We're no strangers to love - you know the rules and so do I

Continuing my trip back through the 1988 album charts.

14/02/88 : Whenever You Need Somebody - Rick Astley

Our second visit with Rick this year and this is the one that really blew up for him - unsurprisingly, it's one I've never dared venture too closely to, although even I can't deny the quality of "Never Gonna Give You Up".

Which is, of course, where the album starts - and despite having heard the track loads (mostly thanks to this) it was interesting to actually listen to it for a change. Because it's a very decent track and Rick plays his part well, but the SAW production tries REALLY hard to absolutely ruin it for you - it's just far too busy on the drum machines and keyboards. The same is true to a similar extent for most of the rest of the album - the other tracks aren't quite the same level, but they're still pretty decent and Rick does his best to counteract everyone else's involvement. And then, right at the end, there's a stripped back version of "When I Fall In Love" which really allows Rick to just open up and wow us - I've absolutely no idea why they only allowed him one chance to do so on the album. It's not a dreadful album, but it just feels like it could have been a helluva lot better.

We're at #6 in the charts this week on his thirteenth week of a 34 week run, with it peaking at #1 in its debut week. The top five this week were Terence Trent D'Arby, T'Pau, The Christians, Wet Wet Wet and Johnny Hates Jazz with the highest new entry being The Stranglers (#12) with a live album. 

Wikpedia tells us it's his debut album and gives us remarkably little else. His entry does absolutely nothing to dispel the notion that he's a decent if not exactly thrilling guy, telling us his "personal interests include building sheds and traveling via car". I also checked out the entry on rickrolling and learned it originated on 4chan as duckrolling, whereby users were redirected to an image of a duck with wheels - but this changed to linking to Rick in '07 when everyone was trying to view the trailer for Grand Theft Auto IV. Obviously! It hasn't done Rick's career any harm but he's tried not to cash in on it too much. Back to the album, the critical reviews were generally pretty good (9/10 from Smash Hits!), but Robert Christgau was very scathing indeed (D-). Commercially, no-one cared what Bob thought with it getting to the top three in a load of countries including #1 in Australia, Germany and Spain and a very decent #10 in the US.

discogs.com tells us that you can pick up a decent copy for £1.50 but there's a version up there for £125.25 with absolutely no explanation as to why it might be that much, so I'm somewhat confused. I imagine this holds happy memories for plenty but for me it's more of a case of being a stark reminder of the horrors inflicted on us by SAW - but this isn't anywhere close to being the worst thing they did and I'm glad that Rick emerged from the experience mostly unscathed.

07/02/88 - Fine if it's what you're after
21/02/88 - A most peculiar album