La-la-la la-di-da

Continuing my trip back through the 1971 album charts.

18/07/71 : Symphonies For The Seventies - Waldo De Los Rios

Yes, there's an argument this should be ignored because it's an album of "covers" but it's just too intriguing to pass by...

Well, it sounded intriguing in theory because it's modern reworkings of classical music - but in practice, it was really pretty close to musical wallpaper. But it was pretty well done musical wallpaper which at least had a bit of oomph to it, so it left more of an impression than it might otherwise have done. I'm also intrigued because I didn't know any of the tracks - I suspect I'd either have been more or less impressed with it if I had known them, but we'll never know which.

We're at #11 in the charts this week on his thirteenth week of a fourteen week run with it having peaked at #6 in its second, third, fourth and sixth weeks - how very peculiar! The top five this week were Simon & Garfunkel, Paul & Linda McCartney, The Rolling Stones, Motown Chartbusters Vol 5 and Emerson, Lake & Palmer with the highest new entry being yet another Elvis Presley compilation (#6).

Wikipedia doesn't have an entry for the album but it has plenty on the man himself. He's best know for his "pop" renditions of European classical music with his version of Mozart's Symphony No 40 getting to #5 here and #1 in The Netherlands earlier this year - tracks of his were also used as the theme tunes to the BBC's Horse Of The Year Show and Brain Of Britain but he's undoubtedly best known because his "version of Schubert's Unfinished Symphony No. 8 was used extensively in the series The Smurfs as the background music for Gargamel, the series' lead villain". He also wrote film soundtracks for several films in the 70s, but unfortunately suffered from depression and died by suicide in '76.

discogs.com tells us there's really no fondness for this these days because you can pick up a version for a couple of quid, but the most you can spend on it is £11. Which I can understand, because there's really remarkably little of interest to it but it was an intriguing enough visit which filled in some gaps in my knowledge - which definitely didn't need filling, but hey!

25/07/71 - Doesn't really hang together

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