Count lurch hearse head, prince of the snick snacks

Continuing my trip back in time through the album charts

22/04/73 : Tanx - T Rex

Our second visit to T Rex - last time my comment was that I was unable to decide whether it sounded dated or not because of the somewhat unique (and subsequently oft-referenced) sound of T Rex.  And I've no reason to think the situation will change at all here.

And no, it really doesn't - the only real difference this time around is the lack of tracks I know.  Apart from that, it's all that slightly off-kilter T Rex sound - it would have been fascinating to see what Marc would have got up to if he'd stayed with us.  I don't think there's any danger of me ever listening to this again but it was an enjoyable musical education.

We're down at #12 in the charts this week on its fifth week of a nine week run, having peaked at #4 in its first two weeks.  The top five this week are Faces (just no!), Believe In Music (up from #31 last/next week), Led Zep, Gilbert and Roxy Music - which gives us a top five featuring two of the 500 best albums ever, but it's a pretty rubbish top five imho.  The highest new entries are Steeleye Span (#27) and Jeff Back, Tim Bogert and Carmine Appice (#28) - I had to look up Tim and Carmine and they were the bassist and drummer from Vanilla Fudge.  Who I had to look up as well and they were "an American rock band known predominantly for their slow extended heavy rock arrangements of contemporary hit songs, such as their hit cover of The Supremes' "You Keep Me Hangin' On"" - which sounds like it will be dreadful, but actually works quite well.  

Carly is once again the highest woman in the charts at #15 but, if we're going to consider Linda eligible for inclusion for her role in Wings, then we definitely need to consider Maddy Prior for her somewhat more front-and-centre role in Steeleye Span, which means we've (finally) made double figures for the women this year!  I'm also going to mention another new entry from a woman we've already heard from just because of the album title - Nana Mouskouri rockets in at #48 with the very imaginatively monikered "Songs From Her TV Series".  I wonder how long they took thinking up the name for that?

Wikipedia has a surprising amount on the album, which contributes the sum total of jack all to anyone's knowledge - it basically says the album is silghtly more varied than other T Rex albums, which I didn't really catch on first listen but I'll take their word for it.  It does make the point it's doing a Young Americans kinda thang two years before Bowie did and I can kinda see that - it also tells us that Suede used it as inspiration for Coming Up and there's definitely some common ground there.  The critics mostly liked it, but it didn't exactly set America alight, getting to #102 in the charts over there.

"Customers also listened to" Slade, The Sweet and Cockney Rebel - not really all that similar, but not a million miles away.  T Rex really ploughed their own furrow though (as far as I've seen so far anyway) - I didn't enjoy this as much as I might have done with a bit more familiar material, but it was quite fun to experience and felt like an education.

15/04/73 - A very 70s experience
29/04/73 - "Surprisingly bearable"