With a hell of a shout, it's "Out brothers, out!"
Continuing my trip back in time through the album charts
25/03/73 : Bursting At The Seams - Strawbs
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I know I know something by Strawbs, but can't for the life of me remember it. So I'm not entirely sure what I'm going to get here - for some reason, I'm thinking it'll be somewhat Byrds like, even though their name makes me think of The Wurzels.
Yeah, most of it is at least Byrds-ish, although I'd say that "Part Of The Union", which is the track that I knew, isn't particularly - but it also isn't overly representative of the rest of the album. And there's also "Thank You" which seems to be some of the group leading a primary school harvest festival (no, seriously - it really could be that). I think I'd describe most of it as "prog folk" - it features some very nice guitar work harmonies. I was reminded me of Marillion (his voice is very Fish in place) and early Genesis - overall, I really quite liked it on first visit and I can see it being a grower given multiple listens (except for "Thank You", which really is rubbish).
We're at #7 this week on their sixth week of a twelve week run, having spent two weeks at #2 earlier in the run. The top five this week are 20 Flash Back Greats of the 60s (a new entry), Pink Floyd (another new entry), Alice Cooper, T Rex (yet another new entry!) and Elton John - and let's just pause a minute there to consider this.
Yes, Pink Floyd's seminal masterpiece was kept off the top by an album including "Doo Wah Diddy Diddy" and "The Hucklebuck" - and it has never got as close to the top spot again in the (currently) 544 weeks it's spent on the chart on 95 separate visits. You should be ashamed of yourselves, 1973 record buying public. Three new entries is obviously more than enough for a 1973 top ten - the next one is the Mahavishnu Orchestra (#20), followed by Curtis Mayfield (#26) with a fine funk album indeed (and that post is an interesting one because it features three randomly selected albums, all of which feature Curtis in some capacity). And Carly is once again the highest woman in the charts (#22) - we'll be getting to it some time in early December, I suspect. It was only her, Karen and Nana representing the ladies in the charts this week - although Karen does appear three times.
Wikipedia has a whole three sentences on this album - the only fact of anything approaching interest is that it was their first release since Dave Lambert replaced Tony Hooper. And I'm sure that Tony must have been well chuffed that this was their most successful album and "Part Of The Union" was their most successful single, also peaking at #2 - spending three weeks there and kept off the top by the glamtastic combination of The Sweet's "Blockbuster" (which spent FIVE weeks at #1) and Slade's "Cum On Feel The Noize".
"Customers also listened to" Magna Carta, Renaissance and String Driven Thing - oh yes, we're definitely in prog territory here, aren't we? I really quite enjoyed this though - I'd go as far as to say it has potential for "forgotten/unknown classic" status and I'm almost tempted to give it a re-listen (there's no higher praise available).
Postscript - when posting this on Twitter, I found their official account - @strawbsband. They have 31 followers - bless! Go on, give 'em a follow (if you're still on that demented hellhole of a site).
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