Pray to the future, look to the past

Continuing my trip back through the 1988 album charts.

03/04/88 : Wings Of Heaven - Magnum

Our first visit with Magnum (and only their third ever mention) - I seem to recall they were very much not my sort of thing. Somewhat surprisingly, it's not available on Amazon - the internet tells me this is because of "due to licensing issues and record company decisions" (which could mean anything!).

Well, this was unexpected. I wouldn't say it's exactly my sort of thing, but it certainly doesn't go as far as being very much not my sort of thing because it's a lot less heavy than I was expecting. I'd say it's like early 80s US guitar rawk with a touch of prog thrown in for good measure - I definitely got hints of Marillion in places as well. I can't say I'll be rushing back to it and I could definitely have done without the 10:36 of "Don't Wake the Lion (Too Old To Die Young)" but I imagine they put on an enjoyably over-the-top live show.

We're at #5 in the charts this week with a new entry at the start of an eleven week run - this is their highest ever chart placement here but they've had 22 charting albums between '78 and '24 which shows impressive longevity. The rest of the top five were Now! 11, Bros (a new entry), OMD and Wet Wet Wet and the next highest new entry was The Primitives (#6) - it would have been nice to revisit this (but then I wouldn't have had the educational experience of my trip with Magnum).

Wikipedia tells us it's their seventh album and it was going to be produced by Roger Taylor (from Queen) - but it wasn't, with Albert Boekholt (who?) getting the job instead. It also gives a breakdown of all the songs with Tony Clarkin giving us his detailed thought processes - he wrote all the songs on every one of their 23 albums and when he died in '24, the band was retired. There's no word on the critical reception for this album other than a two star review from AllMusic, but it did well commercially in Europe getting to #2 in Sweden and #7 in Switzerland. It was easily their most successful album here, but their later stuff went down very well in Germany, with their last album getting to #2 in '24.

discogs.com tells us this is one of the more expensive albums to track down, with a decent version going to set you back seven quid, but you can't spent any more than £24 I'm afraid. They certainly don't strike me as the sort of band to go for fancy Japanese imports - what you see is what you get and I have to admit to not minding it, whilst not exactly going overboard about it.

27/03/88 - Not as engaging as I hoped
10/04/88 - A good album, but...