I'm at the top of the charts, unapproachable

Continuing my trip forward in time through the album charts

30/12/22 : Heroes & Villains - Metro Boomin

Admit it, you didn't expect me to be listening to this in the last week of the year, did you?  I know I didn't - I'm guessing it will be a hippy-hoppy kinda thang, but to be honest it could be anything.

I actually didn't mind this (although some of the language is a bit choice) - I've got no idea what you'd call it though.  I'd go for something like "trippy rap" - it sounds like some other stuff we've heard but I don't remember who it was by.  Maybe Travis Scott?  There's no danger of me listening to it again, but it was much better than I was expecting - "Creepin" which features The Weeknd is actually a really nice track.  Honest!

Somewhat surprisingly, we're at #17 in the chart this week - we've rarely made it out of the top five all year - and then this!  The reason is that above it in the charts are ten albums we've previously met and all the others are greatest hits, none of which I felt the slightest inclination to bend the rules and include.  He's on his fourth week on the charts, having peaked at #3 in his debut week - he's done well to hang around long enough to sneak in this year.  The top five this week are Bublé, Taylor, SZA (I'm impressed she's hanging in there), Ed Sheeran (which has only spent two weeks outside the top ten all year - both at #11) and Elton John's Diamonds - which is a 2.5 hour greatest hits extravaganza that I can definitely live without, but this is the highest position it's had in the charts in a 268 week run, tying nicely with its debut week back in November '17.  Amazingly there are five albums in the top 16 which have spent more time in the charts than Elton's effort - I guess Christmas doesn't really bring out the best in people's musical listening efforts.

Wikipedia has more than I was expecting on the album, a lot of which is telling me who's guesting on the album - including Morgan Freeman (and what album isn't going to be improved by my boy Morgan?), John Legend, Future, Chris Brown, Travis Scott, The Weeknd and Gunna, which is a pretty impressive roster.  It also tells me that it's apparently "psychedlic trap" (which seems pretty close to "trippy rap") to me and the album cover was inspired by Pink Floyd's Wish You Were Here (I knew it was a Floyd cover, but couldn't have told you which one).  The critics were reasonably happy with it, although was a strange undertone of "he's done better, but it's still better than most of the shit others churn out" - the public didn't care and lapped it up, with it getting to #1 in US and several other countries.

"Customers also listened to" Drake & 21 Savage (I much preferred Metro Boomin to this), Drake (ditto with this), SZA (there are more similarities than you'd expect with this) and Steve Lacy (yeah, same with this).  As I said earlier, I won't listen to this again but I found it surprisingly bearable.

And that's it for 2022 - I'll be interested to see how many of the albums I actually remember when I come to write up the year, but you'll have to wait until the chart for the full year comes out before you get to see that.

23/12/22 - A strong contender late in the year
2022 - Another one bites the dust