Intelligent life is so very rare

Continuing my trip back in time through the album charts

03/06/73 : The Space Ritual Alive In Liverpool And London - Hawkwind

I don't think I like Hawkwind, but I also can't say I've ever really listened to them, so I'm happy to give it a go and see if I'm proved wrong.

Oh dear.  What is this?  There's a very "sludgy" sound to it all and it's really remarkably dreary - it feels like Spinal Tap in Space.  The only bit I liked was that the spoken sections sound like Alan Rickman as Hans Gruber, but I'm not sure I was supposed to be amused by any of this album - it takes itself very seriously, thank you very much.  I can imagine that seen live complete with far out visuals and lights and shit then it might have been more of an "experience", but I REALLY struggle to see the appeal of the album, I'm afraid.  And certainly not 86 minutes of it (or 132 on the "special" remixed edition),

We're at #9 in the charts this week on its second week of a four week run, peaking in this week.  To be honest, any time at all in the charts feels very generous to me - but I'll let it have four weeks because I'm nice like that.  The top five this week were Pure Gold, Bowie, 20 Fantastic Hits Vol 3 (I checked - they aren't), Beatles (Red) and Beatles (Blue) and the highest new entry this week was Status Quo's best-of (#36) - their first of many, many, MANY best-ofs from the rockers.  And yes, Linda was the highest ranked woman this week at #7.

Wikipedia tells us "The album was recorded during the tour to promote their Doremi Fasol Latido album" and that's REALLY not a good name for an album.  So this album contains just one track from their first two albums and doesn't include "Silver Machine" which they'd just had a hit with - they're not here for the commerical appeal or to give the so-called "fans" what they want, thank you very much.  And apparently the Hans Gruber bits should be referred to as "swazzle".  Sigh.

It also tells me that the stage set and album sleeve were designed by Barney Bubbles who was apparently quite the thing back in the day.  It goes into great detail on the sleeve and, quite frankly, it sounds terrifying - featuring, amongst other things "an illustration of Miss Stacia flanked by the hounds of King", "an image of a female nipple as a planet", "a winged superhero grasping an electrical cable and lightning bolts" and (obviously) "a dedication from Lemmy to John the Bog, Supernova and Sue Bennett. zac bacab, tec bacab and bac bacab".  What?!?

"Customers also listened to" Gong, The Groundhogs and The Pink Fairies.  Yes, quite.  I'm actually quite interested to listen to one of their studio albums now because this was just so dull and repetitive that I can't believe their stuff is all this bad - but maybe I'm just a space rock heathen (and quite happy to be so, I'm afraid).

27/05/73 - Much better than I was expecting
10/06/73 - No, no, NO!

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