No I don't know where I'm going, but I sure know where I've been

Continuing my trip back through the 1988 album charts.

10/01/88 : Whitesnake - Whitesnake


1988 has been a surprisingly heavy(ish in places) year and brings us our first ever visit with Whitesnake - who are not a band I know well, but I know enough that I'm certainly not expecting to like it.

Yeah. For me, this is to music what WWE is to sport in that I can see that there is skill involved and people find it entertaining but they know it's just acting right? - it's not real, is it? I knew "Here I Go Again" but I'd forgotten it was by this lot - there were quite a few US rock groups in this era coming out with power ballads which blew up big time so it really could have been any of them. "Straight From The Heart" did make me laugh though because it steals the "in-say-yay-ane" from "Let's Do The Time Warp". Overall though, it's safe to say I will not be revisiting this.

We're all the way down at #23 in the charts this week on their 41st week of a 58 week run (which surprised me) with it having peaked at #8 in its debut week (all the way back in April '87). The top five this week were Wet Wet Wet, Michael Jackson, Rick Astley, Terence Trent D'Arby and Pet Shop Boys with the highest new entry being Cher (#63). 

Wikipedia has waaaaay more on the album than I was expecting (289 milliPeppers) and it tells us it's their seventh album (I had no idea they formed way back in '78) and reflects a change in sound and image to a new glam metal sound, a new logo and a whole new band line-up. The whole release also seems very confused with the album being called Whitesnake, 1987 and Serpens Albus in different parts of the world - with no obvious explanation being offered as to why. But it all came together nicely for most reviewers (except Robert Christgau, who was not a fan) and commercially, it did very well globally. It didn't make #1 anywhere, but got to #2 in the similarly sized markets of New Zealand and the US, selling TEN million copies in the US and TWENTY FIVE million copies globally. Seriously?!?

discogs.com tells us you can pick up a decent version for £2.50 but if you want a promotional Japanese copy you're going to have to spend - wait for it, £1,146.47. WHAT?!? I think I can just about avoid the temptation, but that makes this the most expensive album of the year (and I think it's unlikely to be beaten now). I can see this is a bit of fun if you need some air guitar in your life (and we all do at times) but a whole album of it is far more fun than I feel the need for, I'm afraid.

03/01/88 - Just too Erasure-y
17/01/88 - Well done but it didn't grab me

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