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Continuing my trip back through the 2017 album charts. 28/07/17 : Lust For Life -  Lana del Rey This is our fifth visit with Lana and I've generally been pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoy them, but I do think there should be a rule against borrowing titles from other artists - Lust For Life is always going to bring Iggy Pop to mind rather than Lana (for those of us of a certain age, anyway). Yeah, I'd say I'm pleasantly surprised by this as well - it's a very well constructed album with some great production on it. I wouldn't say it's entirely loveable on first listen, but it feels like it could well be a grower and it matched well with the sunny weather outside today - I can imagine it would be great playing whilst barbequing on a sultry summer evening. It's got quite strong Lorde vibes, so if you like her then you'll probably like this (and probably also know you do). We're at #1 in the charts with a new entry this week on the start of a sur...

Continuing my trip forward in time through the album charts 03/04/26 : This Music May Contain Hope. - Raye  We've kinda met Raye before but this is our first proper visit - and her star has certainly risen since then so my expectations are quite high but, at the same time, I'm not entirely sure what I'm expecting... And, having listened to it, I'm not entirely sure what I experienced, But it's certainly an album, there's no doubting that. It's orchestral, theatrical, gospel, jazz and so much more because all the tracks here have a LOT of people involved and it really sounds like it - it's a very full sound. And she starts the album with a spoken intro and ends with a full-on credit reel, which only increases the sense of theatricality, And the tracks are very well put together, if not necessarily upbeat - the lass has had some love-life issues and no mistake, but boy does she get some mileage out of it. Obviously "Where Is My Husband?" is the ...

Continuing my trip back through the 2017 album charts. 04/08/17 : Human -  Rag'n'Bone Man We've mentioned this album as being in the top five seven times already this year - he's always been unlucky, but there was never any danger of him not getting his moment in the spotlight (as we'll get on to later). I obviously know the title track and suspect I'll recognise one or two other tracks, but have never heard the album - I'm expecting to like it without massively loving it. And yeah, that's where we are - it opens with the title track and I also recognised "Skin", but the rest of the album doesn't stray too far from that formula. I was reminded of my response to Seal albums - they're all decent songs which are sung well so I don't have anything bad to say about them, but I also struggle to fully engage with them. I do like the cover art though! We're at #3 in the chart this week on his 25th week of a very decent 90 week run - it ...

Continuing my trip back through the 2017 album charts. 11/08/17 : Everything Now -  Arcade Fire This is our fourth visit with them crazy Canadians - I've generally quite liked them, but not as much as I feel I should, so let's see if that form continues here. Well, I really liked the opening title track - it's surprisingly immediate for AF. The rest of it isn't quite so immediate, but it's still pretty enjoyable and dials down some of their (imho) unnecessary quirk so it feels like it would be a grower. But that title track man - bam, it's good! We're at #3 in the charts this week on their second week of an eleven week run which is very pleasing because it starts at #1, features a drop in every week and finishes at #99! The rest of the top five were  Ed Sheeran , Glen Campbell , Rag'n'Bone Man (it's coming soon!) and Lana del Rey, with the highest new entry being Black Grape (#15).  Wikipedia tells us this is their fifth album and they used an in...

Continuing my trip back through the 2017 album charts. 18/08/17 : Adiós -  Glen Campbell There's an argument this should be ignored, but it gets included for sentimentality reasons because it's his last album - I'm such an old softie really. It's also, somewhat surprisingly, our first visit with the man.  Yeah, no-one's going to claim this is his best material, but things could be a lot worse - it was recorded after he had been diagnosed with Alzheimers and it's a load of tracks he'd always loved but had never recorded. I didn't know most of them, but I was surprised he'd never done "Everybody's Talkin'", best known for the  Harry Nilsson version but written and originally recorded by Fred Neil - Glen's version is a bit fussy, but his voice is spot on. As a bonus, t he streaming version of the album has been expanded to include some of his classics and things like "Rhinestone Cowboy", "Galveston" and "Tr...

Continuing my trip back through the 2017 album charts. 25/08/17 : The Peace And The Panic -  Neck Deep Our first visit and only our fourth ever mention for Neck Deep - apparently they're a Welsh pop-punk outfit, which doesn't exactly fill me with confidence, but let's see what we've got. Nah - this is OK. They're aiming for a British Blink-182 sound and they pretty much hit the spot. It's not aimed at me, but if you were looking for something to throw yourself around to in order to demonstrate some harmless teenage rebellion then there are far worse things you could subject yourself to - I imagine they were fun live too. We're at a surprisingly high #4 in the charts this week on the start of an unsurprisingly short three week run - but it's still their longest charting run of four albums from '15 to '24. The rest of the top five this week were  Ed Sheeran , an Elvis Presley best-of, Steven Wilson (a new entry) and Everything Everything (a new en...