When I was at secondary school, one of the most popular obscure pop singers was a chap called Chris de Burgh. A lot of people got into him after spending holidays with Irish cousins. He produced some realy good, quirky songs on quirky albums, which sold only moderately well in the UK charts. It was a perennial mystery why they didn't sell better, why he wasn't better known, and why he made no impact on the singles chart. I used to have The Getaway on a pirate tape (it got chewed), and I still remember some of those classic tracks: Don't Pay the Ferryman and Ship to Shore, especially.
I still have Spanish Train and Other Stories, which contains some seriously good songs, not one a turkey, and every one of them listenable in itself...
Then after A-Levels, astonishingly, and even more bizarrely, his worst song, ever, shot into the charts and went to Number 1, with talk about 'Overnight Sensation', an ignorant description of someone who had been making quality records for eleven years. Thus began the long slide to my disillusionment with Radio One and the UK Chart record industry.
Naturally, I bought Into The Light, despite the awfulness of Lady in Red. There are some really good songs on it: Last Night, Fire on the Water, Say Goodbye To It All, Fatal Hesitation and The Leader/The Vision/What About Me?
I have never bought any Chris de Burgh subsequently, I still love Spanish Train and Into the Light, and it remains an unfathomable mystery why someone can go from being obscure and talented to very famous, bland and talentless.
