Post by richardjohn on Nov 23, 2013 13:38:34 GMT 1
There's an interesting article on the BBC website today about the UK album charts. It notes that this weekend will see the UK reach its 1,000 th number one album since the charts began in the 1950s.
It also notes significant number one albums through the years such as the 200th number one, none other than Nightflight to Venus!
200th number one: Boney M - Nightflight To Venus (1978)
Boney M
Released in September 1978, Boney M's Night Flight To Venus was the band's most successful record, clinging to the top spot for four weeks.
It contained several global hits, including Brown Girl In The Ring and Rivers Of Babylon - but not, strangely, that year's Christmas number one, Mary's Boy Child.
The band were the brainchild of German pop svengali Frank Farian (later responsible for Milli Vanilli), who reached a creative peak on this wilfully experimental third album.
The seven-minute title track was a freaky space odyssey, which envisaged an interstellar journey to a terraformed planet.
"It took almost 90 years to cool down the planet from its 500 degrees to the current pleasant 75 degrees, and to transform the atmosphere to make it inhabitable for Earth people," noted the narrator, over a pounding drum track based on Cozy Powell's hit Dance With The Devil.
It set the record up to be a space-age disco concept album, but the idea was immediately ditched on track two - Rasputin - a deranged ode to a 19th Century Russian mystic.
It also notes significant number one albums through the years such as the 200th number one, none other than Nightflight to Venus!
200th number one: Boney M - Nightflight To Venus (1978)
Boney M
Released in September 1978, Boney M's Night Flight To Venus was the band's most successful record, clinging to the top spot for four weeks.
It contained several global hits, including Brown Girl In The Ring and Rivers Of Babylon - but not, strangely, that year's Christmas number one, Mary's Boy Child.
The band were the brainchild of German pop svengali Frank Farian (later responsible for Milli Vanilli), who reached a creative peak on this wilfully experimental third album.
The seven-minute title track was a freaky space odyssey, which envisaged an interstellar journey to a terraformed planet.
"It took almost 90 years to cool down the planet from its 500 degrees to the current pleasant 75 degrees, and to transform the atmosphere to make it inhabitable for Earth people," noted the narrator, over a pounding drum track based on Cozy Powell's hit Dance With The Devil.
It set the record up to be a space-age disco concept album, but the idea was immediately ditched on track two - Rasputin - a deranged ode to a 19th Century Russian mystic.