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Continuing my trip back through the 1988 album charts. 08/05/88 : Stay On These Roads -   A-ha We met A-ha twice in '86 and both albums were pretty enjoyable, so I'm looking forward to this - I have a sneaking suspicion they were one of those bands that just became less popular without suffering a noticeable dip in quality. But let's see.. Yeah, this is all perfectly listenable. I knew the title track and "The Living Daylights" (one of the better Bond themes imho) and I also particularly liked "You Are The One" but there are no stinkers on there, although "You'll End Up Crying" is a pretty quirky way to end the album. However, I do feel that, with the exception of "The Living Daylights", there's nothing here that anyone needs over the first two albums so I guess I can understand how they somewhat faded from this point. We're at #2 with a new entry in the charts this week on the start of a mere eleven week run, with this be...

Continuing my trip forward in time through the album charts 19/09/25 : Play - Ed Sheeran Our fifth visit with Ed - I fear he's in full-on musical magpie mode here, which is admirable in some ways but I fear it might not make for a particularly coherent album. There's only one way to find out though... Hmmm. There is s ome musical magpieness going on but I'm afraid it’s mostly bang average. There are s ome interesting lyrics in places that suggest he’s had a bit of a time of it and he’s not sure he's dealt with in the best way, b ut there’s also some dreadfully twee “you’re so gorgeous” n onsense as well - and  I REALLY wish he wouldn’t rap. I liked " Old Phone" but the rest of it was eminently forgettable. We are, unsurprisingly, at #1 with a new entry in the charts this week - his ninth consecutive chart topper. The rest of the top five are  Sabrina , Jade (a new entry), Twenty One Pillots (another new entry) and Sophie Ellis-Bextor (also a new entry) - so le...

Continuing my trip back through the 1988 album charts. 15/05/88 : The Christians -   The Christians I seem to recall I liked the general sound of The Christians, but don't think I ever listened to a whole album of it because I suspected it would drag - but now it's time to find out if that really is the case! Lordy - there was an awful lot here I'd completely forgotten about, with "Forgotten Town", "When The Finger Points", "Ideal World" and "Hooverville" all being very decent quality singles. And the rest of the album is also pretty good - the lyrics (which are surprisingly spiky in places) and music are maybe a bit clumsy in places but you get the impression they were doing what they wanted to and their hearts were in the right place. It also all felt pretty familiar so I suspect I must have heard it more than a few times, but I have absolutely no recollection of it. We're at a surprisingly high #4 in the charts this week on the...

Continuing my trip back through the 1988 album charts. 22/05/88 : Lovesexy -  Prince Our sixth visit with Prince and this is one I've never listened to - there's no denying the man had skills but I think the drama all got a bit too much for me around this time. Hmmm - I'm not sure it was quite too much here, but it was certainly heading in that direction. I don't mind the core of the tracks (and I actively like "Alphabet Street") but there's just too much faffing about going on as well - I know it was always very much about Prince for his Royal Purpliness, but it's just all a bit too self-indulgent for me. I also think there's less obvious genius on display here than there is on some of his best albums - "Alphabet Street" was the only one that really jumped out at me. Overall, it's not terrible, but it's also not great. We're at #4 in the charts this week on his second week of a 29 week run with it having debuted at #1 - it ca...

Continuing my trip back through the 1988 album charts. 29/05/88 : Out Of Order -  Rod Stewart Our twelfth visit with Rod - there really is no avoiding him! And if I've learned one thing about Rod over the years is that sometimes he surprises you - and sometimes he doesn't... Hmmm - the surprise here is that there's not really anything that surprising about this. It's not terrible but it's not that great either - it's like average 70s Rod updated with an 80s sound. I almost liked "Forever Young" and "Crazy About Her" and he didn't ruin "Try A Little Tenderness" as much as I was expecting (although it did bring home how little there is to that track) - but all in all, it was pretty forgettable. We're at #11 in the charts with a new entry with this being as high as he got, so he was pretty lucky to get this visit. The top five this week were Nite Flite (starting a run of four weeks at the top),  Fleetwood Mac , Motown Dance Par...

  A very fortunate visit! When I listened to  Suede's previous album , I enjoyed it so much that I decided to go and see them live - which was a really enjoyable evening , even though I ended up having to wait for about a year for it to actually happen (because of the Brixton Academy crush). So, when I got to listen to their latest album last week (which is well worth checking out), I thought I'd see if I could repeat this trick - imagine my surprise when I saw they were playing that very weekend and there were still a final few tickets left. It was obviously an omen, so what could I do?!? And so, on a wet but surprisingly mild Sunday night (me - out on a Sunday?!?) I headed along to a most unlikely venue for this kind of thing - Royal Festival Hall. I can only remember being there once before and it certainly wasn't to see a load of middle-aged men making an awful racket (as I can imagine the sort of person who is often there might say). My last minute ticket was a standi...

Continuing my trip back through the 1988 album charts. 05/06/88 : Love -  Aztec Camera Completely coincidentally, I was just thinking the other day about how unlikely it was that we'll ever get to meet either of the first two Aztec Camera albums, which I really like - and up pops their third album, which I have, of course, never listened to. So let's give it a go, shall we? Hmmm - it's an "interesting" one. None of it is dreadful, but for the most part it just doesn't have the appeal of the previous albums. High Land Hard Rain is nicely jaunty indie-pop and Knife is more downbeat indie-folk whereas this is, well, neither - all the interesting bits (for me) have just been smoothed over with generic pop/R&B noises. Having said that, I obviously like "Somewhere In My Heart" (because everyone does) and I'd also forgotten how good  "How Men Are" was, but I feel it could have had a more interesting downbeat arrangement. I'm also going...