May be right or may be wrong - but I gotta do something before the day is gone

Continuing my trip back through the 1971 album charts.

31/01/71 : Watt - Ten Years After

Another band I've never heard of - and I'm completely unable to guess what they're like from the band name. Wikipedia tells me they're an English blues rock group who had eight consecutive top 40 albums between '68 and '73, so I feel I should know something about them - so let's remedy that.

You know what - this is OK! It's (for the most part) just "normal" songs with a bit of oomph to them, which is something that's been incredibly lacking this year amidst all the prog weirdness and singer/songwriter wishy-washyness, so it was a nice change (except for their live cover of Chuck Berry's "Sweet Little Sixteen" which is a) unnecessary and b) not at all good). Don't get me wrong, it was never going to change the world (which is obviously the case for me given my complete ignorance of them) but it's a decent sound and played competently - and if I just fancied a good time, I'm pretty certain I'd take a Ten Years After gig over an ELP "experience" every time.

We're at #15 in the charts this week on their fifth week of a nine week run, with it having peaked at #5 in its third week - all of which seems pretty well done by the lads. The top five this week were George Harrison (starting an eight week run at the top, which seems very generous of people), Simon & Garfunkel, Andy Williams, Led Zeppelin and Motown Chartbusters Vol 4 with the highest new entry being a compilation called Easy Listening (#17) - which certainly seems to be something I can do without in my life.

Wikipedia tells us this is their fifth album - and that's all it has to say on the matter. Looking at their entry to expand my knowledge, the core of the group got together in '60, but only became Ten Years After in '66 (so named because it was ten years after Elvis rose to fame in '56). There's a whole load of unnecessary detail in there, but one thing tickled me - their '70 hit "Love Like A Man" was the first single to feature different playing speeds on each side with a 45rpm three minute radio edit on the A side and a 33rpm eight minute live version on the B side. The band are still going, but with just the one founding member and three guys who joined in '25 - it's only their third main iteration though, so that's a pretty decent level of stability. 

Back to the album, the critical reception was a bit "it's fine but not as good as the previous one" (which we're very likely to meet in '70) but it did way better commercially in Europe than I was expecting, getting to #9 in Germany, #8 in Italy and Norway, #7 in Denmark and Finland and a heady #2 in The Netherlands - it also got to #21 in the US (it sounds like the sort of thing that would have gone down well over there).

discogs.com tells us you'll have to spend six quid to get hold of a decent version of this, but if you want a version with a poster that's still shrink-wrapped (how is this even possible after 56 years?) then it will set you back £98.19. I really quite enjoyed this - it was like a British version of Creedence Clearwater Revival, which isn't a sound we've heard much from this year, so a bit of variety was nice.

07/02/71 - Just a bit odd really