I know all we're doing is traveling without moving

Continuing my trip back in time through the album charts

13/10/96 : Travelling Without Moving - Jamiroquai

I liked the stuff that Jamiroquai were putting out at this time, and believe I very nearly bought this but had some concerns that a whole album might prove a little same-y.  Let's see, shall we?

And, well - you can't fault the quality of the opening track.  Or the video that accompanied it - if anything cemented their reputation as cheeky funksters it was the clever moving floor, walls and furniture of "Virtual Insanity".  And yeah, the album did suffer a bit of a dip in quality after that but what can you expect?  All in all, I thought it was OK - there was more variety in there than I was expecting (and I certainly wasn't expecting the didgeridoo instrumentals).  I didn't need the 2 hour long remastered version that Amazon presented me with though - the 67 minute original was perfectly long enough thank you very much.  But, whichever version you consider, it's one we've never owned - 2/12.

We're at #6 in the charts this week on their fifth week of a 72 week run, peaking at #2 for its first two weeks.  It's popped up a few time in charts since over the years - bizarrely last seen for a single week at #27 in February of this year.  Above it in the charts this week were Simply Red (a new entry), Celine Dion, The Fugees, Kula Shaker and Alanis Morissette (we'll be mentioning her quite a bit for the rest of the year - maybe I'll even learn how to spell her name by the end of it).  We even have another new entry in the top ten - Stoosh by Skunk Anansie, which I'd shamefully never heard before.  However, due to issues with the chart website, I thought was the album of choice for this week so I have now listened to it - yeah, it's certainly more lively than a lot of the stuff we've suffered so far this year with some pretty skilful playing on it.

Back to Jamiroquai, Wikipedia has more on the album than I was expecting (211 milliPeppers) - a lot of which tells me the album was more successful than I was expecting.  It was their only album to make an impression in the US, which contributed to global sales of over 8 million and acknowledgement by Guiness World Records that this is (and is therefore incredibly like to stay) the best selling funk album ever.  There was some backlash from the press about Jay Kay's environmental views not stacking up with his love of sports cars, but that feels a bit too "let's have a go at someone who's having a better time than us" to me.  Toby Smith (the keyboardist with a very un-rock-and-roll name) puts it nicely - "We all want to be an ecologically conscious band, but we like cars.  We're hypocrites like the rest of the world. But then again, you can only drive one car at a time".

"Customers also listened to" Lenny Kravitz, Seal, Spin Doctors, The Verve and Beck - I think we can safely say this is another album that attracted fans from across the spectrum.  And I can see why - there's a decent enough selection of tracks on this, showing enough variety to not get too same-y.  Am I ever going to listen to it again?  Nope, but there are plenty worse albums that's also true for.

06/10/96 - I just hope he's enjoyed it all
20/10/96 - A welcome opportunity for reappraisal