Classic Albums

It was fifty years ago today … getting near dawn

The first classic album by the UK’s first rock supergroup.   Overshadowed by Sgt Peppers initially (what wasn’t at the time?) it actually sounds better 50 years later.

Album: Disraeli Gears
Artist:  Cream
Released:  2nd November 1967
Weeks in UK Album Chart: 45
Highest Chart Position: No.5

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It was forty years ago today … I could see paradise by the dashboard light

The classic ‘grower’.  It took more than six months to make any impact, and even then not in his native USA but here in the UK after the track below was featured on Old Grey Whistle Test.  After that it never left.

Album: Bat Out of Hell
Artist:  Meat Loaf
Released:  21st October 1977
Weeks in UK Album Chart: 522
Highest Chart Position: No.9

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It was twenty years ago today … down the only road I’ve ever been down

I suppose the phrase ‘difficult third album’ becomes more applicable if you’d split up after the second.  Nothing difficult about listening to this one though. album.

Album: Urban Hymns
Artist: The Verve
Released:  29th September 1997
Weeks in UK Album Chart: 162
Number of Weeks at No.1: 12

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It was forty years ago today … jamming in the name of The Lord

Undoubtedly the first classic Reggae album – so many great tracks and still as fresh today as when I first heard it.

Album: Exodus
Artist:  Bob Marley & the Wailers
Released:  3rd June 1977
Weeks in UK Album Chart: 58
Highest Chart Position: No.8

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It was fifty years ago today … Sergeant Pepper tought the band to play

What better to be the first in this new Classic Album section, because I guess it was the first album to be called a ‘Classic Album’ from the outset.  It certainly coined the phrase It was twenty years ago today in a musical context, and you just couldn’t get away from it during the summer of love in 1967.

Album: Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band
Artist:  The Beatles
Released:  26th May 1967
Weeks in UK Album Chart: 291
Number of Weeks at No.1: 28

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