You make me a better man than I'll ever be

Continuing my trip back in time through the album charts

12/11/21 : It'll All Make Sense In The End - James Arthur

James Arthur is a puzzling one, isn't he?  I don't really know who he thinks he's appealing to - my suspicion is he's aiming for the "bad boy" image to attract a certain kind of young lady.  However, the only person in our house that pays any attention to him is my lovely wife - and she assures me she only likes him for his music (and she wouldn't lie to me now, would she?).  I do seem to recall that I have thought some of his music to be "not terrible" but I'd struggle to name a single track he's done (and I only Googled it 30 seconds ago).

And well, on this album there's a nice enough track on there called "Emily" so he gets some bonus points for that, but apart from that I still can't name a single track he's done.  I mean, it's fine, I guess, but I still don't see what the point to it is.  I found it all a bit bland in the same way I did with Years And Years - and I can't help but have a sneaking suspicion that if you sped James all up he would sound very similar to Olly (although it turns out he sounds more like The Chipmunks).  I really didn't need 50 minutes of it either.

We're at #3 in the charts this week (yes, it was Ed and Abba ahead of him - it won't go on for much longer though!) and unfortunately James only managed 3 weeks on the charts before disappearing from view, so I guess I'm not the only person that doesn't see the point to him.  He just pipped Radiohead and Summer Walker's new releases this week - and I suspect I'd have preferred to listen to either of those instead.

Wikipedia has an interesting entry - the "Background and Recording" section sounds like it's been written by a real fan, delving into his motivation for recording the album.  And then the "Critical Reception" section includes the following quotes "he is let down by forgettable music and frankly terrible lyrics" and "It's all about as anonymous as a stranger walking past you in the street" - which of course made me chuckle.  "Impressively" there are 18 different songwriters credited across the album as well.

"Customers also listened to" Anson Seabra (who I know considerably more about than you might expect), Noah Kahan (who I've never heard of) and Alessia Cara (who I've heard of, but didn't think she was in this ballpark).  Back to the album, I didn't hate it because that would have required caring about it - I just don't understand who would like it (I must check with Mrs Reed whether she's had it on constant play since release)

05/11/21 - Was it you that asked for this?
19/11/21 - A compilation album - how quaint!