I said so many things - things he didn't know

Continuing my trip back through the 1990 album charts.

11/03/90 : Affection - Lisa Stansfield

I like a bit of Lisa - such a smooth singing voice and a wicked sense of humour (and accompanying laugh) to boot.  We owned her second album (Real Life) but I don't think this one ever graced our shelves (7/43) - I doubt it will sound all that different though.

Nope - all very smooth indeed and very listenable.  I didn't need the deluxe version with the dubious mixes on it, but the original release version sailed past my ears serenely - "Been Around The World" is obviously the best track, but they're all nicely listenable because she really does have a lovely voice.  It is, however, for me not as good as Real Life.

We're at #10 in the charts this week on her 16th week of a 31 week run with it peaking at #2 in its first and 14th week (and it's not been out of the top ten yet).  The top five this week were Phil Collins (we're going to be saying that a lot for the rest of the year - he was #1 for fifteen of his first sixteen weeks!), The Notting Hillbillies (an astonishing new entry), Iron Maiden (another new entry), Chris Rea and Tina Turner and the next highest new entry was Michael Bolton (#8 - and we met him all the way back in the second week of this year).

Wikipedia has loads on the album (183 milliPeppers) and there's all sorts of interesting facts in there!  Lisa initially came to our attention as a presenter on Razzmatazz before she sang on Coldcut's "People Hold On".  This is her debut album, with all the songs written by Lisa and two of her schoolfriends (which feels like a very "Lisa keeping it real" kinda move), who also produced it and the critics were very nice about it indeed (8/10 from NME and A- from our old mate Robert Christgau, both of whom can be hard to please!).  It also did very well commercially - top ten in a load of countries, including #1 in Austria and Italy and #9 in the US and selling over five million copies worldwide.

"Customers also listen to" Dina Carroll, Terence Trent D'Arby, Soul II Soul and Simply Red - some smooooth sounds there.  And Lisa is as smooth as any of them and this provides some fine examples of that - it's a very enjoyable listen.

04/03/90 - Just a bit too earnest
18/03/90 - Nicely nostalgic

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