It's not so glamorous at all

Continuing my trip back in time through the album charts

05/05/96 : To The Faithful Departed - The Cranberries

I loved their debut album (the snappily titled Everybody Else Is Doing It, So Why Can't We?) and got into their follow-up (No Need To Argue) once I'd got over the shock of it being it slightly different.  And if you haven't seen Aisling Bea and Sharon Horgan singing "the song about the ghosts" then you're in for a treat (Mammy, it's not about ghosts!).  But I'd never listened to this album, so here we go...

Most of this album is in a similar vein to No Need To Argue and it opens well with the strongest tracks up front - which plenty of other bands could learn from!  It does go a bit weird towards the end with "Will You Remember?" and "Joe" sounding more like lullabies than anything else.  I'm also not convinced by "I Just Shot John Lennon" - I believe they thought they were paying tribute, but I'm really not sure adding the sound of gunshots was a GREAT idea.  But all in all, it's an interesting listen which I mostly enjoyed - it's a shame Dolores is no longer with us.  And, as you might have guessed, I've never owned this - 10/35.

We're at #2 with a new entry in the charts this week, starting a run of 20 weeks - not a bad effort, but not quite the 90+ weeks their previous two albums managed.  The rest of the top five were Alanis (of course), Take That (about which I have to make a decision tomorrow), Oasis and Orbital (a new entry, which I've actually already met on my travels).  That was it for new entries in the top ten - the next highest was from Northern Uproar, who I'd totally forgotten about over the years.

Wikipedia has, at first glance, a reasonable amount of text on the album - but when you read it you realise it's saying absolutely nothing.  The only item of interest is that the yellow room on the cover was built in London and moved to a forest in the Lake District for the photos - why would you do that?  The outfits are Dolce & Gabbana and really thin and it was snowing - ha, serves them right.  The album was considerably more successful commercially than I remembered - #1 in five countries and #4 in the US, with six million sales globally.  Interestingly, there's no entry on the critical reception and we have to go to their entry to read it was "mauled" by the press - I can imagine they decided they weren't go to play that game any more and the music media turned on them as a result.  Their entry is an interesting read and reminds you how they managed to get massive everywhere, but particularly in the US (they had five top 20 albums over there) without really trying.  I'd also forgotten they went on tour supporting Suede but halfway through the tour they were made the headliners - man, that had to sting for Suede.

"Customers also listened to" Alanis, Live, Garbage and 10,000 Maniacs - that's another great set of artists (I particularly love 10,000 Maniacs & Natalie Merchant).  And I'd forgotten how much I liked The Cranberries - EEIDISWCW? is my favourite, but I also like the way they transitioned from fey indie warblers (which is not an insult btw!) to more challenging characters.  And "the song about the ghosts" really is a fine track.

28/04/96 - Yes, I enjoyed it more than I'll admit
12/05/96 - Yeah. this was nice