Skip to content
Jason Maloney reviews
V o l u m e # 0 1 Week Commencing: 25th January 1993 Online Date: 25th January 2005
Today, virtually all new releases appear in stores on the Monday. Exceptions sometimes occur with major acts from the US, as worries over piracy force either an early release or a simultaneous British/American launch. Traditionally, the Americans always get their new product on a Tuesday.
January by default is the quietest month of the year for new albums in the UK, although December arguably offers precious little in the way of new studio recordings; just the last batch of Greatest Hits collections for the bloated Christmas market. Early 1993 wasn’t any busier than usual, but the week beginning January 25th saw the arrival of significant albums by two very contrasting artists.
Off the Ground
Paul McCartney’s last album proper had been almost four years previously; June 1989’s Flowers In The Dirt silenced his critics at the time and also hit the #1 spot. Off The Ground could have reasonably expected to take advantage of the quiet New Year lull, but unfortunately the record was something of a turkey.
The lightweight #18 hit Hope Of Deliverance was amiable enough, but not even some leftover Costello collaborations and a Let ‘Em In rehash entitled C’mon People could save an album undermined by lazy arrangements and horribly trite lyrics that alternated between the simplistic and the bizarre.
Although it would go on to debut at #5, just two places lower than Flowers In The Dirt had originally entered, Off The Ground dropped like a stone and disappeared from the Top 75 completely within a month.
Matt Johnson and company were also returning after a 4-year hiatus. Successive ’80s albums Soul Mining (October 1983), Top 20 breakthough Infected (November 1986) and Mind Bomb (May 1989) had seen The The‘s stock continue to rise, to the point where the latter achieved a #4 debut upon release.
Johnson was now back on more personal territory after the sloganeering of Mind Bomb with its sense of almost unbearable foreboding and an Armageddon fixation, Jools Holland memorably showed up on piano as he had done on Soul Mining a decade earlier, and Dusk was roundly hailed as a return to form.
It secured a career-best #2 entry in early February 1993, but a total of just 4 weeks on the UK Top 75 fell a long way short of the chart runs of The The’s previous albums.
Page Content copyright © Jason Maloney, 2005.
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.