Oom-pa-pah!

Continuing my trip back through the 1968 album charts.

18/02/68 : This Is James Last - James Last

I know James Last was spectacularly successful with his MoR music - but I have to admit I've actually got no idea what to expect from it.

Well, it's basically lift music.  Well done lift music, but lift music nonetheless.  It's generally either contemporary-ish stuff or classical music given a slightly swing-y feel to it - all instrumental, which I don't think I was expecting.  And his compulsory Lennon/McCartney choice is "Yesterday" making it the third time we've seen it this year (and The Supremes gave us the best version).  It's not great, but I don't think it quite counts as dreadful - but I just don't understand who would want to listen to it!  That's quite the album cover as well, isn't it?

We're at #12 in the charts this week on the very last week of a 46 (!) week run having peaked at #6 in its sixth week - it's weird it dropped out of the chart entirely from such a lofty position after such a long run.  The top five this week were The Supremes best-of, TSOM, The Four Tops best-of, British Motown Chartbusters and Breakthrough (which I can tell you nothing about, despite attempting research), the highest new entry was Esther & Abi Ofarim and we have ANOTHER named woman in the charts - Anita Harris, who is probably best known for her roles in Carry On Follow That Camel and Carry On Doctor, which takes the running totals to 11 named and 8 featured.  I'm also going to mention the album at #37 this week for its great title - Thrill To The Sensational Sounds Of Super Stereo.  I was intrigued as to what kind of music might be on such an album so I looked up the tracklist and I can confidently state I still have no idea...

Wikipedia doesn't have an entry for the album which seems a bit harsh considering how long it spent in the charts - it does get a passing mention in his entry, but that's it.  His entry is quite the thing - he released over 200 albums in his lifetime, of which 66 (SIXTY SIX!) have charted in the UK (this was the first) and he played the Royal Albert Hall 90 times, which is second only to Eric Clapton.  I imagine live he was both impressive and pointless - a strange combination!

"Customers also listened to" "no similar recommendations", which is rare but in this case understandable.  It's all surprisingly bearable, but it was also amazingly popular for a bunch of instrumental versions of a random selection of songs.

11/02/68 - Third time's a charm (relatively)
25/02/68 - Not their finest hour

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