All pleasure's the same, it just keeps me from trouble

Continuing my trip back through the 2006 album charts.

19/02/06 : Back To Bedlam - James Blunt

I've been quite rude about male singer-songwriters in this year, so surely I'm going to take cheap pot shots at the easiest of targets, aren't I?  Well no, actually - I like this album (or I did, anyway) and I remember there being some very decent tracks on there.  Yes, I appreciate this isn't the coolest of opinions but I was basically under the impression it mostly just suffered from ubiquity - but it will be interesting to revisit it to see whether I still think that.

Hmmm - yes and no.  I did still enjoy it, but there were a few more filler tracks on there than I remembered and I can see that his voice can be quite annoying at times.  But the good tracks are very fine tracks indeed - yes, there are obviously the singles that everyone knows (and either likes or detests) but I also really like "Tears And Rain", "Wisemen" and "No Bravery" as well.  And yes, there is a very good argument that he started all the annoying male singer-songerwriters off - and that's the fault of all those people that bought this album at the time.  Which includes me (thirteen for the year) - so it turns out that actually I'm to blame.  Sigh.

We're at #3 in the charts this week on his 50th week of an 88 week run - very similar numbers to Kaiser Chiefs' Employment.  James spent slightly more time at #1 though - 10 weeks in all.  And he's spent a few more weeks in the charts overall - 130 weeks, with him last being seen for a single week in '10.  The rest of the top five this week are Arctic Monkeys, Kaiser Chiefs, KT Tunstall and Will Young - and the highest new entry is The Jam's best of (#10 - another one I own and have also reviewed from 23 years earlier!).

Wikipedia has quite a bit on the album (186 milliPeppers) and there's quite a lot of interesting stuff in there.  His early music career involved quite some names - Elton John's manager, Linda Perry and Carrie Fisher all get involved at some point (his eldest son has slightly famous godparents - Carrie Fisher and Ed Sheeran!).  The critical reception was very positive (before the haters got on board)  but nothing like the commercial reception.  It took a couple of months to get going, but was the UK's best selling album of '05, #22 of '06 and the top selling album of the decade.  It's sold over 3 millions copies in the UK and over 11 million copies worldwide - a fine effort from the lad.

"Customers also listened to" Snow Patrol, Dido and James Bay - definite dinner party material!  I was pleased to fin I still like this though - despite it meaning that I'm (at least partially) responsible for all the pointless male singer-songwriters out there.  I'll never be able to look myself in the face again.

12/02/06 - Perfectly fine
26/02/06 - A load of fun

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