I let my guard down and then you pulled the rug
Continuing my trip back in time through the album charts
03/07/20 : Divinely Uninspired To A Hellish Extent - Lewis Capaldi
We were always going to bump into this sooner or later - we've had a few close calls in the past couple of months, but finally we've made it. From what I've seen, I like the guy - he always looks like he is enjoying his moment in the spotlight and he's not going to let it overly change him, as borne out by his amusingly sweary Brit acceptance award (which contains about three words after the censorship - and one of them is "fucking"). I've not listened to the album, but I'm expecting a decent enough shift - although doubting too much of it will hit the heights of "Someone You Loved".
And yeah, that's pretty much where we are - but when you relisten to "Someone You Loved", you realise this isn't entirely fair because it is indeed a very fine tune. If you're going to listen to this kind of thing, then it's way out ahead of all the efforts from James Arthur, Tom Grennan, Rag'N'Bone Man and other suchlikes we've had on the list so far - it's not quite my thing, but I'd have no problems listening to this again.
We're at #4 (our joint lowest chart position yet) this week in a surprisingly interesting top ten (for a change) - but more on that later. Lewis was in his 59th week on the charts in a run that's currently still ongoing at 153 weeks and he's hanging around the top 30 so he ain't going anywhere just yet. He's also spent 11 weeks at #1 on 7 separate occasions during a 77 week run in the top ten - so basically what I'm saying is that this has been a fantastically successful album.
So, what else was going on in the top ten this week then? There were three new entries - all of which we've previously met with Haim (#1 - a great album which deserved far more than four weeks in the charts), Jessie Ware (#3 - a great album which deserved far more than five weeks in the charts, bizarrely on three separate runs) and Khruangbin (#7 - and yes, I'm surprised I've listened to this as well). This is a very familiar week in the top ten, with me also having reviewed Bob Dylan (#2 - a surprisingly bearable album), Harry Styles (#4 - a surprisingly good album), Lady Gaga (#5 - an album I apparently thought was fine, but can't remember at all) and Dua Lipa (#8 - a very good album if you've somehow avoided it this long). So if we'd met Lewis before, we'd have been listening to Elton at #9 - but we hadn't, so we weren't.
Wikipedia has surprisingly little on the album but does have a couple of great Lewis quotes including on the album title - he didn't think he "would give it a name as stupid I have, but here we are" (there's also a great quote on the album making process but it's too long to include). It also mentions that it was quite a successful album - the best selling UK album of both 2019 and 2020. It also did pretty well globally - top ten in quite a few places and #20 in the US.
"Customers also listened to" James Arthur, James Bay, Passenger and Shawn Mendes - that kinda thing. But this is a very good example of that kinda thing which I enjoyed listening to - it will be interesting to see what he comes up with next.
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