Nine and nine make fourteen, four and four make nine

Starting my trip back through the 1959 album charts.

27/12/59 : Cliff Sings - Cliff Richard


Oh good - it's our fourth visit with Cliff! Having said that, I'm pretty pleased we're not starting the year with Elvis or Frank, so I'm happy to see what kind of mediocrity this delivers.

Yeah, it's pretty mediocre - although it's interesting because he can't seem to decide if he wants to be rock and roll Elvis ("Blue Suede Shoes") or crooning Frank ("As Time Goes By"). And so, of course, he ends up being neither - it's just all somewhat antiseptic averageness. Not horrible, but also not in the slightest bit noteworthy.

We're at #2 in the charts this week on his eighth week of an eighteen week run - all but three of which were spent at #2, with the other three spent at #3. He then went away for a couple of weeks and came back for a further seventeen week run, none of which were spent higher than #3. The rest of the top five were the South Pacific soundtrack, Russ Conway, Peter Sellers and the Gigi soundtrack (which is quite the mix) - there were no new entries or any albums with named female artists in the entire chart (all ten entries), although the Gigi and My Fair Lady soundtracks do at least feature women. We should also get something out of the way now - I'm going to be typing "The rest of the top five were the South Pacific soundtrack" a lot this year because that album was #1 ALL YEAR!

Wikipedia tells us this is his second album but first studio album and features him being backed by The Shadows (when he wants to be Elvis) or the Norrie Paramor Orchestra (when he wants to be Frank). And that's absolutely everything it has to say on the matter - there's no word on critical or commercial performance.

"Customers also listened to" other albums by Cliff and/or The Shadows - rather them than me. There's nothing wrong with this, but there's also remarkably little right with it.

20/12/59 - I can only assume the film is better
2003 (blog timeline) - Another one down!

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