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Charted: April 20, 1991


Rating: 3.125 (average of 4 ratings)


Genre: mainstream rock


Quotable: --


Album Tracks:

  1. Get Up
  2. Word of Mouth
  3. A Time and Place
  4. Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow
  5. The Way You Look at Me
  6. Everybody Gets a Second Chance
  7. Stop Baby
  8. My Crime of Passion
  9. Let’s Pretend It Didn’t Happen
  10. Before the Next Heartache Falls


Sales:

sales in U.S. only --
sales in U.K. only - estimated --
sales in all of Europe as determined by IFPI – click here to go to their site. --
sales worldwide - estimated --


Peak:

peak on U.S. Billboard album chart 107
peak on U.K. album chart 11


Singles/Hit Songs:

  • Word of Mouth (3/16/91) #78 US, #13 UK, #30 AR
  • A Time and Place (6/15/91) #58 UK
  • Everybody Gets a Second Chance (2/8/92) #56 UK, #24 AC


Word of Mouth
Mike + The Mechanics
Review:
“Atlantic Records had reason to think they had a sure thing on their hands in the 1991 release of Mike + the Mechanics’ third album, Word of Mouth. Here was a band with solid Top 40 pedigree, led by a guitarist/bassist with Genesis credentials (Mike Rutherford) and featuring not one but two vocalists with dozens of successful songs under their belts (Paul Carrack and Paul Young). The band had already recorded two hit albums and even scored a number one hit in ‘The Living Years.’ The new record led off with two killer pop songs – the opening Get Up, with its adrenaline-inducing piano runs and catchy chorus, and the rousing singalong title track. But within a few months of its release, Word of Mouth had already been banished to the discount racks and budget bins of nearly every record store in the English-speaking world” (Cater).

“So what happened? It may be that music consumers had caught wind of the mediocre keyboard-based pop ballads that filled out the rest of the album. Songs like A Time and Place, Everybody Gets a Second Chance, and Let’s Pretend It Didn’t Happen are anemic lite-rock anthems that even Phil Collins would have passed on. Chances are, fans stayed away from this one because the word of mouth just wasn't good” (Cater).


Review Source(s):


Related DMDB Links:

previous album: Living Years (1988) next album: Beggar on a Beach of Gold (1995)


Last updated January 18, 2009.