I still haven't got over it even now

Continuing my trip back in time through the album charts

12/05/96 : Walking Wounded - Everything But The Girl


What an odd band EBTG have been over the years - I seemed to recall this was fine, building upon the dance-ish success they had with "Missing" but I haven't listened to it in ages.

And yeah, it's kinda laid-back chill-ish dancey-trippy stuff - Wikipedia uses the odd combination of "downtempo, drum and bass, sophisti-pop, techno, trip hop" which tells you even less than I manage.  "Walking Wounded" and "Mirrorball" are my favourite tracks, but I prefer the slightly more upbeat remixes - but, all in all, it was a pleasant enough listen if not quite as "present" as I might like with a lot of being very understated.  And amazingly, it's one I owned - I seem to recall the lovely Mrs Reed bought it for me many years ago, obviously knowing I'd be in need of a timely boost to get to 10/34.

We're at #4 in the charts with a new entry this week, peaking at the start of a 27 week run and then coming back for another 5 weeks once the Xmas/New Year madness was out the way.  Making this their most successful album chart-wise, both in terms of highest position and most weeks in the charts.  The rest of the top five were  Ash (a new entry), Alanis, Oasis and Sleeper - with the last one (The It Girl) being a very unlucky new entry, having narrowed missed out last week as well. And I would have enjoyed writing about it - for me, it's an album that's stood the test of time well.  And, in an INSANE week for new entries in the top ten (for 1996, anyway), The Cure also sneak in there at #9.

Wikipedia doesn't have a lot on the album but does include a couple of weird sentences.  Firstly, one of the critics thought the album reminded him of their earlier stuff but they had "replaced many of the duo's acoustics with reasonable digital facsimiles".  What could possibly represent lavish praise more than the statement "reasonable digital facsimiles"?  Also (and you might want to sit down for this one) the album's cover art is unusual because (wait for it) - "it features the barcode on both the front and back of the album".  And if that's not the very essence of rock and roll, I don't know what is...

"Customers also listened to" Tracey Thorn's solo stuff (which is well worth a listen imho), Julia Fordham (I'm looking forward to catching up with her at some point), Prefab Sprout (ditto) and Beth Orton (this is a good "calt", isn't it!?!).  I feel I've been somewhat lacking in both praise and description for this album - I did like it, but it doesn't reach out and grab you.  It's more a case that it just swirls around you and creates a nice ambience.  And, to be honest, recently I've been in need of some nice ambience, so I wholeheartedly thank if for that.

05/05/96 - An enjoyable reminder I'd never heard before
19/05/96 - Past its sell-by date

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