We don't have tomorrow but we had yesterday

Continuing my trip back in time through the album charts

26/08/73 : Touch Me In The Morning - Diana Ross

Oooh - this is a tricky one.  According to all the rules we've followed so far, this week we should be listening to Gary Glitter who's at #11 in the charts.  But - can you separate the "art" from the "artist"?  

Have you got time to discuss this now?  I mean, I quite understand if you don't - but I'm not sure I have much to offer anyway.  "It depends" - I think that covers my thoughts on the matters.  I do think some people can be too quick to "cancel" others for differences of opinion or for previous comments or behaviour viewed through the lens of currently acceptable behaviour.   And, unsurprisingly, others are conversely more than happy to accept, glorify or refuse to apologise for completely unacceptable actions.  We all draw our lines somewhere I guess - for me, I feel a couple of guilty verdicts in court for serious crimes is enough to make me give it a swerve, particularly when the album is called Touch Me.  So we'll move on to merely being touched in the morning by someone who has a reputation as a diva, but nothing worse than that (provided you ignore the DUI and assault charges).

You never quite know what you're getting with Diana - and having listened to this, I'm still not entirely sure what I've got.  The title track has a classy vocal, but is a bit cheesy - particularly where she does her spoken bit.  Which she repeats on the next two tracks - which is definitely two or three tracks too many.  And then, we enter the realm of somewhat strange covers - "I Won't Last A Day Without You" is OK, but adds absolutely nothing to the original (by The Carpenters, which took me "several" minutes to remember).  I didn't know "Little Girl Blue" but it was obviously a cover because of the old cabaret feel to it (it's from a 1935 Rodgers and Hart musical) and I obviously knew "Imagine" but it was a COMPLETELY pointless cover which detracted from the original in many ways.  All in all, it wasn't a horrible album but I just don't see who'd bother listening to it.

We're at #12 in the charts this week with a new entry on the start of a 13 week run.  It then took two weeks off, back for four weeks, off for two weeks, back for one week, off for two weeks, back for 13 weeks, off for two weeks, back for two weeks - what was it up to?!?  The top five this week were Rod (at the start of a three week run at #1 - people were very odd back in 1973), Peters & Lee, Bowie, The Carpenters and then some more Bowie.  Diana was actually the highest new entry in the charts this week, closely followed by Stevie Wonder (#14) with a very fine album indeed.  I also have to mention the album at #9 this week - the first one we've seen that I actually own!  As always, it's Dianne and Karen leading the way for the ladies, with no new ladies appearing in the charts this week.

Wikipedia doesn't have an awful lot on the album - although I was interested to read that although "I Won't Last A Day Without You" is a cover, it was recorded before The Carpenters had a hit with it in the US.  Apart from that, there's not a lot said about anything - it got to #5 in the US though, so people must have liked it a bit, I guess.

"Customers also listened to" Aretha Franklin, Thelma Houston and Laura Nyro - I'd completely forgotten about Laura and I quite liked her when I listened to her (but she's nothing like Diana).  As I said earlier, you never know what you're getting with Diana and previously we've had Motown and we've had disco and this is, well, neither.  Once again, I just don't see the point to it - I just hope it wasn't the second album Auntie Rosemary bought.

19/08/73 - Surprisingly enjoyable
02/09/73 - Why?