Too many broken hearts have fallen in the river

Continuing my trip back through the 1977 album charts.

17/07/77 : Deceptive Bends - 10cc

This is our first visit with a band that I know a few singles from, but that's the limit of my exposure - I'm expecting something I can't quite get my head around.  It's also not available on Amazon - they seem to have all the rest of them, but not this one.

I actually knew and quite liked "The Things We Do For Love" - the rest of it was perfectly listenable (if a little dated) and there's a reasonable level of skill on display throughout the album.  It's quite hard to describe - it's like an English take on the American soft-rock sound.  I can't say I loved it - but it was an enjoyable enough listen from the time although I still don't feel I really understand what 10cc were trying to do.

We're at #14 in the charts this week on their eleventh week of a 21 week run, with it having peaked at #3 in its second and fourth weeks - they were way more popular than I knew.  The top five this week were the Johnny Mathis best-of, A Star Is Born, Donna Summer, The Muppets and The Stranglers - that's quite the top five, isn't it?  And the highest new entry was Heart (#36) - I had no idea they had charted over here as early as they did.

Wikipedia tells me this is their fifth album, but their first since the departure of Kevin Godley and Lol Creme - leaving the pressure well and truly on Eric Stewart and Graham Gouldman (who I'd at least heard of) to produce something at least as successful as what came before.  And as it turns out, they did a pretty good job of it!  The cover was done by Hipgnosis and the title came from a road sign on the A24 - but (spoiler alert) "the sign is no longer there".  There's no word on critical reviews, but it did OK commercially getting to #4 in The Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway and Sweden and #31 in the US.

"Customers also listened to" - we can't say because it's not on Amazon, but it's going to be the sort of people we've seen from the last few weeks and also who we've got next week as well ie random English blokes.  I didn't mind this, although I'd have to say I only really remember the vibe rather than the actual songs.

10/07/77 - Him again!
24/07/77 - Perfectly inessential noodling

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