Be the light from my window

Continuing my trip back through the 1999 album charts.

19/09/99 : Liquid Skin - Gomez

Like Leftfield, this is another album I bought because I liked the previous one, but rarely listened to  (taking us to 7/15 - keeping up with the 50%).  However, unlike Leftfield, I'm pretty certain I remember not really liking it.

Hmmm - well, I wouldn't say I hated it, but I was spot on with not really liking it.  I quite liked "Blue Moon Rising" and one other track that I couldn't tell you the title of, but the whole album is so mumbly that it really is a bit of a chore.  However, I have to say part of me admires their determination in taking out all the bits from Bring It On (their debut album) that might have contributed to that being a surprise hit, but I'm not quite sure why they felt the need to be quite so contrary - there's been more than a few such groups over the years though.

This week, we're at #2 with a new entry - the fourth we've seen this year (and it's not long until we see the next one, either!).  It's just starting - wait for this because you're not going to believe it - a 35 week run.  Really?!?  The rest of the top five are Shania, Travis, Ocean Colour Scene (a new entry - One From The Modern, which I've never heard) and Martine McCutcheon (uh oh) - and we have two more new entries in the top ten - Another Level (#7) and, somewhat surprisingly, The Beatles Yellow Submarine OST (#8).

Wikipedia has more than you might expect on the album, but there's very little content there.  Apparently the critics thought it was a retread of their debut but with better production, so one day I'll revisit that to see whether my view about this having all the best bits from that removed is fair - but in the mean time I'll just stand by my potential ignorance (woah - potential is doing some heavy lifting in that sentence).  There's a few comments that it's very similar to Pearl Jam's No Code, which is an album I found interesting and promised to revisit - but obviously never have.  Commercially, it didn't exactly set the world alight, but it did OK in Australia and Norway as well as here.

"Customers also listened to" Turin Brakes (yes - this is a very close match), Badly Drawn Boy (ditto), The Bees (dunno) and Fun Lovin' Criminals (errr - no).  As I previously said, I admire them for doing what they want to do but I'm surprised it did as well as it did.

12/09/99 - An impressively bad album
26/09/99 - One that deserves some effort

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