We've been trying for a long time to say what we want to say

Continuing my trip back through the 1988 album charts.

11/12/88 : Hold Me In Your Arms - Rick Astley


Our second SAW album of the year, but I think Rick always got a bit of a pass on that front because he obviously possessed some talent - I've never heard any of his albums though so I'm intrigued as to what we've got here.

Yeah well, it's a Rick Astley sound, which I guess I should have expected - I was surprised I didn't recognise any of the tracks though. None of it hits the heights of "Never Gonna Give You Up", but none of it is dreadful (and the production is definitely better than we saw on Kylie's album) - I feel it's a case of adequate material being elevated by his voice. And that's all I have to say about it really.

We're at #9 in the charts this week on his second week of a 19 week run with it having peaked at #8 in its debut week - not a bad effort, but not quite the 34 weeks his debut album managed. The top five this week were Now! 13, Cliff Richard, Kylie, Andrew Lloyd-Webber and Dire Straits with the highest new entry being Guns'N'Roses (#32). 

Wikipedia tells us this is his second album and his last SAW album, with him writing half the songs here and deciding he could go off on his own - which he did, but without quite the same degree of success. But quite possibly a greater degree of happiness, because when I saw him at Glastonbury two years ago he was having an absolute blast on the Pyramid Stage covering AC/DC and Harry Styles (as well as singing some of his stuff) and then blowing the roof off the Greenfields tent covering The Smiths tracks with Blossoms. Back to this album, the critics either thought it was an improvement or it was exactly the same - and everyone was pretty happy with that. Commercially, it did pretty well but you'll never guess where it did best - yes, it got to #3 in the obvious pairing of Canada and Germany and it also got to #19 in the US. It also, for no obvious reason, got to #180 in Belgium in '23.

discogs.com tells us you can pick up a decent copy for £1.50 but if you want the deluxe reissue edition it's going to set you back £55 - which is a lot more than I was expecting. This is a perfectly fine album but I doubt that too many people have too much affection for it - and I'm afraid I already barely remember any of it. 

04/12/88 - Much better than expected
18/12/88 - An enjoyable revisit

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