks in the top five, it never made it to #1, peaking at #2 for three weeks.  The top five this week were Rod, The Carpenters, Peters & Lee, Bowie and Bowie.  The highest new entry this week was Elvis with one of his many best-ofs at #16 - Wikipedia surprised me by only listing 14 of them, until I scrolled down and found the "box set" section, which lists another 30.  And scrolling a bit further brings us to "posthumous compilation albums" which gives us another 115 - that's more like it!  Karen has retaken her position as the top lady, but we have THREE women in the top ten this week with Diana Ross popping in at #9.  The men must be getting worried.

Wikipedia has very little on the album other than noting it "has proven a long and durable seller" - it never made it to #1 in the US, but it's the best-selling album by a duo over there and has shifted 14 million copies.  As well as approximately 1,840,454 copies here apparently.

"Customers also listened to" Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel - nobody expected that.  And let's add in The Mamas & The Papas and Crosby, Stills & Nash to turn those harmonies up to 11.  I like this and I don't really feel the need to say anything more about it - I can't imagine this post will act as an introduction to the duo for anyone (although there are a couple of tracks on there you might not have heard before).

02/09/73 - Why?
16/09/73 - I struggle to understand the fuss