And tonight you can cry if you want to but it won't help you

Continuing my trip back in time through the album charts

07/04/96 : A Maximum High - Shed Seven


Shed Seven always feel to me like they put out some decent stuff but never quite made the Britpop top table - I don't think I ever listened to this, so I'll be interested to see what I think of it.

Yeah - I quite liked it.  Except for "Going For Gold" and "On Standby", which I REALLY liked - particularly the latter which I own on a 96 compilation album but had completely forgotten about.  Yes, the album has dated a bit but it's got some nice jangly guitars on it, so I can forgive it its sins (although the live tracks at the end of the extended deluxe super edition are pretty unforgivable).  But, unsurprisingly from the above, it's not one we've ever owned - 12/39

We're at #8 with a new entry this week on the start of a rather odd chart voyage - the first run was nine weeks, then it had two months off, then it was back for 14 weeks.  And then it a mere two weeks off before coming back for another 14 weeks (never getting higher that #55) - I assume it was all to do with judicious dropping of singles.  The top five this week were Take That, Oasis, Celine, Tina (a new entry) and Alanis - my money would be on the ladies in that fight.  That was it for new entries for the top ten - the next highest one was Scooter at #24, who I can tell you nothing at all about (apparently they're happy hardcore - so that's me told).

Wikipedia has more on the album than I was expecting, but there's not a load of content in there.  The critical reception section makes the point that the band are looking to be The Smiths - which wasn't something that occurred to me when listening to it, but it's not far off the truth.  Something else that struck home was that it was "the record The Stone Roses should have made instead of 'The Second Coming'".  And obviously I was pleased to see one of the other critics refer to the guitar's "exultant jangling".  It's also telling that there's no commercial reception section - this album did nothing outside of the UK, did it?  Having said that, the band's entry tells me that they were actually the most successful UK charting band in 1996 with five singles making the top 40 - admit it, you'd never guess that in a pop quiz, would you?

"Customers also listened to" The Seahorses (that's a great album), The Charlatans (woefully under-appreciated over the years imho) and The Bluetones (who I've never liked as much as I feel I should).  But overall, I found this Shed Seven album to be exactly the sort of album I was hoping to get from this year - a very welcome (re-ish)discovery.

31/03/96 - An album that defied my expectations
14/04/96 - An album that's stood the test of time well

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