You got love, you got hate, you got lost

Continuing my trip forward in time through the album charts.

11/03/22 : Oochya! - Stereophonics


Stereophonics inhabit a very similar place in my head to The Manic Street Preachers in that they did a decent album or two back in the day and I'm pleased for them that they've managed to keep it going, but I don't feel the need to check it out myself.  I'm expecting this to be perfectly fine, but there being no danger of me ever going back to it.

And yeah, that's pretty much where we are.  I'd say it was slightly better than I was expecting (and less obviously Radio 2 than The Manics) but still pretty inessential for me, I'm afraid.  And 64 minutes?  Just no.  And it's a terrible album title as well - although the cover does go some way towards rescuing it.

Just for a change, we're at #1 in the chart with a new entry - I struggle to imagine them hanging around for long though.  The only other new entry in the top ten is Marillion at #2 and whilst I enjoy being rude about them to annoy various people, I suspect I'd have much preferred it to this.  We also had a re-entry in the top ten with The Coral at #7 on its fifth separate run on the charts - I assume some kind of re-release for the 20th anniversary is involved (even though that doesn't seem to be until July).

Wikipedia doesn't have an awful lot on the album - apparently it came about because they were planning to release a greatest hits album and found a whole load of old tracks that they'd never actually released, so re-recorded them and some new stuff.  The critics view seems to have been "it's not great, but it's better than the usual shite they've been churning out recently" but it only really troubled the charts here and in Ireland.

"Customers also listened to" Feeder, Manic Street Preachers and Starsailor - all bands that some might argue have hung around slightly longer than necessary.  Personally, I'm happy for people to hang around as long as they like, but they need some kind of variety to keep my interest and I'm just not seeing that here.

04/03/22 - Not terrible, but not my cup of tea
11/03/22 - Another Brucie-bonus!

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