I'm only human, and I'm crashing down to earth

Continuing my trip forward in time through the album charts

16/12/22 : There's Nothing But Space, Man! - Sam Ryder

I didn't mind his Eurovision track, but wasn't quite as taken with it as everyone else in the country, it seems.  I'm expecting more of the same from this...

And that's not entirely fair - there's more variety here than I was expecting.  I mean, it's not tremendous variety, but there is at least some.  If you like his "Space Man" schtick, then I think you'll probably like this - like Olly Murs last week, this feels like an album with some cross-generational appeal and he's got a good, strong voice.  But it's not really my cup of tea, and I suspect it's unlikely to be yours either...

We're at #1 with a new entry this week - if feels like it'll hang around until the new year, but let's see.  The rest of the top five this week are SZA (another new entry), Taylor, Bublé and Andre Rieu (I've no idea who's listening to that) - and that's it for new entries for the top ten.  The next highest is Sam Fender (#17) who has two albums in the top 20 - so it's a good week for people called Sam.

Wikipedia has a surprisingly large amount on the album but there's not a great deal of content.  Interestingly he is the first British male solo artist to debut at #1 with their first release since - Sam Fender in 2019!  I was also pleasantly surprised to see he had a hand in writing all the songs (apparently he wrote over 100 for the album) - although it's fair to say he had a LOT of help.  The critics were actually pretty nice about it - I feared they might be a bit sniffy about the whole thing.

"Customers also listened to" Nina Nesbitt, Noah Cyrus, Hunter Hayes and Joshua Bassett - I've heard some of the names, but I think it's safe to say they're not aimed at me.  As is the case for Sam - I can see it will hit the spot for some, but not me.  But he seems like a lovely guy, so I don't begrudge him his success.

09/12/22 - Giving his fans what they want
23/12/22 - A strong contender late in the year

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