But making mistakes is a part of life's imperfections

Continuing my trip back through the 1986 album charts

08/06/86 : World Machine - Level 42

I never minded a bit of Level 42, but also never felt the need to subject myself to a full album of them - I always thought it would be a bit too much. And having now being separated from that time by many, many years, my opinion has not changed in the slightest - so let's see how it all goes. My lovely wife, on the other hand, loved them - so this is the fourth one we've owned.

Hmmm - I think it's probably a bit too much, but only a bit. Taken on a track-by-track basis, there was nothing wrong with it and it resulted in some funky toe-tapping - I've always particularly liked "Something About You" and I'd not heard it in years, so it was good to catch up. But by the end of the album, I was zoning out somewhat - but there was certainly nothing hateful there and it wasn't quite as bass-obsessed as I feared. Mark King's voice is quite interesting because he's not a great singer but, at the same time, it seems to just fit nicely - I'd say it was nice to catch up with them, but that's enough for me for the time being.

We're at #10 in the charts this week on their 34th week of an impressive 52 week run, with #3 being as high as it got - it also spent another 20 weeks in the chart in '87. The top five this week were Queen (a new entry), Peter Gabriel, Simply Red, Dire Straits and a Bryan Ferry/Roxy Music best-of (which I own and is a pretty decent collection) with the next highest new entry being a somewhat unexpected Emerson, Lake and Powell (#35).

Wikipedia tells us it's their sixth album (their first only came out in '81) and it "marked a transition from their jazz-funk beginnings to the funky pop they are best known for". The information you're probably most interested in though is that the cover photo is of Hafnarfjall, a mountain in west Iceland - I'm glad to clear that up for you. The critics were nice enough about it and it did surprisingly well in the US, getting to #18 - also surprisingly, it only got anywhere else in Canada.

"Customers also listened to" Johnny Hates Jazz, Howard Jones, ABC and Wang Chung - man, I'd completely forgotten about them!  And I can't claim that Level 42 have occupied a huge amount of my brain power since the late 80s but this was a nice enough trip back, but mostly for the first time down memory lane. I'd also have to say that 1986 is on an interesting run here - much improved over the first part of the year.

01/06/86 - A game of two halves
15/06/86 - A quite enjoyable not-my-kind-of-thing