If there's music we can use it - we need to dance

Continuing my trip back through the 1986 album charts

12/10/86 : Word Up! - Cameo

This will be an interesting one because I love the title track with it bringing back memories of the (incredibly unimpressive) student bar at Bath Uni, but I have concerns the rest of the album may be dreadful. Here's hoping, eh?

And, obviously, the title track is up first which doesn't exactly allay my fears. And well - hmm, what to say about the rest of it? It's not dreadful, but it's surprisingly dated in a 70s soul/disco kinda style which wasn't at all what I was expecting. I think bemusement was my biggest reaction - who exactly wanted or needed this in their lives in '86? Most peculiar indeed - and who would have guessed that from the album cover?

We're at #7 in the charts with a new entry this week on the start of a staggering 24 week run - and it came back for another ten weeks a couple of months later. The top five this week were Paul Simon, A-ha (a new entry), Five Star, Madonna and a South Pacific soundtrack featuring Kiri Te Kanawa and Jose Carreras, which is something I felt very comfortable ignoring. And the next highest new entry was a compilation album which was imaginatively titled The Chart (#13).

Wikipedia goes part of the way to explaining their dated sound because they formed in '74 and this was their thirteenth album. They got to seventeen in the end, with the last one being released in 2000, but they did a year's residence in Vegas in '16 and released a single in '19 (which was ignored) - I certainly never knew they had been around so long. And that's pretty much all the album entry says apart from telling me it was "their highest level of popularity" (which I quite believe) and it "solidified them as one of the most successful bands of the 1980s" (which I don't). The critics were very nice about it (it was #5 in NME's Albums Of The Year list) and it did OK enough globally, but best here and in the US, where it got to #8.

"Customers also listened to" The Gap Band (oh yes, I can totally see that), Zapp & Roger (huh?), Rick James and The Time. I think it's fair to say that, despite me liking the title track, this album is very much not aimed at me - but I am pleased for them that they had their moment in the spotlight.

05/10/86 - Exactly what you'd expect
19/10/86 - An enjoyable revisit