This is actually ELO:s 7th album even though it's from 1977! It consists of superlight symphonic rock-pop with a somewhat weird twist and was one of the band's most selling, reaching a sale of 10 million albums! Jeff Lynne wrote the album in just 3 weeks while spending time in the Swiss alps. It was recorded during 2 month in München, Germany. For me this is normally too soft but ELO has always seemed to make good music, no matter what influences they mix in, even though there's also some low watermarks here, escpecially from track 7 and onwards.

1)Turn to stone (7,5)

2)It's over (7,0)

3)Sweet talking woman (6,5)

4)Across the border (6,0)

5)Night in the city (6,0)

6)Starligth (5,0)

7)Jungle (3,0)

8)Belive me now (-)

9)Steppin' out (4,0)

10)Standin' in the rain (4,5)

11)Big wheels (5,0)

12)Summer and lightning (5,5)

13)Mr.Blue sky (5,0)

14)Sweet is the night (6,0)

15)The whale (2,0)

16)Birmingham blues (6,0)

17)Wild west hero (5,0)

Score: 5,25

Jeff Lynne-vocals, guitars and keyboards (b.1947)

Richard Tandy-guitars and keyboards (b.1948)

Kelly Groucutt-vocals and bass (1945-2009)

Bev Bevan-drums (b.1944)

Mik Kaminski-violin on 3 tracks (b.1951)

This is the swedish pop-band's 4th album and as usual when it comes to this band there is a few ok songs but most of them are really boring without much of a hit-potential, or even good at all. It's very poppy and commercial electronic synth-pop with a kind of floating mystery boring afternoon-sound like Space and other electronic bands of the era, or even earlier.

1)Jupiter sign (3,0)

2)Love cannot be wrong (6,5)

3)Visions of you (4,0)

4)Heart companion (6,5)

5)Jo-anne Jo-anne (5,5)

6)Do it (4,5)

7)Night café (5,5)

8)All I want to do (4,0)

9)Will you be near me (5,5)

10)Mrs. Marple (2,5)

Score: 4,75

Ola Håkansson-vocals (b.1945)

Tonny Lindberg-guitars

Leif Paulsén-bass

Leif Johansson-drums (b.1945)

Ulf Wahlberg-keyboards (b.1951)

Another one of the most popular pop-artists of the 1980's here with his 2nd album wich included the superhit "The Riddle". The album peaked at nr. 5 in Norway, nr. 8 in UK and New Zeeland, nr. 11 in Sweden, nr. 12 in Germany and reached good positions in many other countires. The album, apart from the 80's style synthpop, however has very obvious jazzinfluences and is not very good if you want to hear 80's popmusic since the songs are very odd and not following "rules". Actually I think the songs are rather boring, but then again I'm not into jazz.

1)Don Quixote (6,0)

2)Know how (4,5)

3)You might (5,0)

4)Wild horses (5,0)

5)Easy (5,5)

6)The riddle (7,5)

7)City of angels (4,0)

8)Roses (4,0)

9)Wide boy (6,0)

10)Save the whale (3,0)

Score: 5,05

Nik Kershaw-vocals, guitars, bass and keyboards (b.1958)

Dennis Smith-bass

Charlie Morgan-drums (b.1955)

Pandit Dinesh-percussion (b.1955)

Tim Moore-keyboards

Andy Richards-keyboards (b.1952)

This is the swedish popartist Harpo's 4th album. It consists of pop and light rock inspired by the popular music at the time and that also means those terrible disco wahwah-guitars that was popular then. There's a lot of humour in Harpo's lyrics and music and on this album some of the swedish pop- and rockelite-musicians of the time contributes with their playing. But it does not help much. There are a couple of listanable songs but not much more. The album reached nr. 4 on the swedish charts.

