I hear a lot of stories, I suppose they could be true

Continuing my trip back through the 1986 album charts

26/01/86 : Feargal Sharkey - Feargal Sharkey


Ah, here's a man who's surprisingly famous these days for suggesting that maybe dumping a load of shit into our rivers isn't the best idea ever - I'd kinda forgotten he was a big thing for other reasons for a short while back then. I remember that "A Good Heart" is written by someone you wouldn't expect, but I don't think I ever listened to the album - I'm guessing it will be pretty passable, but not exactly memorable.

Yeah - I think "passable but not exactly memorable" pretty much covers it. His voice is maybe a bit too much (he's definitely channelling Mick Hucknall in places) and the music is a bit cheesy, but it's not hateful. "A Good Heart" is an obviously highlight - the rest of it isn't doing anyone any harm, but I'm not sure how many people would have loved this album.

We're at #12 in the charts this week on his 11th week of a 19 week run, with this being as high as it got (also in its debut and 12th weeks). The top five this week were Dire Straits, A-ha, Barbra Streisand, Level 42 and Sting and the highest new entry was the Rocky IV soundtrack (#48) which went on to much better things.

Wikipedia tells us its his debut solo offering and "significantly different to the post-punk offerings of The Undertones" - and they ain't lying there! The album was produced by Dave Stewart from Eurythmics (or David A. Stewart as he's officially known) and they got quite a few writers in to help out - Maria McKee (who did "A Good Heart"), Chrissie Hynde and Bobby Womack, amongst others. The critics were a bit "meh" on the whole thing, but it did considerably better commercially than I was expecting, making the top twenty in Australia, Canada, New Zealand and Switzerland and a pretty decent #75 in the US. 

"Customers also listened to" Joe Fagin, Blondie, The Eurogliders and The Bluebells - which is a most peculiar mix. And this is quite a peculiar album - you can't help but feel that "A Good Heart" came first and they kinda scrabbled around to find the rest to make it worthwhile.

19/01/86 - A good example of that sort of thing
02/02/86 - A pretty decent album

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