When we hear the voices sing, the book of love will open up and let us in

Continuing my trip back through the 1986 album charts

06/04/86 : Welcome To The Real World - Mr. Mister


I know I know one Mr. Mister track and it's fine, but a bit bland - so bland I can't remember what it's called. I bet it's on here though, because I struggle to imagine they've had too many charting albums over here (and I bet they've had a load more in the US).

Well, well - I take it all back! I actually knew two tracks which are "Broken Wings" and "Kyrie" - both of which are very much better than fine and somewhat surprisingly appear towards the back end of the album. I also have to take back the bland comment because that's too harsh - it's more like it's all just a bit too try-hard in a US soft rawk kinda way. You can imagine any of the tracks being used in a cheesy slo-mo montage - which in some ways is a compliment because that's obviously the sound they've gone for and I have to admit they've hit the spot. So if that's what you're info, then you're in for a treat here - but, for me, a whole album of it is waaay too much and it all sounds very dated now. I'm also very unsure about the album cover.

We're at #7 in the chart this week on their ninth week of a surprisingly long 24 week run, with #6 being as high as it got, in the previous two weeks. The top five this week were Hits 4, Dire Straits, Pet Shop Boys, Prince (a new entry) and Whitney Houston with the next highest new entry being Culture Club (#10).

Wikipedia has remarkably little on the album - it's their second album (out of four, but only two charted both here and in the US) and both "Kyrie" and "Broken Wings" got to #1 in the US. The critics were very keen on it - Classic Rock said it was "a brilliant synthesis of AOR and new wave" and I was amazed to see that Kerrang! gave it five stars. Commercially it also did very well, making the top ten in quite a few places across Europe and #1 in the US.

"Customers also listened to" Cutting Crew (I bet you didn't know they were still going!), Starship, Mike + The Mechanics and Toto - yup, definitely similar sounds there. I enjoyed the singles here - I didn't feel the need for the whole album, but I can see that plenty who go for that US 80s sounds would be mighty pleased with it.

30/03/86 - Better than I was expecting
13/04/86 - Not his best, but not his worst

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