I'm on this mission to achieve

Continuing my trip back through the 1990 album charts.

24/06/90 : Vol. II : 1990 - A New Decade : Soul II Soul

Normality returns with a "proper" album that I'm quite looking forward to - Soul II Soul get a lot of credit for their contribution to the music scene around this time, but I only know two of their singles (and obviously neither of them are on this album).  And no, I've never owned it (7/28)

Yeah, it doesn't stray too far from the "Back To Life" formula but it's all skilfully put together (with some fine bass) and perfectly enjoyable - if I had to quibble, I'd say it a lot of it sounds the same to my uncultured ear but I'm quite happy to be told I'm wrong about this.  Having said that, I did like "Courtney Blows" which is considerably jazzier than the rest (and more so than I usually like) and "A Dream's A Dream" is also a well put together track that stands out.  I'd also say that everyone involved sounds effortlessly cool in the way that I'll never manage.

We're at #4 in the charts this week on their fifth week of a twenty week run, having spent their first three weeks at #1 - there was hope for the music industry back in 1990 after all!  The rest of the top five were NKOTB (a new entry - sigh), Pavarotti, The Beach Boys and The Bangles, with the next highest new entry being Wilson Phillips (#9 - the lovely Miss McCormac loved this album).

Wikipedia has remarkably little on the album telling us it doesn't feature Caron Wheeler (who was having one of her times away from the group) but it does feature Kym Mazelle and you can also probably guess who's playing the sax on "Courtney Blows".  The other names I recognise are the co-producers - Jazzie B (who's very much the heartbeat of Soul II Soul) and Nellee Hooper who worked on quite a few albums I love from around that time.  The critics were nice about it, with Spin noting that it "works because it is part of a movement defined in adversity to racism, materialism and Britain's attempts to regulate parties".  Errr - OK?!?  It did surprisingly (to me, at least) well commercially, getting top twenty across Europe and #21 in the US.

"Customers also listened too" Noel Parlane, Loose Ends, Deee-Lite and Neneh Cherry - two of which I know and like, which is two more than I expected in that list.  I enjoyed this and there was obviously plenty of skill involved - it was indeed a "proper" album.  I can't say I felt like I'm their core audience (most probably because I'm not) but I'm looking forward to bumping into Club Classics Vol. One when we get to 1989.

17/06/90 - A very dull album
01/07/90 - ANOTHER greatest hits album?!?

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