I got something to tell you - I got something to say

Continuing my trip back through the 1986 album charts

15/06/86 : Love Zone - Billy Ocean


Billy and others of his ilk were everywhere around this time - it was never really my kind of thing, but I didn't think there was anything to hate about it, so I'll be interested to see what I think of a whole album.

Yeah, it is indeed not really my kind of thing but I thought this was a pretty decent collection of tracks. It opens with "When The Going Gets Tough, The Tough Get Going" which is always enjoyable and I'd forgotten about "There'll Be Sad Songs (To Make You Cry)" which is also a fine track - he doesn't go for short song titles does he? The rest of it was similar - not exactly memorable on first listen, but it slid past me nicely and I can see plenty of people would love it. All in all, it was a pretty enjoyable experience.

We're at #11 in the charts this week on his sixth week of an impressive 25 week run, with it having spent its first two weeks at #2 (kept off the top by the Roxy Music collection, which feels harsh).  The top five this week were Genesis (a new entry), Queen, Peter Gabriel, Simply Red and Dire Straits which is a very middle-aged, white, male collection of artists for you (yes, Mick Hucknall was younger but he was actually born middle-aged) and the next highest new entry was Doctor And The Medics (#25) and what a curious group they were (and apparently they're still playing live).

Wikipedia tells us this is his sixth album (his first came out in '76) and his most successful. The critics were nice about it with it getting a Grammy nomination and it did surprisingly well globally, making the top ten in quite a few countries, including #6 in the US. I also have to say that if you haven't seen any pictures of Billy recently then check him out - the man is even more of a dude these days and looking very good for 74.

"Customers also listened to" Luther Vandross, Tina Turner, Whitney Houston and Wham! - and I've no idea what Wham! are doing in that list. I won't be searching this out again, but it was nice to be reminded of the singles and I didn't mind any of the rest of it.

08/06/86 - Nice enough
22/06/86 - An enjoyable first listen

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