Who's that lady coming down the road?

Continuing my trip back through the 1988 album charts.

13/03/88 : Tear Down These Walls - Billy Ocean


Our second visit with Billy Ocean and although it's not really my sort of thing, I've always had a lot more time for Billy than I have for Luther or Alexander mostly because he's British(ish, at least) and he's always seemed like a bit of a dude (and still does - the man has grown old very gracefully).

Yeah, it's really not my sort of thing, particularly the slower numbers - but I can see he's just giving the fans what they wanted. But he's got a lovely voice (him and Luther definitely shade Alexander in my expert opinion) and you can't fault "Get Outta My Dreams, Get In To My Car" now, can you? It does all feel a bit dated but this is mostly because, whilst I assume people are still making music like this, I can't for the life of me think of anyone who is. None of it was hateful, but there's no danger of me revisiting it. 

We're at a surprisingly high #3 in the charts this week with a new entry on the start of a thirteen week run, with this being as high as it got - one of four top five albums he's had, but he's never made it to #1. The rest of the top five were Terence Trent D'Arby, OMD, Rick Astley and a compilation called Unforgettable which is a load of 50s and 60s numbers and the next highest new entry was a The Who best-of (#10).

Wikipedia tells us this is his seventh album, the title is (quite obviously) a reference to Ronald Reagan's "tear down this wall" speech and it features a whole load of backing singers - none of whom I'd ever heard of before, but several have got Wikipedia entries so I guess they're pretty well known in those circles. Critically, it was received well enough with some hints of "it's not as good as his previous album" but commercially it did pretty well globally, making the top twenty in quite a few countries, including #18 in the US which feels like a decent effort for a British R&B artist - this was probably driven by "Get Outta My Dreams..." which got to #1 over there (and was somewhat surprisingly his third US #1).

It doesn't feel like the sort of album that record collectors would be dying to get hold of and discogs.com confirms this by telling you can pick up a decent version for £1.50 and you can't spend any more that £15 - and there's no obvious difference between the two. I suspect this brings back fond memories for many - I can't say it quite struck me that way but it was all perfectly bearable.

06/03/88 - Not for everyone, but I liked it
20/03/88 - Yeah, I enjoyed this

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