Oh the years flew by like a mighty rush of eagles

Continuing my trip back through the 2010 album charts.

01/08/10 : Praise & Blame - Tom Jones

Another of our eternal chart veterans (although he doesn't pop up quite as often as Cliff, Rod or Ozzy) and last time I met him I was pleasantly surprised by the outcome - I didn't love the songs, but it was interesting musical journey and had a surprising degree of heft to it.  No idea what I'm getting here though...

Oh look - it's an interesting musical journey with a surprising degree of heft to it.  As with his 2021 offering, this is a version of stripped back covers, but he's gone way further back in the songbook for this collection with gospel and early rock and roll mostly supplying the input (although both have Bob Dylan covers present).  It's very steeped in mortality and redolent of later Johnny Cash in mainly places - it feels like a man weighing up his life's choices and trying to justify or understand them.  If I didn't know better, I'd say it was his last album before a death he knew was coming but (spoiler alert) the man is still very much with us.  I can't say I'll be rushing back to it, but it was a very interesting collection of songs performed with understated sensitivity (not something you'd always associate with Tom over the years) - "If I Give My Soul" jumped out for me, but they were all very listenable.

This week, we're at #2 in the charts with a new entry on the start of a thirteen week run - it feels like word of mouth might have kept this around longer than it would otherwise have got.  The rest of the top five were Eminem, Plan B, Eliza Doolittle and Avenged Sevenfold (another new entry - they're not going to be a teenage boyband, are they?).  That's it for new entries for the top ten, but I am going to mention the next one at #17 for the huge outpouring of nostalgia that will result - yes, it's Jedward (thank God I wasn't forced to listen to that).

Wikipedia doesn't have a lot on the album other than telling me it was produced by Ethan Johns, who has been involved with a lot of interesting stuff over the years.  The critics were fulsome with their praise of both the songs and the delivery and it did pretty well across Europe and even slighted dented the US charts, getting to #79.

"Customers also listened to" Jools Holland (there is a slight Jools vibe to these tracks, but he almost certainly would have ruined them all), Burt Bacharach, Engelbert Humperdinck and Shirley Bassey - a somewhat strange mix.  As is Tom's output over the years, but this is a fine album - one for your more contemplative moments, which will hopefully convince you it's all worthwhile.

25/07/10 - Not enough to convince me
08/09/10 - I'd like to like this more than I did