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Continuing my trip back in time through the album charts

18/08/96 : Everything Must Go - Manic Street Preachers


I liked this back in the day but always had the slight suspicion it just wasn't as cool as The Holy Bible, its predecessor (and the last album to feature Richey Edwards before his disappearance).  I've certainly not revisited either album in years though, so it will be interesting to see my thoughts on this after an extended break.

Well, at first re-listen I really quite liked it - it's got a reasonable variety of music on it, which all still keeping to the overall slightly doom-tinged tone.  The singles were the tracks that stood out best for me with "A Design For Life", the title track and (particularly) "Kevin Carter" all bringing back fine memories.  So yeah, that was good!  And it was also one I owned - 8/20!

Continuing the theme of the lower reaches of the top ten, we're at #9 in the chart this week on their 13th week of a 78 week run - with another 25 weeks being added over a further 7 runs, with it last being seen in 2016 (for an anniversary re-release I suspect).  It never reached #1, but got to #2 twice - in its debut week and (obviously) its 41st week.  The top five this week were Alanis, Oasis, Crowded House, Smurfs and Ocean Colour Scene and there were no new entries in the top ten - it was exactly the same albums as the previous week, with the order slightly shifted.  We did have a new entry at #11 though - The Very Best Of The Who, which I'm sure absolutely no-one was asking for.  However, its irrelevance pales into insignificance when compared with the new entry at #17 - Cliff Richard At The Movies (1959-1974).  Who wanted that?!?

Wikipedia has more on the album than I was expecting (199 milliPeppers) most of which talks about Richey not being on it, how that changed the sound and how successful the album was.  And it was over here, but it didn't really set the world alight - #12 in Ireland and #29 in Finland were the best of the rest. 

"Customers also listened to" Suede, Ash, The Bluetones and Reef - one of which we've recently met and another of which will be appearing soon.  This has certainly borne the test of time well though - it was fun to revisit, particularly when compared with their somewhat insipid fare these days.

11/08/96 - A nice voice
25/08/96 - A very pleasant revisit

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