You ain't gotta be the richest, just be the realest

Continuing my trip forward in time through the album charts

19/05/23 : Real Back In Style - Potter Payper 

I know Potter is one of those rapper types, but I don't believe I've had the pleasure of experiencing any of his output - I'm not expecting to like it.

But actually, it's not bad at all.  It's a very confident piece of work - he's very honest about his less than ideal background and manages to both glorify and question it, whilst also comparing it with his current success and how he's finding aspects of it quite complex to deal with.  His vocal delivery reminded me of Dave and Eminem (and the presence of "All My Life, If I Had" and "A Million £" on the album might possibly be inviting comparisons with Eminem's "If I Had A Million Dollars"), but he uses some very interesting sounds in his backing track which manage to sound both futuristic and retro.  I assume there are others out there using similar sounds but I certainly don't know the genre well enough to identify them and it all sounded pretty fresh to me.  No, I won't be rushing back to it but so much of this stuff sounds depressingly generic that it was refreshing to hear something that kept my interest.  And anything that distracts me from the album cover also has to be appreciated...

We're at #2 in the charts with a new entry this week - I'm not expecting it to hang around for long.  The rest of the top five are Ed (who will be hanging around!), The Jonas Brothers (another new entry), The Weeknd (or Abel, as he now prefers to be known) and Lovejoy (another new entry) and we have one more new entry in the top ten with Alison Goldfrapp (#6).  There's also a random re-entry with Daft Punk popping up at #16 - ah, there's a 10 year anniversary release.

Wikipedia has very little on the album - it's his debut and the critics liked it a lot.  His entry tells me he's probably not enjoying the praise as much as he'd like though because he's currently residing at His Majesty's Pleasure awaiting sentencing for an as-yet unspecified issue (but it's probably drugs because he's already done a year inside for that, which he mentions frequently on the album).

"Customers also listened to" Avelino, Youngs Teflon, Tunde and Tigga Da Author - and it probably won't surprise you to hear that I know nothing about any of them.  Unlike my now encyclopaedic knowledge of Mr Payper - who I was very much surprised to almost enjoy!

26/05/23 - Giving the people what they want
12/05/23 - Surprisingly not annoying

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