1)Horoscope (6,0)

2)My bubblegum gun (5,0)

3)Secret silver box (6,5)

4)Dixie (such a crazy hat) (3,0)

5)Jessica (3,5)

6)Rock'n'roll clown (5,5)

7)Smile (3,5)

8)Honeymoon (2,5)

9)Chelsea lady (5,0)

10)The end of time (3,0)

Score: 4,35

Harpo-vocals (b.1950)

Finn Sjöberg-guitars (b.1951)

Lars Wellander-guitars (b.1952)

Jan Schaffer-guitars (b.1945)

Michael Areklew-guitars (b.1950)

Yngve Hammervald-guitars

Mike Watson-bass (b.1946)

Denny Boström-bass

Rutger Gunnarsson-bass (1946-2015)

Ola Brunkert-drums (1946-2008)

Roger Palm-drums

Bengt Palmers-percussion (b.1948)

Per-Erik Hallin-piano (b.1950)

Anders Eljas-clavinet (b.1953)

Lennart Wärmell-accordion (b.1927)

Björn Skifs-trumpet (b.1947)

This is the british popduo's 2nd and last album. While their debut had great success in many countries this one peaked at 35 in the UK, 36 in Sweden and as good as 6 in South Africa. This is soft west coast pop-rock with soulful whispered Dare-like vocals and quite monotone and boring song but I don't suffer listening to it. I liked the 1st album and the fact that there are real instruments played all through.

After the band broke up Rob Fisher was a songwriter for Rick Astley's albums in 1991 and 1993 but died of cancer in 1999. He was 43.

Simon Climie released an soloalbum in 1992 and worked with former Doobie Brothers member Michael McDonald in his Motown-albums. He also produced American Idol-winner Taylor Hicks 2009 album.

1)Facts of love (6,5)

2)Fire on the ocean (5,5)

3)It's not supposed to be that way (5,0)

4)Hold on through the night (5,5)

5)Buried treasure (3,0)

6)Power of the dream world (5,0)

7)The best part of living (5,5)

8)Coming in for the kill (6,0)

9)Don't mess around (6,5)

10)You keep me coming back for more (5,5)

11)Memories (if I could relive your love) (5,5)

Score: 5,41

Simon Climie-vocals (b.1957)

Rob Fisher-bass and keyboards (1956-1999)

+ many others

"Blue Swede" -Björn Skifs had a successful career in the 1970's and this album with songs sang in english is one in a string of his albums released in the same decade. It's very much pop and light rock of it's time when it comes to production, sound and image. Disco was popular and most artists tried to sound more like disco which resulted in a sound that sound very dated today. So also in this case. Some songs are really terrible...

1)La booga rooga (6,5)

2)You better run (6,5)

3)Do you wanna dance? (4,0)

4)Now and then (5,0)

5)Tarantula (2,0)

6)Julie girl (4,0)

7)Firefly (3,0)

8)Shimmie doo wah sae (2,0)

9)Lady (4,0)

10)Can't stop now (3,5)

11)Slow down (6,0)

12)Part time love (5,0)

Score: 4,29

This is the 2nd album from British popband Spandau Ballet that was to be one of the biggest selling ones of the 1980's but there's no sign of those times to come on this album whatsoever. The music can be described as funky, jazzy and soulful experimental new wave synthpop with not much ofthe good quality songs that they were going to produce later in the same century. This is actually a crap album.

Incredibly two of the singles from this album reached nr.3 and nr.10 on the UK charts.

1)Chant no. 1 (5,0)

2)Instinction (3,0)

3)Paint me down (5,0)

4)Coffee club (4,0)

5)She loved like diamond (5,0)

6)Pharao (3,0)

7)Innocence and science (1,5)

8)Missionary (1,5)

Score: 3,50

Tony Hadley-vocals and synthesizers

Gary Kemp-guitars, keyboards, synthesizers and cheng

Steve Norman-guitars, keyboards and saxophone

Martin Kemp-bass

John Keeble-drums

Popstar of the 1980's first album released on MCA Records and it was an immediate success in many countries reaching nr. 5 in the UK, 7 in Norway, 8 in Germany and 4 top-20 singles in the UK. It's an album full of synthpop typical for the time; strange twists in many songs and a few obvious hits, real instruments mixed with synthesizers. I like the hits but the rest is not very much to listen to making this album a much seen one in bargainboxes in 2nd hand shops.

1)Dancing girls (5,0)

2)Wouldn't it be good (7,0)

3)Drum talk (4,0)

4)Bogart (6,0)

5)Gone to pieces (5,0)

6)Shame on you (6,0)

7)Cloak and dagger (5,5)

8)Faces (5,0)

9)I won't let the sun go down on me (7,5)

10)Human racing (4,0)

Score: 5,50

Nik Kershaw-vocals, guitars, bass and keyboards (b.1958)

Charlie Morgan-drums (b.1955)

Paul "Wix" Wickens-keyboards (b.1956)

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