Skip to content
Jason Maloney reviews
V o l u m e # 1 3 Week Commencing: 2nd May 1988 Online Date: 12th May 2005
Norway’s finest had avoided the “disappointing second album” syndrome with 1986’s Scoundrel Days, a #2 success to emulate that of their debut Hunting High & Low. They took only a little over 18 months to emerge with album number three but in their absence the pop landscape had shifted further towards a Stock Aitken Waterman domination, and a new boy-band by the name of Bros had exploded onto the scene.
Stay On These Roads was a masterful display of all that a-ha did best, mixing the frothy likes of Touchy! and You Are The One with stately ballads (the title track) and epic adult pop (This Alone Is Love, Out Of Blue Comes Green). Although their fanbase remained loyal enough to gain an instant #2 debut for the album, it quickly tailed off (just 10 weeks on the UK charts, compared to 77 and 29 respectively for their first two releases) and not even back-to-back Top 15 singles later in 1988 could turn things around.
It was that “difficult third album” time for Sade, too. Again, her second effort (1985’s Promise) had nicely consolidated the huge success of 1984’s million-selling debut Diamond Life without too much fuss; America had in fact taken to Promise even more enthusiastically than its predecessor. The first single from Stronger Than Pride, the almost-title song Love Is Stronger Than Pride, fell just short of the UK Top 40 at #44 in late March so the album arrived in less than ideal circumstances.
Filled with sun-kissed rhythms, mellow harmonies and repetitive, minimalistic arrangements it was an album tailor-made for the summer. Second single Paradise would prove a minor Top 30 hit, keeping Sade in the public’s consciousness, but an initial #3 entry for the album was the lowest of Sade’s career thus far, and Stronger Than Pride’s total stay on the charts of 16 weeks was some way short of Promise or Diamond Life.
Scenes from the South Side
1986’s The Way It Is had rocketed Hornsby and his Range into the big league from apparently nowhere, the title track hitting the US #1 spot and paving the way for two more hits in the shape of Mandolin Rain and Every Little Kiss. British audiences had also taken to the band’s piano-heavy, widescreen brand of American rock, sending both album and single into the Top 20. 1987 saw a Hornsby composition Jacob’s Ladder top the Billboard charts for Huey Lewis & The News; the song would also turn up on Scenes From The South Side.
Nearly two years had passed since The Way It Is, but the formula stayed pretty much the same – in fact, Scenes’ 9 songs are superior to most of the material on their debut bar those big hit singles. And it was the lack of big hit singles that ultimately did for the second album; The Valley Road picked up where they had left off by easing into the US Top 5, but none of the subsequent singles (Look Out Any Window, Defenders Of The Flag) made their mark. Perhaps the pointed, policitised nature of the lyrics (more outpsoken than anywhere on The Way It Is) proved a hinderence in some quarters.
Scenes From The South Side debuted at #18 in Britain, fans of the first album keen to invest in the follow-up regardless, but after one more album (1990’s A Night On The Town) saw ever the cycle of diminishing returns continue, the group disbanded and Hornsby went solo.
On the back of major US hits Girlfriend and Mercedes Boy, the wife of producer L.A. Reid was briefly a major star in her own right. Girlfriend repeated its Top 10 placing in the UK, but the latter stopped at #42 and the album itself could rise no higher than #56.
Nicknamed “Pebbles” as a child due to her resemblance to the Flinstones’ cartoon character, Perri McKissock went on to create the hugely influential TLC in the mid-90s once her short run of hits dried up after two 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.