Sailor: Trouble - 1975

Hot on the heels of their sailor-suited debut, the lads swapped their suits for a rakish gypsy/dock worker look or a Panama hat and suit combo as they gave us more dockside tales. This sort of thing only takes you so far, however, and this album showed that a life on the ocean wave was short-lived.

It kicked off with a huge hit in the twenties fun of Girls Girls Girls and we also got another successful single in the keyboard-driven early Roxy Music meets Sparks romp of Glass Of Champagne. Both were great singles and represented the height of Sailor's chart success. The theme of the lovelorn but slightly dodgy travelling sailor was perpetuated in Trouble In Hong Kong, the frantic Stop That Man and the frothy fun of Panama.

Tracks like My Kind Of A Girl, Coconut and People In Love are all ok, but they have lost a little of the magic of the songs that the debut album offered. Jacaranda was an appealing instrumental but it had the feel of filler about it. 

We did, however, have time for one final true Sailor classic in the rousing end of the evening nostalgia of The Old Nickelodeon Sound. Although there was one more distinctly average album still to come, this song seemed to call time on the group's maritime life. It had been a good voyage.

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