I don't wanna jinx this thing

Continuing my trip back in time through the album charts

23/10/20 : Cherry Blossom - The Vamps


I'm aware of The Vamps and I know they have a devoted fanbase, but I can very much assure you that I'm not one of them.  They do what they do well enough, but it's not aimed at me and we're all very happy with that - the chances of this album changing my views on the matter seem very slim.

But no - I LOVE this and I'm a total convert now.  Yes, I'm a Vampette (I made that up, but apparently that's what they're called - or Vampion or one of the Vamily).  Well, no, I'm not - this very much falls into the "totally fine" category and my toes would tap along if a track came on the radio but a whole album of it is not something I require.  But there are plenty worse things out there that them there Vampettes could get obsessed with, so I guess they serve a purpose.  I would say I'm intrigued by the album cover - I've no idea what's going on there...

We're at #1 with a new entry in the charts this week - they were #72 next week and then disappeared, so they're obviously not quite as popular as I thought they were.  Other new entries in the top ten were Daniel O'Donnell (#3 - the second time I've had a close shave with the lad), Katie Melua (#7 - she's still hanging in there) and Beabadoobee (#8 - I was fascinated as to what kind of noise a Beabadoobee would make so checked it out and quite liked it).

Wikipedia tells me this is their fifth album - which is about three more than I was expecting (yes, I'm old).  It did OK commercially but there's no word on critical reviews - I guess this sort of thing is pretty immune to the critics' opinions.  The band's entry tells me they've been going since 2013 (I feel really old now) and are the first band to play the O2 five years in a row.

"Customers also listened to" Union J, 5 Seconds Of Summer and a load of other groups that feature men of a certain (young) age.  It's totally not for me, but it's totally harmless - I will allow it to continue existing because that's the kind of gracious overlord I choose to be.

16/10/20 - No, not for me
30/10/20 - I liked this a lot more than I was expecting to

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

I saw your mum - she forgot that I existed

Image
Continuing my trip forward in time through the album charts 22/12/23 :  Stick Season - Noah Kahan Well, this week surprises us on a couple of fronts.  Firstly, and probably the least expected, this is possibly the album I've heard most this year - because obviously I'm a massive Noah fan. Well, it might not surprise you to hear it's not me but my delightful daughter - but you might be surprised to hear just how much my youngest absolutely LOVES Noah, particularly given his folkiness.  She's got tickets to see him next year and (excluding festivals) they're the most expensive gig tickets I've ever bought.  But despite having heard the album loads, I've never actually listened to it, so I'm interested to see what I make of it on a one-on-one basis. You know what - the headline is that, having actually listened to it I can report that, at least in places, I liked this way more than I previously did.  I listened to it over headphones for the first time and t
Read more

She's got a wicked way of acting like St. Anthony

Image
I've done The Guardian's list of the top 50 albums of the year for the last three years and (mostly) enjoyed it, so here we go again with this year's list .  Last year I'd previously met ten of the list - it will be interesting to see whether that is repeated this year.   #50 : Crazymad, For Me - CMAT Coming off halfway between Jenny Lewis and Self Esteem, Dublin’s CMAT sets life’s greatest embarrassments to ritzy country showstoppers – the musical equivalent of piling your beehive high to distract from your tear-reddened eyes. On her second album, she tots up the price she has paid for her bad boyfriends, self-subjugation and knowing avoidance of less-than-romantic realities, always with mordant humour rather than self-pity: “I’m just some stewardess who feeds your pets / And does your dishes and pays your rent,” she sings on the delicate, harmony-heavy Such a Miranda. For all that she has lost in these songs – pride, love, literal cash – her perspective remains a firm
Read more

Croopied in the reames, shepherd gurrel weaves

Image
Continuing my trip down The Guardian's   top 50 albums of 2023 #30 : The Age Of Pleasure - Janelle Monáe Monáe’s last album, 2018’s Dirty Computer, saw the high-concept pop star returning to earth after several albums of space-age fantasia, showing a softer, fallible side for the rest time. Its songs were still divided into three categories – Reckoning, Celebration and Reclamation – indicating an artist who hadn’t quite let go of the structural safety rails. But on The Age of Pleasure, Monáe is resolutely grounded in pursuit of a new kind of body high. To the decadently rendered diasporic sounds of reggae, dancehall and Afrobeats, she hymns pleasure and desire, connecting (as did Jessie Ware also did this year) sex as self-empowerment and celebrating the kaleidoscopic nature of identity. Or, as she puts it on Phenomenal: “I’m lookin’ at a thousand versions of myself / And we’re all fine as fuck.” I have experienced a couple of Janelle albums and I found them somewhat inaccessible -
Read more