Let's fall in love before we get too old

Continuing my trip back in time through the album charts

04/12/20 : Music Played By Humans - Gary Barlow



Oh dear.  I wasn't happy when I had to listen to Bieber, but I think this is the unhappiest I've been so far.  His smug blandness just totally gets on my nerves - it's inoffensive to the point of offensiveness.  And what's going on with that album title - it feels unnecessarily pointed at someone (or everyone).  Anyways, them's the breaks - in we go...

...and the first song is a swing number - he's not doing a Robbie thang, is he?  Because one of the few things worse than Gary is Gary trying to score points over Robbie.  Well, it's not only swing because the third track is more of a samba number, but he's certainly auditioning for Jools with his big band sound.  However, he does get bored with it all by the end of the album and goes back to pop blandosity.  But I really didn't need him to spend 69 minutes going on his musical journey.

The duets are worth a mention - the ones with Buble and Barry Manilow aren't bad at all, the one with Beverley Knght is disappointing and the one with James Corden is probably one of the most awfully smug things I've heard in a very long time - I imagine they did it live on James' chat show and I will not be held responsible if anyone points me in the direction of it.  

However, as a whole, the album isn't as horrible as I feared and he does sound like he's enjoying himself.  It does feel like he's trying to be Robbie - there's a few "oooh - I'm such a bad boy" moments and he REALLY can't pull them off.  Having said that, I actively liked "Before We Get Too Old" which has a real Tony Bennett/Frank Sinatra feel to it and Gary carries it off well.  Me?  Praising Gazza?  What is the world coming to?  

To balance this praise, I'm going to include some lyrics from "Eleven" because they made me laugh at how they were allowed through the writing process

Eleven, let's take this up to eleven
Oh, that's just four higher than seven.

We're at #1 in the charts this week and he managed seven weeks before disappearing.  Other new entries in the top ten are Steps (#2 - tbh I would have preferred this), Miley Cyrus (#4 - or this) and Shakin' Stevens (#10 - obviously!).  Xmas does funny things to the charts, doesn't it?

Wikipedia tells me it was a very big band indeed - an 80 piece orchestra, no less.  And that's pretty much all it has to say on the matter.  I was interested to see what the critics had to say on the matter, so did a quick Google and there are remarkably few out there - I would have thought it was right up NME or Kerrang's street.

"Customers also listened to" Buble, Robbie and Bradley Walsh (with the latter supposedly being a surprisingly bearable album, but I can't say I've had the pleasure yet).  All in all, Gary's effort wasn't nearly as terrible as I feared it would be and I can see it nicely hits the spot for plenty of people, so I won't begrudge him his continuing success (too much).  I'm also pleased I haven't used up all my invective because I'm REALLY going to need it for what comes next...

27/11/20 - This is not going on my Xmas list
11/12/20 - An interesting album

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