I wanna be that guy

Right - I'm missing writing about music, so it's time for a new challenge!  I'm quite tempted by 1001 Albums You MUST Hear Before You Die, but suspect the biggest challenge would be remembering and then finding which ones I've already "enjoyed" on the Rolling Stone list.  I've also definitely preferred challenges which involve newer music, so I've put my thinking cap on and invented one!

Starting at beginning of the year, I'm going to listen to the highest album in that week's UK album chart that I haven't previously reviewed.  So it'll definitely be #1 for the first week, but may drop down for subsequent weeks (and it will be interesting to see how far down we have to go in some weeks).  Also, depending upon the time available and my promptness in writing things up, I'm going to make it to the present day at some point (probably soon) and when that happens I shall also start heading backwards in time, just to maximise the confusion!  I'm hoping this exercise will provide some musical variety over time whereby the blockbuster multi-platinum behemoths are got out of the way reasonably quickly to be replaced by more niche offerings with devoted fanbases - but let's see, shall we?

And so, without further ado, let's start with a little-known artist who desperately needs the exposure.

31/12/21 : = - Ed Sheeran

Ed Sheeran, you say?  Is he someone new?!?

Ah no - that Ed Sheeran.  Or Bebs, as my children know to refer to him as - short for Bloomin' Ed Bloomin' Sheeran.  He's definitely a man who's suffered in my eyes as a result of success and ubiquity - there's no doubting he has talent (I even liked + when it came out - just over 10 years ago now) but I just feel I've heard enough from him now.  Also, some of his stuff is perfectly dreadful but has been successful just because it's him (I'm looking at you, Galway Girl).  However, for the purposes of this exercise I find myself experiencing more from the man in the shape of his latest offering - although I suspect I've probably heard most of it already.

And the good news is that I declare this to be a perfectly acceptable offering - "Shivers", "Bad Habits" and "Overpass Graffiti" in particular are all fine tracks and I didn't consider any of the other tracks to be hateful.  Some of the tracks do verge into crooner territory - dial down the beats, slow it down a bit, add some piano and you've got some prime Chris de Burgh material there.  It's an interesting question whether it would be so phenomenally successful if anyone else had released it, but it's one we'll never get an answer to.  I would also say that if you liked earlier Ed but have avoided this because of all his rappy nonsense then you should probably check it out because he manages to avoid any such hate crimes here (although some bits of "2step" are in danger of at least being interviewed by the police under caution).

As I previously stated, since this is the first week I've written about, it was obviously #1 in the chart - surprisingly this was only its second week there after it debuted at the top in its release week in early November.  But don't feel too sorry for the lad - it hasn't been any lower than #3 in all the time since its release (and it's been up against some pretty heavyweight competition in that time).

Wikipedia has surprisingly little on the album (153 milliPeppers - ÷ has 753!) and even less when you look at how much of it is made up by listing how well it did across the world.  It "only" got to #9 in Greece and Japan, but for other countries it's safest to assume it made it to #1.  In the UK, it outsold the rest of the top 30 in its opening week but only managed to be the second best selling album of the year - I suspect we'll be seeing the best selling one pretty soon.  The critics were a bit "meh" about the whole thing - I suspect they wanted to slag it off but they knew that it didn't really matter what they said about it, so they couldn't be bothered.

"Customers also listened to" Maroon 5, Justin Bieber, Glass Animals and Lil Nas X - a collection of surprisingly successful artists for the amount of talent involved imho (but I realise that millions disagree with me).  Going back to Ed, I admire the man without particularly liking the majority of his music - for me, this was "perfectly fine" but nothing more than that.  And yes, I totally realise it doesn't really matter what I think - and it's part of my admiration that he manages to appeal to quite so many people.

24/12/21 - Some Swedish nostalgia
07/01/22 - Not what I was expecting