Rollin' and ridin' and slippin' and slidin'

Continuing my trip back through the 1977 album charts.

31/07/77 : A New World Record - ELO

Our second visit with the lads this year - and after my last experience, I'm quite looking forward to this one.

Yeah - it's not bad at all.  Maybe not quite as memorable as the previous one, with only "Livin' Thing" really standing out from the crowd for me - and that was undoubtedly because I already knew it.  I'd be more likely to revisit Out Of The Blue than this, but I'd be happy enough to catch it if it came on.  High praise indeed, I know!  I guess they also get some humour points for the album title.

This week we're at #16 in the charts this week on their 35th week of a 46 week run with it having peaked at #6 in its 29th week - somewhat unusually for albums from this year this had quite the life afterwards, with it having a further 54 weeks in the chart with it last being seen in October '79.  The top five this week were the Johnny Mathis best-of (really?!?), Yes, a Neil Diamond live album, the Connie Francis best-of and A Star Is Born (that wasn't even a rocking top five back in '77) and the highest new entry was Be-bop Deluxe (#10 - a live album that I nearly included out of curiosity).

Wikipedia tells me this is their sixth album, was the start of their shift towards shorter pop songs and was their commercial breakthrough in the UK, with their three previous albums having failed to chart at all here.  The critics were very complimentary about the album, with our old mate Robert Christgau giving it the high praise of saying they'd "made a Moody Blues album with brains, hooks, and laffs galore" - I do wonder what that boy's on about at times.  It did well commercially - #1 in Canada, Australia and Sweden and #5 in the US, shifting one million copies there and getting to #6 in their year-end chart.

"Customers also listened to" Supertramp, 10cc, Wings and David Bowie - a slightly strange combination, but ELO have all sorts of influences so it's possibly not such a surprise.  I suspect I should give both this and Out Of The Blue another go because they could be growers - I probably won't, but you never know...

24/07/77 - Perfectly inessential noodling
07/08/77 - A most peculiar album indeed

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