The drink that I had, three hours ago, has been joined by fourteen others in a steady flow

Continuing my trip back through the 1988 album charts.

18/09/88 : Sunshine On Leith - The Proclaimers


Well this is a very pleasant surprise! I have listened to it before, but not in many a long year so it will be lovely to catch up with the boys.

Yeah, this is pretty decent. It's a set of heartfelt songs performed well with some lovely harmonies and more variety across the album than you might expect. "I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)" and "I'm On My Way" are probably the best known tracks, but there's a good argument that the title track is the gem here because of its absolutely gorgeous lyrics - "your beauty and kindness, made tears clear my blindness" and "while the Chief puts sunshine on Leith, I'll thank Him for His work and your birth, and my birth". It's just lovely!

We're at #6 in the charts with a new entry this week on the start of a very decent 27 week run - I suspect "I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)" might well have helped with that. The top five this week were the Hot City Nights compilation, Kylie, Rap Trax, Michael Jackson and Tracy Chapman and the next highest new entry was the Buster soundtrack (#7). 

Wikipedia has more than I was expecting (120 milliPeppers) on the album and it tells us it's their second album and it "marked a departure from the minimalist acoustics of the group's 1987 debut" but most of the entry is about three of the tracks. "I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)" got to #1 in Australia, New Zealand and Iceland (and even #3 in the US in '93 - more on this later) and then got to #1 here as a Comic Relief single with Peter Kay. The title track is well loved, particularly by supporters of Hibernian FC who have adopted it as an anthem - it's also the title track of the Proclaimers musical which was later made into a film, which is considerably better than you might imagine. And finally, "Cap In Hand" was also adopted as an anthem by the Scottish independence movement and got to #6 in the Scottish charts, despite not being released as a single. 

Critically, the album was well received with AllMusic declaring it “a wonderfully guileless treasure of an album”, which seems like a lovely thing to say. Commercially it did very well, particularly in Australia where it got to #2, kicking off "Proclaimermania" down there - I bet loads of pairs of big glasses were sold. It didn't chart in the US on initial release but "I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)" was used on the soundtrack to Benny & Joon (which was when it got to #3) and this resulted in the album charting at #31. Globally, it's sold over two million copies - I imagine the Reid brothers NEVER imagined that was going to happen!

discogs.com tells us that you can pick up a decent copy for £2 but you need to drop £75 if you want the, wait for it, limited edition Record Store Day double album reissue on black, white and green marble vinyl - I have to admit that sounds pretty damn cool. And this is a pretty cool album - I enjoyed revisiting it.

11/09/88 - Just boring
25/09/88 - Fine, I guess

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