Came in for the embers - stayed out for the breeze

Continuing my trip forward in time through the album charts

12/05/23 : Subtract - Ed Sheeran 

I said last week that this is where we'd be - I bet you're impressed that my unparalleled knowledge of the music industry enabled me to predict that.  You probably haven't heard of Ed - he's a little known singer-songwriter who I predict great things for.  On a slightly more serious note, I quite liked his early stuff but can't claim to say I enjoy much of it these days - he's a bit too magpie-ish for me.  Having said that, I do admire him for standing up and fighting for his music against people who think they own a three chord sequence.  I can still assure you though that doesn't mean I'm looking forward to listening to this...

But.  I didn't mind this at all.  Wonders will never cease!  He's not had the best of years (his pregnant wife had a cancer scare along with the death of Jamal Edwards) and it sounds like he's just singing this from the heart.  I didn't particularly like "Moving" but apart from that I thought it was a nice enough set of songs - not ground-breaking and I doubt they would have done anything if released by anyone else.  But at least they're not bloody "Galway Girl"...

We're (unsurprisingly) at #1 with a new entry this week - I suspect he'll be hanging around for a bit.  The rest of the top five are Nines (I'm pleased he held on to the #2 spot), The Weeknd, Tunde (another new entry) and Taylor (she has NINE albums in the top 100) and the next highest new entry is from Tom Meighan (#17 - the ex-lead singer of Kasabian).

Wikipedia doesn't have loads on the album yet, but I'm sure that will change as it hangs around.  The critics were nice enough about it - most of them were a bit "it's a change, without being all that different" about it but amusingly NME said it "doesn't contain anything as crass as 2017's cod-Irish folk song 'Galway Girl'".  Unsurprisingly, it's done pretty well globally - except in Lithuania, where it's only reached #26.

"Customers also listened to" Jonas Brothers, Niall Horan, Sam Smith and Meghan Traynor - I'm not entirely sure what I was expecting there, but it wasn't that lot.  I thought this was a "nice" album and I'm pleased he didn't try too many tricks with it - but I can't say I'll be revisiting it very often (if at all).

05/05/23 - Fun, diverting and honest
19/05/23 - Much more enjoyable than expected

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