Eleventh Earl of Mar couldn't get them very far

Continuing my trip back through the 1977 album charts.

20/02/77 : Wind And Wuthering - Genesis

I had some back and forth as to whether I should consider Rick Wakeman's White Rock album which is the soundtrack to a 1976 documentary about the Winter Olympics - but in the end I rejected it because it just sounded like the dullest documentary ever and I didn't think I should be encouraging such things.  Which leads us to our third visit with these lads, sitting nicely halfway between their very different offerings from '73 and '83 so I'm expecting it to be somewhere in between the two.

Yeah, that's pretty much where we are - we've got the instrumental noodling of the earlier album combined with somewhat hookier riffs reminiscent of the later album .  I didn't mind it - on first listen I can't say any of it stuck with me, but it did feel like it would stand up to (and potentially reward) multiple listens.  It's not a million miles away from Peter Gabriel's effort and whilst I feel I should have more to say on the matter, I honestly don't - other than that I like the album cover.

We're all the way down at #24 in the charts this week on their seventh week of a 17 week run, with it having peaked at #7 in its third week - somewhat bizarrely it then had six further one week runs through the year.  The top five this week were The Shadows best-of, Pink Floyd, the Heartbreakers compilation, Leo Sayer and another compilation, Dance To The Music which is a bizarre mix of pop, soul, funk and disco and the highest new entry was a Tony Bennett best-of (#26).

WIkipedia has quite a bit on the album (173 milliPeppers) - there's a lot on the earlier departure of Pete and the later departure of Steve Hackett, who felt a bit excluded from proceedings on this album.  We then get a track-by-track breakdown which suggests a serious fan has been involved, but I can assure you it's of no interest to normal people.  The critics were very nice about the album at the time and have continued to be so retrospectively which makes it all the stranger that I'd never heard of it before.  It did pretty well commercially - making the top twenty in a lot of European countries (including #3 in France) and #26 in the US.

"Customers also listened to" Steve Hackett, Tony Banks, Peter Gabriel and Phil Collins - a list of names no-one expected!  I wish I had more opinions on this album - currently I'm very "well, I might like it".  I would like to be clearer on my opinion, but at the same time I don't feel in the slightest bit tempted to listen to it again to find out.

13/02/77 - Somewhat disappointing
27/02/77 - A classic example of that-sort-of-thing

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