Can't say what I'm doing here

Continuing my trip back in time through the album charts

29/07/73 : Living In The Material World - George Harrison


I like George, but my only exposure to his solo work is his widely acknowledged masterpiece, which I found to be really rather dull indeed.  However, I'm willing to give him another go - at least this one is only 42 minutes long.  What's the worst that can happen?

I thought it OK actually - it's kinda country but not overly so.  I was reminded (preminded?) of The Travelling Wilburys, of whom George was a member.  And do I remember any of it in the slightest?  No, I do not.  I can imagine that it might settle in there given a few serious listens by someone who was initially more predisposed towards it than I was - it feels like it's an album that will reward careful attention, but that doesn't mean I'm going to give it any.  It's a pretty freaky album cover as well.

We're at #8 in the charts this week on its fifth week of an eleven week run, having peaked at #2 in its debut week.  The top five this week were That'll Be The Day, Peters & Lee, Bowie, Bowie and Cat with the highest new entry being Alice Cooper (#20) - and we're soon going to find that this dearth of new albums results in us having to delve further and further down the charts.  Dianne was the top woman, Karen managed to just about hang on in to the top ten and, wonders will never cease, we have ANOTHER (our eighth!) woman in the top 50 - Shirley Bassey has popped in at the dizzy heights of #49.

Wikipedia has a massive amount on the album (359 milliPeppers) and I must admit I didn't read most of it.  This sentence did jump out at me though - "Ringo Starr also contributed to the album, when his burgeoning film career allowed".  Ringo had a film career?!?  Yes, according to Wikipedia, he did - including starring as "Larry the Dwarf in Frank Zappa's 200 Motels".  The mind boggles.  Anyways, back to the album, the general critical view was that it was a masterpiece, but not quite as masterpieceful as All Things Must Pass.  It did very well commercially though - #1 in the US.

"Customers also listened to" Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr and John Lennon - yup, we got the full set.  I didn't mind this, but I can't say it really did anything for me either - all of which contributes to not the most content-full post ever.  Sorry!

22/07/93 - More to this than meets the ear
03/08/73 - I'll admit it's skilful

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