You're always telling stories, you're always telling me lies

Continuing my trip back through the 1977 album charts.

17/04/77 : Every Face Tells A Story - Cliff Richard

OK - I tried to avoid it, but I've had to give in and accept the inevitable.  Mostly because if I'd swerved this again, I'd have had to listen to another David Soul album and I'm not sure I'm quite ready for that yet - not that I'm expecting this to be any better.

And no, it isn't - although it's hard to say quite what's so dreadful about it.  Taken one track at a time, they're generally at least bearable but a whole album's worth of Cliff's brand of earnest moping just wears you down.  And then he goes and ends it all with "Spiderman" which is a dreadful, dreadful track and nearly seven minutes long - what was he thinking?  I'm also very uncertain about the album cover.

We're at #16 in the charts this week on his fifth week of a ten week run with it having peaked at #8 in its second and third weeks.  The top five this week were ABBA and best-ofs from Frank Sinatra, The Shadows, Glenn Miller and The Hollies - that's not exactly a hip-and-happening top five in the "year of punk" is it (and they're all unchanged from the previous week).  And the highest new entry was Russ Conway (#32) who first charted in 1957.

Wikipedia tells me this is nineteenth album (he's up to FORTY SEVEN now!) and there were three singles released from it, with "My Kinda Life" being the most successful, reaching #15.  And that's pretty much that - there's no word on critical or commercial performance at all.

"Customers also listened to" Slade, Jona Lewie, Cilla Black and Mike Batt - that's quite the mix!  I very much didn't like this album but I also feel I've yet to meet anything close to the worst of his offerings - although "Superman" really is appalling.

10/04/77 - Perfectly bearable and perfectly forgettable
24/04/77 - Too long