So she said, "Boy, I loved you from the start"

Continuing my trip back through the 2010 album charts.

08/08/10 : The Defamation Of Strickland Banks - Plan B

Finally - an album I own from this year!  It's actually the second one we own, but funnily enough I don't particularly claim Take That as one of mine.  I remember liking this album but, with the exception of "She Said", I've not listened to any of it in many a long year - I'm expecting an enjoyable reunion though.

And yeah, this is a fine album indeed.  It features some much better than expected Motown style singing (The Temptations would have worked wonders with some of the songs) nicely combinedwith some more up-to-date rappy bits.  It also has a good sense of story that runs through the album, which is pleasingly easy to follow - it's like a "soul opera" album and it has a pleasingly ambiguous ending.  I think "She Said" is still my favourite track, but they're all very listenable - if you've not heard this then I think it's well worth checking out (and don't listen to it on shuffle!).

We're at #3 in the charts this week on his 17th week of a 86 week run, having spent two weeks at the top of the charts as well (and it spent 19 weeks in the top five in all).  It's also spent another 41 weeks in the chart over the years, with it last being seem in 2020 - all in all, an impressive showing.  The rest of the top five were Arcade Fire (a new entry), Eminem, Eliza Doolittle and Tom Jones and the next highest new entry was Chicane (#35) with Giants, an album I'd completely forgotten about but it's really rather good (and I might need to remind myself of it!).

Wikipedia reminds us how much of a change this was from his shouty hip-hop debut - I can imagine it was a big surprise for some of the fans of that album.  The critics were mostly nice about it, but they were absolutely obsessed with the change of style - and I have to laugh at The Guardian's Alexis Petridis complaining about the "gaping holes in the album's plot" though.  He's not aiming for the Booker Prize, you know. Commercially, it did very well - particularly here where it shifted 1.4m copies and was #5 on the year-end chart, but it also managed to sell 2m copies in Europe.  It's just a bit of a shame it didn't find the right niche of the market in the US, because it feels like it could have done really well over there as well.

"Customers also listened to" Wretch 32, The Streets, Professor Green and Maverick Sabre - some of whom I know better than others.  And I can't say I know a lot about Plan B - but I do know I like this album and think it's a very impressive offering which is well a first time listen or a revisit.

01/08/10 - An unexpected pleasure
15/08/10 - One I'd like to like more than I did