Just to keep up with the times, nearly five months after our last look let's glimpse at the album chart at the point we've got to, w/e 2/10/76:
1 The Stylistics - Best Of The Stylistics Vol.2
Something you may notice about the top four from this so-called golden age. And this is the second, lesser volume! Just this one week at number one, prompted in part by their writers Hugo & Luigi stealing them away from Thom Bell for their own label and also by Can't Give You Anything (But My Love) going top six months after volume one had been released - it's also got Funky Weekend and Can't Help Falling In Love on.
2 ABBA - Greatest Hits - Abba
Released mid-April, it wouldn't leave the top ten until mid-November.
3 The Beach Boys - 20 Golden Greats
Freshly deposed after all of ten weeks atop, this only came behind the above in the end of year sales chart. Neatly chronological too, so you get the good time surf anthems on side 1 and the teenage symphonies to god on side 2.
4 Diana Ross - Greatest Hits 2
Actually just Greatest Hits but the UK alone had already had one in 1972.
5 Rod Stewart - A Night On The Town
Number one for a couple of weeks before the Beach Boys onslaught and still dodging up and around the list presumably partly due to people thinking the resurgent Sailing would be on it.
6 Bay City Rollers - Dedication
On its way to number four, but that'd be a portent of the tartan end times as it was their first album not to make the top three. Within five weeks the new rhythm guitarist Ian Mitchell would already be out.
7 Neil Sedaka - Laughter And Tears
8 Dr Feelgood - Stupidity
A new entry and it'd go to number one a week later, the first ever live album to make it there so quickly. Brilliant cover shot, telling you all you'd need to know about them at the time.
9 Demis Roussos - Forever And Ever
10 Wings - Wings At The Speed Of Sound
11 Manfred Mann's Earthband - The Roaring Silence
The Chanter sisters credited with backing vocals.
12 Peter Cook & Dudley Moore - Derek And Clive Live
Some very careful skipping round the content there. (And of course Pan's People had been replaced by then, as all involved SHOULD HAVE KNOWN). This was its second week in the top 50 and its highest position.
13 The Eagles - Their Greatest Hits 1971-75
This is the one which ties with Thriller as America's biggest selling album ever, 29 million copies shipped. Here it had spent four weeks at number two but would stay in the top 50 until mid-December 1977, and then would pop in a few more times until 1982.
14 Be-Bop Deluxe - Modern Music
On its way to number 12.
15 John Denver - Spirit
16 Rod Stewart - Atlantic Crossing
Here's the one with Sailing on.
17 Joan Armatrading - Joan Armatrading
18 Peter Frampton - Frampton Comes Alive
Out in May, peaked at 6, spent the rest of the year in the top 40.
19 David Bowie - Changesonebowie
The first proper Bowie compilation, despite not featuring Starman or Life On Mars, which you'd kind of think would be pre-requisites for a 1976 David Bowie compilation.
20 Dr Hook - A Little Bit More
21 Gladys Knight And The Pips - The Best Of Gladys Knight And The Pips
22 Gallagher And Lyle - Breakaway
23 John Denver - Live In London
24 Various Artists - Great Italian Love Songs
Sounds like a cheap compilation that's managed to licence That's Amore; in fact would peak at 17.
25 Daryl Hall And John Oates - Bigger Than Both Of Us
26 Eric Clapton - No Reason To Cry
27 Thin Lizzy - Jailbreak
28 Nana Mouskouri - Passport
29 Roxy Music - Viva Roxy Music
30 Various Artists - Summer Cruising
And just below this lot Bryan Ferry's Let's Stick Together entered at 31 and would peak at 19, while at 32 coming down from a high of 15, the Wurzels' Combine Harvester. Ah, the times.
4 comments:
What IS it with me & those bloody K-tel albums - I've got Summer Cruisin', as well!
Think I bought it 'cause it had some obscurer US Hot 100 hits on it, like Ronny & the Daytonas' GTO, and Joe Jones (He of You Talk Too Much/Alvin Robinson & Dixie Cups-discovering fame)' original version of California Sun. Mostly American stuff, in fact, with just the few Mungo Jerrys & Vanity Fares slipping through.
Oh, and a Curtis Lee track I'd forgotten about - California GL903. We'll be covering him soon when Showaddywaddy rear their ugly heads again, won't we?
If nothing else, it'll explain to bemused Mock the Week viewers Hugh Dennis' favourite - ONLY - impersonation.
Although in fact Sir Jim doesn't actually pronounce it any differently to how you or I would.
What's remarkable about that Peter Cook clip is that it's on the same programme as the legendary Sex Pistols performance! Did the Pistols meet Cook? It would have been apt seeing as Rotten took a bit of his performance style from him and that "Derek and Clive Live" played a part in their infamous encounter with Bill Grundy...
Cook apparently claimed he used to lunch with Lydon and/or McLaren, and it's known McLaren wanted him to write the script for what eventually became The Great Rock And Roll Swindle. (We know Clive James met the Pistols as he talks about it in one of his books but writes about a confrontation with Sid Vicious, when Glen Matlock was still in the band at the time)
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