Fortunately you have got someone who relies on you

Continuing my trip back through the 1988 album charts.

10/04/88 : Introducing The Hardline According To... - Terence Trent D'arby


Our first visit with Terence (and, in all likelihood, our last) and it's one I don't believe I've ever listened to - and I'm expecting to like it, so quite why I've avoided it is unclear. It's even more surprising because apparently "we" own it, taking us to nine for year.

I liked "Wishing Well", "Dance Little Sister" but "Sign Your Name" is easily the class track on the album - anyone would be proud of that, wouldn't they? The whole album is beautifully produced with a lovely crisp sound to it - but I did solve the mystery as to why I avoided it and it's that I just don't love his voice. I admit he does what he does with it very well ("As Yet Untitled" is very impressive multi-track a capella number), but a whole album of it kinda grates on me. I also liked "Who's Lovin' You" and knew it was a cover but had to check the internet to remind me it was a Smokey Robinson track, probably best known from the Jackson 5 version - and you can have ten points if you can remember who sang it at Michael Jackson's memorial service. Actually, make that twenty points - it's a tricky one!

We're at #8 in the charts this week on his 39th week of a lengthy 65 week run, with it having peaked at #1 in its debut week and, somewhat surprisingly, its 28th-35th weeks - "Sign Your Name" was probably responsible, but it still seems a somewhat unlikely extended late run at the top. The top five this week were Now! 11 (finishing up a three week run at the top), Bros, OMD, Wet Wet Wet and Fleetwood Mac (about to start an eleven week run in the top 5) and the highest new entry was Martin Stephenson & The Daintees (#39). 

Wikipedia tells us this is his debut album and it did well - and that's pretty much your lot. Looking at his entry, I was surprised to learn he's four years older than me and I'm reminded he's now known as Sananda Maitreya because apparently "Terence Trent D'Arby was dead... he watched his suffering as he died a noble death" - awww, poor Terence. I also learned he had a year long affair with Paula Yates, who also had a SIX year affair with the notoriously gay Rupert Everett - apparently it was his "heterosexual experiment"! Back to the album, the critical reviews at the time were pretty middling but success has changed everyone's view - "central to that decade...it remains one big, infectiously glorious record". And there really was a lot of success - #1 in Australia and Switzerland and #4 in the US, selling over eight million copies globally. 

discogs.com tells us you can pick up a decent version for a quid but if you want a Japanese import (complete with obi) then you're going to have to fork out £48.82. I'd say this is a good album and I can quite understand why people love it, but it just didn't hit the mark for me because of his voice. 

And you get twenty points if you remember Shaheen Jafargholi sung "Who's Lovin' You" at Michael Jackson's memorial - he was a BGT graduate who was a mere twelve years old at the time.

03/04/88 - Not as heavy as I was expecting
17/04/88 - An enjoyable memory jog

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