Two hundred degrees, that's why they call me Mr Fahrenheit

Completing my trip back through the 1979 album charts.

07/01/79 : Jazz - Queen


It's so hard to say how many visits we've had with Queen so far - this is our third proper album, but we've also had one live album (without Freddie), one greatest hits (which is totally deserved) and three singles! I'm gonna say it's out fifth visit, but I've also heard it's not their best, so I'm not exactly looking forward to it.

Meh - it's fine. It's got "Don't Stop Me Now" which is a great track and "Bicycle Race" and "Fat Bottomed Girls" which are fun enough I guess, but they're also a bit of a mess - and the rest of the album is more "bit of a mess" than "fun enough". None of it's dreadful, but it doesn't really stick in there - just a bit of a nothing end to the year

We're at #19 in the charts this week on their eighth week of a 27 week run, with it having peaked at #2 in its second week - somewhat strangely it also came back for a week in '18 (looks like a 40th anniversary release) and '19 (the not quite 41st anniversary release?!?). The top five this week were the Showaddywaddy best-of (seriously?), a compilation called Midnight Hustle (which is mostly disco, but also includes Status Quo, 10CC, Ian Dury and Blondie), Don't Walk - Boogie, Grease and The Carpenters best-of - all of which would count as compilation albums these days. The Showaddywaddy (which is a nightmare to type) one is quite interesting because it only covers '76 to '78 but still manages to have seven top five singles on it, so that gives you an idea how popular they were. 

Wikipedia tells us it's their seventh album and it was recorded in France to allow the band to avoid some large tax bills had they been in the UK. There's also a song-by-song breakdown which includes the most random facts - most of which you can safely ignore. It also reminded me that the album included a poster of a load of naked women on bicycles - apparently there was a "race" at Wimbledon Stadium in which all the participants just happened to be models (who didn't know it was a nude shoot until they were told to strip). Interestingly, the critics were mostly very negative about the album at the time but as the years have gone by, general opinion has improved and it's now (apparently) considered to be one of their better albums. Commercially, it never really matters what anyone thinks of Queen albums because they do well and that was true here, with it making the top ten in most places, including #6 in the US.

discogs.com tells us that to get a decent version you're going to have to hand over a fiver but a Japanese promo copy is going to set you back £379.81! I didn't hate this and I guess there is a reasonable amount of variety across the album, but I don't remember any of it that hadn't already heard before.

And with that, 1979 is done - except for the obligatory write-up, of course!

1979 - Better than expected
14/01/79 - Not bad at all

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