I promise you, kid, that I'll give so much more than I get

Continuing my trip back through the 2010 album charts.

12/12/10 : Crazy Love - Michael Bublé

I don't mind a bit of Christmas Bublé, but he is possibly a little bit cheesy for other times of the year - although he got away with it last time we met, so let's see if he does so again.

Hmmm - in places he does, but I would say he overdoes it A LOT in other places.  I really like "Cry Me A River" (no, not the Justin Timberlake one - the Julie London one, from 1955!) as a song, but Michael takes it way over the top here, as he does also does with "Georgia On My Mind".  Somewhat surprisingly, the high point for me is not a cover (one of two original songs on the album) - "Haven't Met You Yet" is a lovely sentiment wrapped up in a surprisingly uncheesy package (OK, OK - it's less cheesy, it's obviously not uncheesy).  And doesn't he look so young on the cover?  And looking a bit like Michael Vaughan as well?

We're at #2 in the charts this week on his, wait for it, 60th week of a 135 week run, having peaked at #1 in the first week of this year (the tenth week of his run).  He then followed it up with another 31 week run when his Christmas album came out - we all went mad for a bit of Bublé back then, didn't we?  And this was last seen in the charts for a week in '16 - and yes, it was at Christmas!  The rest of the top five this week are Take That (of course), Olly Murs, Rihanna and JLS and the next new entry is The Priests (#37) - Christmas was definitely on its way!

Wikipedia has more than I was expecting on the album, but there's very little content there,  although it does make the point that he deliberately went for the over-the-top sound on "Cry Me A River" that I didn't like (and he even sang it for the Queen).  It also spends a lot of space listing all the people involved on the album - and there were a lot!  There are eleven different guitarists credited (there are only thirteen tracks on the album) and seven different saxophonists playing four different types of saxophone.  However many people were involved, the critics liked it with one commenting on the "sexy-jerk swagger" he brought to it - I assume that's a good thing, right?  Whatever it is, the public liked it with it getting to #1 both here and in the US - and Canada, unsurprisingly.  But we really went mad for it over here with it being #3 in the '09 year end list, #2 in the '10 list and still #20 in the '11 list - it actually sold more copies here than in the US (3 million vs 2 million) and very few big albums do that.  We do love a bit of Bublé!

"Customers also listened to" Gary Barlow, Harry Connick Jr and Tony Bennett - yes, I think we can see where people are coming from there.  And I like the lad, but just found this album a bit too much - but I appear to be alone in this sentiment.

05/12/10 - Not his best work
19/12/10 - Not bad at all

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