We had the right love at the wrong time

Continuing my trip back through the 1981 album charts.

04/10/81 : If I Should Love Again - Barry Manilow

Our second visit with Bazza - I'm sure this will be terrible, but bearably so.

Well, terrible would be harsh but it's not something I really need in my life. I recognised "Somewhere Down The Road" - it's a typical Bazza track and most of the rest of the album is similar schmaltzy ballads, except for "Let's Hang On" which is a weird disco-ish version of the old Four Seasons number. But yeah, it's bearable - he's just giving the fans what they want.

We're at #5 in the charts this week on his second week of a, wait for it, 26 week run, but this was as high as it got. The rest of the top five this week were The Police (a new entry on the start of a three week run at the top), Super Hits Vol 1 & 2, Genesis and Shakin' Stevens with the next highest new entry being Madness (#9).

Wikipedia tells us this is his eighth album (I think I assumed he was way beyond that point by now) and Barry tells us this is "the most romantic album that I ever made" - I can't say I got too much romance from it, but maybe that's just my old cynical soul. Looking at his entry, this was post peak-Manilow but he was still pretty big around this time - but the most interesting fact I learned is that, in the early 70s, Barry was the house pianist at the Continental Baths, a gay bathhouse in New York which often featured live music - and one of the artists that broke through the scene there was Bette Midler, which resulted in Barry producing her first two albums. Back to this one, critically AllMusic hit the nail on the head with "shamelessly well-crafted adult contemporary" but Rolling Stone did not like it at all, giving it one star (which is harsh) and commercially it did best here, but also got to #14 in the US.

Somewhat unsurprisingly, discogs.com tells us you can pick up a decent copy of this for a quid and the absolute most you can spend on it is £12 - I'm pretty certain that everyone in the world who wants a copy of this has already got one. However, I do have to admit that he does what he does well and I'm pretty certain he's also perfectly happy for me to say it's not for me.

11/10/81 - Interesting, but not enjoyable

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