Love and laughter and joy ever after

Continuing my trip back in time through the album charts

27/11/20 : Together At Christmas - Michael Ball And Alfie Boe




Now - I fully accept that Michael and Alfie have fine voices and, some of the things they do, they do very well.  But, well, they do have a tendency to absolutely murder a decent song whilst appearing on various "light entertainment" programmes and I couldn't help but be concerned this was going to happen here.  And yes, I appreciate that listening to a Xmas album in April is always going to introduce a different slant on matters - despite the appropriately seasonal weather we're experiencing)...

...but even making allowances for that, let me confidently state that this is a BLOODY AWFUL album.  Will someone PLEASE make them and their horrendous vibrato stop?!?  The entire album is a competition to see which beloved classic they can mutilate most horribly - it's a close contest but I think "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)" wins by a (horribly mutilated) nose.  I mean, they even manage to make "Mistletoe And Wine" worse - can you even begin to imagine the level of effort involved in achieving that?  I'd also say that "My Christmas Will Be Better Than Yours" made me reminisce fondly about Gary and James duet on the previous effort.

We're at #1 in the charts this week as the first of a seven week run - which was about seven hundred more weeks than it deserved.  Other new entries in the top ten this week are BTS (#2 - I can't say I'm gutted I miss this), Neil Diamond (#5 - and to think I thought that was bad!) and Iron Maiden (#7 with their festive offering of Nights Of The Dead - Legacy Of The Beast).

Wikipedia has an entry for the album which I wasn't going to read, but I couldn't help noticing this was their fourth album together - all of which I stand a chance of listening to if I continue with this exercise for long enough (so I might just stop now).  "Customers also listened to" Jason Manford, Michael Crawford and John Barrowman - the mind boggles as to the sort of person who would subject themselves to all of them.  Regarding this album, whatever you do, I implore you not to think "oh, it can't be that bad" because I can assure you it's far, far worse than that.  Run away, run away!!!

20/11/20 - A surprisingly bland affair
04/11/20 - Not good.  But it could have been much worse.



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