Tell me your fable

Continuing my trip back in time through the album charts

23/06/96 : Dreamland - Robert Miles

Well we've been on a pretty poor mini-run (although I have to accept some of the blame for that), but for a change we have an album here that I've not heard before AND I'm looking forward to.  I liked "Children" (even if it did get a bit too ubiquitous) - I'm not expecting this album to venture far from it, but that won't be a bad thing.

And yeah, it doesn't venture far from the "piano over an ambient/trance backing track" formula but it hits the spot nicely if you're in the mood for such a thing.  I'm not convinced a wet Tuesday morning in St Albans is the ideal listening spot, but you have to make do with what you've got I guess.  "In My Dreams" stood out for me as my favourite of the variations on a theme, but they're all very much in the same vein - if you like "Children" then I can't see any reason why you won't like the rest of it.  It would, however, be amiss of me not to mention that the 78 minute deluxe version I listened to got slightly samey towards the end - but that was a problem easily solved.  Unsurprisingly from the above, we've never owned this one - 9/28.

We're at #9 in the charts this week in its second week of a 19 week run (having peaked at #7 in its debut week) - it took a month off from the charts and then came back for another 33 week run.  The top five this week were Alanis, Ocean Colour Scene, Bryan, The Fugees and George - with just the one new entry in the top ten being Dodgy at #7.  The next highest new entry was Keith Sweat (#36) who is someone I knew nothing about, but it seems like I should have - the man has had ten top ten albums in the US and managed two top three singles in this 1996 and he's still going now at the tender age of 61!  Another new entry of interest is Placebo's eponymous debut (#40) - a fine album which has stood the test of time well.

Back to Robert Miles, Wikipedia doesn't have a lot on the album but does note that it did well in mainland Europe - I don't think that will come as a surprise to anyone.  It also told me he's no longer with us, so I checked up on his entry - the lad was an Italian who grew up Switzerland (unsurprisingly Robert Miles wasn't his real name).  "Children" was his breakthrough hit and, boy, was it a hit - the best selling single of 1996 in Europe with over 5 million copies shifted.  He kept at it though, until he died from cancer at the age of 47 in 2017.

"Customers also listened to" Snap!, Sash!, Darude and Everything But The Girl - a somewhat varied mix, but I can see where it's coming from.  All in all, this is a fine album even if it's not exactly essential to listen to the whole thing - I'd rather have a couple of the tracks on a general ambient/progressive house/dream trance/whatever you want to call it playlist.  Although, amusingly, I initially typed it as "progressive horse" which I feel would be an interesting sound, if nothing else...

16/06/96 - An unexpected surprise
30/06/96 - Not even perfectly serviceable