I said hello unnoticed - you said goodbye too soon

Continuing my trip back in time through the album charts

03/01/20 : You're In My Heart - Rod Stewart with the Royal Philharmonic


Xmas is an odd time on the album charts and no mistake - I wasn't expecting to meet Rod for many decades yet.  And yet, here we are.  It's another of those "take some classic songs, throw an orchestra in the mix and see what happens" albums - and what's happened so far with Neil Diamond and Paul Weller hasn't been exactly great.  However, for some weird reason, I actually have some hope that they might get it right here (at least in places).

And well, what they do well here is that they don't entirely ditch the band, with drums and guitars still very much on display.  They've basically slowed some of the tracks down and bunged on some strings, so nothing's been really ruined.  Is it any good?  Well not really - at times it does stray dangerously close to lift music, but it plays to its audience and they're not really going to care, are they?  I'm really not sure the deluxe version needs to be 110 minutes long though!

We're at #3 in the charts this week in, amazingly, his sixth week out of 18 week run - and the first six weeks were all spent in the top three, with three weeks at #1.  December is a funny time in the charts and no mistake.  Above him this week though were Lewis and Stormzy (swapping places from last time) and, once again, we only have one new entry in the top 100 - this time it's D-Block Europe at #9.

Wikipedia doesn't have an awful lot on the album, but does tell us this was Rod's tenth #1 album, his 38th(!) top 10 album and it was also the first #1 album of the decade.  All of which ain't bad for a 77 year old!  I was somewhat surprised to see it got to #3 in Australia though.  What also surprised me was how many of Rod's top tracks were cover versions - "Sailing", "Handbags And Gladrags", "I Don't Want To Talk About It" and "The First Cut Is The Deepest" were all written (and recorded first) by others.

"Customers also listened to" Amy Belle and Rowetta.  Err, OK.  I can't say I liked this, but it could have been far, far worse and it plays to its audience, so I admire it for that.  You've also got to admire Rod for having had a good time on life's journey and also remaining remarkably level-headed during that time (unlike many of his peers).

And with that, we're finished with 2020!

10/01/20 - One I wanted to hate more
2020 - Another year over

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