It's not the way you lead me by the hand into the bedroom

Completing my trip back through the 1988 album charts.

03/01/88 : The Circus - Erasure


Only a couple of weeks after our first visit with the boys, we come to our second visit - I suspect "more of the same" is likely to be the overriding theme here.

Yeah, if anything this is more Erasurish than our previous visit, with "Victim Of Love" and "Sometimes" (which I quite like) being peak Erasure for me. And the rest of the album sounds very similar - last time, I was pleasantly surprised by the variety across the album but unfortunately, that's not the case here and so it all got a bit too much for me. It does sound a bit harsh to complain that an Erasure album sounds like Erasure though - maybe I just wasn't in the required mood for it today.

We're all the way down at #24 in the charts this week on their 40th week on an impressive 73 week run, with it having peaked at #6 in its debut week - it's actually had ten separate runs in the charts totalling 107 weeks, but hasn't been seen since '90. The top five this week were Now! 10 (the fourth Now! album we've seen this year), Rick Astley, Michael Jackson, Hits 7 and T'Pau and the highest new entry was Joyce Sims (#69).

Wikipedia tells us this is their second album and was their commercial breakthrough - and that's about it. The only thing of interest is that the CD version included some bonus tracks which weren't on the version I listened to and one of them was Edvard Grieg's "In The Hall Of The Mountain King" which I was very intrigued by so had to track it down - and it's very odd indeed. Critically, the reviews were very middle-of-the-road but it did pretty well globally, even getting to #1 in - go on, guess. Yup, Brazil (obviously) but it only got to #190 in the US.

discogs.com tells us you'll have to spend three quid to get a decent version but if you want the reissued, remastered compilation version which includes two CDs and a DVD then you're going to have to shell out £120 - which is possibly more than I'd pay.  I'm not sure why, but I just didn't tolerate this in the way I managed with their previous offering. And with that, another year is ticked off!

1988 - Another one down!

10/07/88 - Far more fun than I feel the need for

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

I'm not wishing I was back in the USA, coz I come from Morecambe and the skies are grey

Image
Continuing my trip forward in time through the album charts 15/11/24 : Earth To Grace - Massive Wagons I will listen to the new entry at #1, but there's absolutely NO WAY I'm writing a whole entry on it - so instead we have this which I know absolutely nothing about. But it has to be better than the abomination at #1. Well, it's something you don't hear too much of these days - I guess "hard rock" is probably as good a description as any. It’s not going to win any awards for musical complexity but it’s quite catchy - I was r eminded of Gary Moore in his heavier days that teenage me used to like. It also certainly doesn't take itself too seriously - "Free And Easy" tells us "I don't shoot guns, it's not healthy - I drive a Ford C-Max I got off my dad and it's filthy" and "Rabbit Hole" offers up an amusingly sceptical take on conspiracy theories and then abruptly ends "Auf wiedersehen, adios - this song fucking ...
Read more

I have never believed that we should just stick to football

Image
The latest in an occasional series of theatre reviews... Dear England : The Olivier Theatre  Well, this is different from the usual review in several ways - I wasn't on my own (because I was accompanied by the lovely Mrs Reed) and I was in the posh seats (because I was accompanied by the lovely Mrs Reed). Somewhat surprisingly, given the high football content, this was her choice - it originally ran a couple of years ago to great reviews, but has come back updated to take into account the last European Championships.  It was also a trip to a new theatre - I'd previously been to the Lyttleton Theatre at the National, but this was my first trip to the main theatre there. And very impressive it was too as we walked down to our very well positioned, comfortable and spacious seats (Mrs Reed does need her leg room).  The stage looked impressive too - but it gave very little clue as to what we were going to get.  As the lights went down, the top ring rose to display the Old...
Read more

You, me, everybody!

Image
Continuing my trip back through the 1965 album charts. 19/09/65 : The Rolling Stones No. 2 -  The Rolling Stones This is our fourteenth visit with The Stones (bringing them tied into second place with Frank) and our second this year but it's fair to say my expectations are not high - unless I'm much mistaken it will be a load of muddy sounding US blues tracks. Actually, it's a bit of a pleasant surprise because it's not massively muddy sounding and it's more R&B than just B. It opens with an enjoyable version of "Everybody Needs Somebody To Love" - I obviously knew it wasn't originally done by The Blues Brothers, but I didn't know it was originally a Solomon Burke number (in '64) and I also didn't know The Stones were one of the first acts to cover it.  It then surprises me with a cover of Chuck Berry's "You Can't Catch Me" which I'm not aware I've ever heard, but I recognised some of the lyrics because John Le...
Read more