And so, EnglishPatient - as a standalone entity - is no more. This account will self-destruct within...
And so, EnglishPatient - as a standalone entity - is no more. This account will self-destruct within approximately 24 hours. I can now be found under the name of DoubleTrouble - a collaboration with fellow Ciao user Broksababe. See you there!
Member since:30.07.2000
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Stay On These Roads entered the UK charts at #2 in May 1988, Aha's third #2 album in as many releases. Significantly though, the second (Scoundrel Days) had spent considerably fewer weeks on the chart than the first (Hunting High And Low). This trend continued, as the third managed even less. There were further alarm bells ringing when the album's second single The Blood That Moves The Body stalled at #25. In fairness, it wasn't perhaps the most listener-friendly choice, yet a year earlier it would have almost certainly fared much better.
A-ha were suffering from the same problems encountered by the majority of hugely popular groups with a predominantly female (and teenage) audience, but in truth they were never really a teen band. If several tracks on their first two albums had hinted at this, then Stay On These Roads was the unequivocal proof.
Touchy! and You Are The One - both catchy little ditties (and back-to-back Top 15 hits later in 1988) - were aberrations on a hugely impressive collection. The Living Daylights also made an appearance in remixed form, apparently in the style they preferred to perform it in a live situation.
Yet it was on the other seven songs that the argument for Aha's enduring appeal and continued success was most convincing. This Alone Is Love's cascading chords, Hurry Home's eerie, insistent rhythm and Out Of Blue Comes Green's glorious, soaring chorus all signalled a growing maturity and expanding horizons. This was music tailor-made for the CD generation, yet it somehow failed to transcend their existing (and steadily diminishing) fanbase.
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