Baby, how you do that - make a grown man cry?

Continuing my trip back through the 2010 album charts.

02/05/10 : Raymond v. Raymond - Usher

Our second visit with Usher - last time I just didn't understand the appeal and I can assure you I've heard nothing to change my mind in the intervening period, so my expectations are low.

And yup, my expectations were not exceeded.  It's all just "yeah", "woo" and "woah" - I don't hate it, but I just don't see what there is to actively like about it.  And I think that's all I really have to say on the matter - other than that the 92 minutes of the deluxe edition was waaaay too much.

We're at #2 in the charts this week with a new entry on the start of a seventeen week run - much more than it deserved.  And then it went away for a couple of weeks, came back for another nine, went away for a couple more and came back for another eight - all very peculiar.  The rest of the top five were Plan B, AC/DC, Glee (a new entry with a Madonna themed album - no thank you!) and Bullet For My Valentine (another new entry) and we have one more new entry in the top ten with Port Isaac's Fishermans Friends (#9 - I thought I might like this, but you're much better off watching Nathan Evans on YouTube).  Also, having mentioned Mantovani last week, I have to mention James Last's new entry this week (#12) to celebrate his 80th birthday - what was going on in 2010?!?

Wikipedia has the expected massive amount (242 milliPeppers) most of which I didn't bother reading, but I did learn the title referred to his divorce which happened in the previous year (his full name is apparently Usher Raymond IV).  The critics generally thought it was an inconsistent album - NME amusingly described it as "quite a bit of forgettable bravado babble".  That didn't stop it winning two Grammies though and the US public didn't care in the slightest and bought it by the bucketload - but I'm pleased to say that most of the rest of the world were slightly more circumspect (although it was still way more popular than I understand).

"Customers also listened to" Jason Derulo, Justin Timberlake, Flo Rida and T-Pain - all people I can do without in my life.  But Usher maintains a special place on that list for me because I simply don't understand what people see in him - but they do and they're not doing any harm I guess, so I'm kinda happy for them as long as they don't try to explain it to me.

25/04/10 - Much better than I as expecting
09/05/10 - Not an instant grab

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