There's a certain melody takes me back to the place that I know

Continuing my trip back through the 1986 album charts

27/04/86 : On The Beach - Chris Rea


I know the title track and I see no reason not to expect the rest of it to be similar - perfectly pleasant but not something I actually need in my life.

Actually, that's a bit harsh - it's certainly not essential or the most memorable album I've ever experienced, but it's nicely toe-tappy with a lovely clean sound to it. Chris also sounds pretty happy, which isn't necessary the first emotion that springs to mind when you think of the man. I'm not sure I needed nearly an hour of it though.

We're at #13 in the charts this week on his second week of a surprisingly decent 24 week run with it peaking at #11 in its debut week. It then went away for eight months and came back for a surprisingly decent thirteen week run - and it then went away for eleven months before coming back for a surprisingly decent ten week run. And it also popped back for a single week in '94 - very odd behaviour! The top five this week were Bryan Ferry/Roxy Music, Hits 4, Whitney Houston, Dire Straits and A-ha, with the highest new entry being Anita Baker, all the way down at #53. I'm also going to mention Suzanne Vega's eponymous debut at #16 because this is the closest we're going to get to listening to it and it's a very fine album indeed.

Wikipedia tells us it's his eighth album and also notes that he sounds pretty happy on it. It also gives us a HILARIOUS tale about the track "Giverny" - Chris went there to visit Monet's house, but (and you're not going to believe this) he didn't really want to! Keep 'em coming, Mr Rea! The critics were nice enough about it, but commercially it did considerably better than I was expecting, getting to #4 in New Zealand, #2 in Germany and #1 in The Netherlands.

"Customers also listened to" Dire Straits, Chris de Burgh, Slade and Mel & Kim. Well, that list went places I really wasn't expecting it - what on earth is going on there? I really didn't mind this at all, but I also have to say I don't really remember any of it - I suspect it would stick in there with multiple listens but there's absolutely no danger that happening.

20/04/86 - Pretty much what you'd expect
04/05/86 - Slightly underwhelming bleeps

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