What I got to do to make you love me?

Continuing my trip back through the 1977 album charts.

16/01/77 : Blue Moves - Elton John

Well this is a peculiar week and no mistake!  To get to listen to Elton (again - this is his sixth album visit, along with two singles and two gig write-ups) we have to skip over six consecutive best-ofs from #13-#18 which include 100 (ONE HUNDRED!) Golden Greats from Max Bygraves and a mere 22 Golden Guitar Greats from Bert Weedon.  We then skip over a comedy album from Billy Connolly at #20 and a best of from Lena Martell who I don't remember at all - she did have a #1 single but that was in 1979 and at this point in time she'd had one album that peaked at #34 in '74, so quite who was buying her best-of is unclear.  All of which brings us to Elton, who I'd generally say you know what he's going to serve up, but I do know he delivered some stinkers in the 70s, so who knows...

Well, it's not a stinker and it's certainly got some interesting bits on it - he certainly seems to have thrown a lot of instruments and genres into the mix and some of it works really well.  But the album is 85 minutes long and there's just not enough great bits to sustain it for that length - some judicious editing really wouldn't have hurt.  But you can't argue with "Sorry Seems To Be The Hardest Word" and I also really liked "Cage The Songbird" - none of the rest are dreadful, but they just don't stand out from the over-populated crowd.  I do like the album cover though.

This week we're at #22 in the charts on his twelfth week of a fifteen week run, with it having peaked at #3 in its second week.  The top five this week are Slim Whitman (just about to start an incredible four week run at the top), ABBA, Queen and best-ofs from ABBA and Showaddywaddy (you forget how massive they were back then!) and the highest new entry was Evita (#30).

Wikipedia has quite a bit on the album (123 milliPeppers) and it tells us this is his eleventh album and it was his last one for a while to feature both Bernie Taupin and Gus Dudgeon, his long term song-writing and producing partners.  It's also got quite a collection of his mates popping up on backing vocals - David Crosby, Graham Nash, Bruce Johnston (a Beach Boy) and Toni Tennille.  The critics weren't convinced at the time (particularly regarding its length) but retrospective reviews have considered it under-rated, noting its experimental nature and fusing of genres.  It did well commercially, getting to the top ten in a load of countries including #3 in the US, although it did end his run of SIX consecutive #1 albums over there.

"Customers also listened to" Billy Joel, ELO, The Doobie Brothers and Eric Clapton - some very 70s sounds there, all of whom are still hanging around to this day.  As, obviously, is Elton and I was very pleased I got to see him live before he gave up touring - and "Sorry Seems To Be The Hardest Word" was pleasingly one of the tracks I got to hear him play.

09/01/77 - Certainly something
23/01/77 - Delivers what's expected of it

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