Sitting lonely on a plastic chair

Continuing my trip back through the 1990 album charts.

04/03/90 : The House Of Love - The House Of Love

I did listen to this a couple of times back in the day because it was one of the few CDs that Su owned - I don't remember anything about it other than "Shine On" and I certainly never bought it as a result (7/44).

Hmmm - it's an odd one.  Taken separately, the tracks are all, at the very least, perfectly fine - and very much the kind of thing I listened to a lot at the time.  But as a whole, the album kinda wore me down - I think I just found it all far too earnest.  They don't sound like they're having fun at all - and they also want to make it clear that this is a serious business, so you shouldn't be expecting any fun.  I actually think there's a reasonable amount of skill and variety between the tracks (within reason, of course) - but they just manage to override everything with their earnestness.  "Shine On" is still a very decent track though - and I'd also forgotten I quite like "Beatles And The Stones" and "I Don't Know Why I Love You".

We're at #8 in the charts this week with a new entry on the start of a ten week run, which seems like a decent enough run for the lads.  The top five are Phil Collins, Technotronic, Lisa Stansfield, Chris Rea and Iron Maiden (yet another new entry) - that's a pretty decent variety of music for a change for this year.  The next highest new entry is from And Why Not? (#25) who I can tell you absolutely nothing about, but can't imagine why anyone would want to name themselves after a "comedy" catchphrase.

Wikipedia makes an interesting point that this album shouldn't really be referred to as The House Of Love because that was also the title of their 1988 debut - or more accurately, the untitle, because neither of them were formally named.  Apparently, Fontana (the record label) or The Butterfly Album (you can probably guess why) are more appropriate designations.  Its creation wasn't a smooth process - as Wikipedia puts it "the recording and mixing of The House of Love was beset with problems, with the band members distracted by hedonism, ego and indecision".  It took a couple of years, four producers and band members only communicating by post to complete and culminated in the guitarist leaving the band just as the tour was starting.  The critics were nice enough about the album, but there's no word about the commercial impact so I'm guessing it did absolutely nothing away from these shores.

"Customers also listened to" Kitchens Of Distinction, New Fast Automatic Daffodils, The Chamelions and The Mighty Lemon Drops - all fine band names and no mistake.  Which unfortunately can't really be said for The House Of Love, but I'll admit they do make decent tracks.  But unfortunately not decent albums.

25/02/90 - Perfectly fine in a way I'm not fine with
11/03/90 - Smoooooth