Put The Needle On The Record - Week #62

Put The Needle On The Record Week #62 China Crisis - Difficult Shapes & Passive Rhythms, Some People Think It's Fun to Entertain

For this weeks feature we go back to November 1982 and the China Crisis album "Difficult Shapes & Passive Rhythms, Some People Think It's Fun to Entertain".

Well China Crisis certainly get the award for the longest ever album title!! "Difficult Shapes & Passive Rhythms, Some People Think It's Fun to Entertain" was the debut album by the Liverpool based band. I had heard the single "African And White" but wasn't overly keen on it if I am honest, but that didn't stop me buying the album, I had no idea what to expect from it and was pleasantly surprised, it contains some fantastic tracks, not least the brilliant "Christian", however alongside that gem were other standout tracks, such as, "Seven Sports For All", "No More Blue Horizons", "Some People I Know To Lead Fantastic Lives", "You Never See It", "Temptation's Big Blue Eyes" and "Jean Walks In Fresh Fields". To this day, I always enjoy listening to this record.

The album was released by Virgin Records and featured 4 different producers that worked on the album, including Steve Levine and it got a very positive review by Neil Tennent in Smash Hits (his day job before forming the Pet Shop Boys with Chris Lowe), he had this to say about the album ""They write pretty melodies (and counter-melodies), intelligent but unobtrusive words, and give their songs delicate, dry arrangements, pulsating with muted rhythms and synthesizer and guitar lines."

Three singles were released off the album, "African And White", (which reached number 45 in the UK Singles chart), "No More Blue Horizons" (which surprisingly failed to chart) and of course "Christian", (which reached number 12 in the UK Singles chart).

The album reached number 21 on the UK Album chart.

Track Listing

Seven Sports For All
No More Blue Horizons (Fool, Fool, Fool)
Feel To Be Driven Away
Some People I Know to Lead Fantastic Lives
Christian
African And White
Are We A Worker
Red Sails
You Never See It
Temptation's Big Blue Eyes
Jean Walks In Fresh Fields

If you have this album in your collection, dig it out and give it a spin!