You make me a complete mess

Continuing my trip forward in time through the album charts

30/09/22 : 5SOS5 - 5 Seconds Of Summer


Somewhat unexpectedly (for me, at least), this is our second visit with the lads.  Last time I decided it wasn't for me, but I wasn't too harsh on it - so let's see what we've got this time.

Well - them boys do some swearing now.  And they take some drugs now!  So they've got to be proper interesting, right?  Ah, no - this is such a dull album.  I mean - really, really dull,  All the songs sound exactly the same - I appreciate that might be what their fans are looking for and, if it is, then they're super welcome to it.  But I've no idea why ANYONE would want this.  Yes, I'm old.

We''re are #1 in the charts with a new entry this week - I'd like to think it won't hang around for long, but there's no point in me trying to guess this things.  But, it's interesting to compare this with Harry's album (#3 this week) - I didn't love that, but at least I could see he was trying.  Whereas this is just shite.  In my humble opinion - others may disagree, I guess.  The rest of the top five are D-Block Europe (another new entry, but having seen them at Reading I've no desire to listen to this), Sports Team (another new entry, who we've met before surprisingly), Harry (yes, he's back) and Mark Owen (who I can also do without - and I really wonder why he bothers).  That's enough new entries for the top ten, surely - NO, we've also got Editors at #10 (who I don't mind when I'm in the mood for them)!  For some particularly unclear reason, I scanned the lower reaches of the charts this week and was amazed to see Marina have a re-entry at #42 with Electra Heart, which is an album I have an interesting relationship with.

Wikipedia doesn't have a lot on the album, but the critical reception section is interesting because one critic said "much of the album brings to mind the Weeknd's distinctive brand of atmospheric pop" and I have to admit some songs brought Mr Weeknd to mind - but only in a "they really want to be him, but they so ain't" kinda way.  The album's been depressingly successful globally though.

"Customers also listened to" Charlie Puth, Ali Gattie and Bella Poarch - I've heard of the first one at least and can't say I'm a massive fan.  But he's got to be better than this lot - it's really very boring and bland indeed.  I'm sure they can live with me not loving it though.

23/09/22 - A bumper bundle!
07/10/22 - A complete surprise

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

I saw your mum - she forgot that I existed

Image
Continuing my trip forward in time through the album charts 22/12/23 :  Stick Season - Noah Kahan Well, this week surprises us on a couple of fronts.  Firstly, and probably the least expected, this is possibly the album I've heard most this year - because obviously I'm a massive Noah fan. Well, it might not surprise you to hear it's not me but my delightful daughter - but you might be surprised to hear just how much my youngest absolutely LOVES Noah, particularly given his folkiness.  She's got tickets to see him next year and (excluding festivals) they're the most expensive gig tickets I've ever bought.  But despite having heard the album loads, I've never actually listened to it, so I'm interested to see what I make of it on a one-on-one basis. You know what - the headline is that, having actually listened to it I can report that, at least in places, I liked this way more than I previously did.  I listened to it over headphones for the first time and t
Read more

She's got a wicked way of acting like St. Anthony

Image
I've done The Guardian's list of the top 50 albums of the year for the last three years and (mostly) enjoyed it, so here we go again with this year's list .  Last year I'd previously met ten of the list - it will be interesting to see whether that is repeated this year.   #50 : Crazymad, For Me - CMAT Coming off halfway between Jenny Lewis and Self Esteem, Dublin’s CMAT sets life’s greatest embarrassments to ritzy country showstoppers – the musical equivalent of piling your beehive high to distract from your tear-reddened eyes. On her second album, she tots up the price she has paid for her bad boyfriends, self-subjugation and knowing avoidance of less-than-romantic realities, always with mordant humour rather than self-pity: “I’m just some stewardess who feeds your pets / And does your dishes and pays your rent,” she sings on the delicate, harmony-heavy Such a Miranda. For all that she has lost in these songs – pride, love, literal cash – her perspective remains a firm
Read more

Croopied in the reames, shepherd gurrel weaves

Image
Continuing my trip down The Guardian's   top 50 albums of 2023 #30 : The Age Of Pleasure - Janelle Monáe Monáe’s last album, 2018’s Dirty Computer, saw the high-concept pop star returning to earth after several albums of space-age fantasia, showing a softer, fallible side for the rest time. Its songs were still divided into three categories – Reckoning, Celebration and Reclamation – indicating an artist who hadn’t quite let go of the structural safety rails. But on The Age of Pleasure, Monáe is resolutely grounded in pursuit of a new kind of body high. To the decadently rendered diasporic sounds of reggae, dancehall and Afrobeats, she hymns pleasure and desire, connecting (as did Jessie Ware also did this year) sex as self-empowerment and celebrating the kaleidoscopic nature of identity. Or, as she puts it on Phenomenal: “I’m lookin’ at a thousand versions of myself / And we’re all fine as fuck.” I have experienced a couple of Janelle albums and I found them somewhat inaccessible -
Read more