Now I'm playin' it real straight and yes, I cut my hair

Continuing my trip back through the 1986 album charts

14/12/86 : Fore! - Huey Lewis And The News

I never really saw the point to Huey and his News - I didn't hate them but they just felt dated even back in the dim and distant 80s and I didn't understand who was supposed to (or, in fact, did) actually like them. And I struggle to imagine that a gap of 38 years is going to improve matters in the slightest.

And, for the most part, that's pretty much where we were - it's all very well put together but I still don't see who was crying out for this. I have to admit that I enjoyed "Stuck With You", but "Hip To Be Square" is just cringe. And that's all I've got to say really - if you played this to kids today they'd be like "Woah, grandad - wtf is this?".

We've sunk further down the chart to #10 this week on their fourteenth week of an incredible forty week run, with it having peaked at #8 in its second week. The top five were Now 8, HIts 5, a Kate Bush best-of, Paul Simon and a Police best-of and the highest new entry was a Soft Cell best-of (#78) - a perfect Xmas present for someone, I'm sure.

Wikipedia tells us this is their fourth album and gives us some most peculiar facts about the album. The wall on the album cover is at Tamalpais High School in Mill Valley, California which is, quite obviously, where some of the band went to school. Also, the album is referenced in the film of American Psycho where Patrick Bateman reviews it for one of his potential victims (he liked it). The critics, however, weren't so keen but it did well commercially, getting to #1 in the US, Canada, New Zealand and, bizarrely, Japan (nothing gets to #1 in Japan).

"Customers also listened to" Mr Mister, Starship, Peter Cetera and Rick Springfield - some fine names I'd completely forgotten about there! I hadn't completely forgotten about Huey Lewis but listening to this went no way towards explaining how he was ever as popular as he was.

21/12/86 - A mostly forgotten group
07/12/86 - VERY 80s!

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