Games, changes and fears - when will they go from here?

Continuing my trip back through the 1999 album charts.

28/11/99 : On How Life Is - Macy Gray

I remember liking the single but I'm not sure I ever listened to the album - which is odd, because I'm expecting to like it and it was one Mrs Reed owned, keeping us well ahead of the expected rate - 3/5.

And yeah - it's a nice bit of soul-funk with some great vocals.  "I Try" is the single which leaps out due to familiarity, but there's quite a few that jump out on first listen as well - "I Can't Wait to Meetchu", "I've Committed Murder" and "A Moment to Myself" are all fine tracks and pleasingly show the album doesn't run out of quality towards the end.  All in all, it's a tight, high quality 44 minutes set - very nice.

This week we're at #6 in the charts on her 21st week of a 66 week run (we've seen some long runs this year so far), with it peaking at #3 in its 17th, 28th and 36th weeks, which is pleasingly random.  It's somewhat heinous that this peaked at #3 whilst Steps spent four weeks at #1, but she did manage a 27 week run in the top ten, including twelve weeks at #6 (and no weeks at #7!).  The top five this week were Steps, Shania, a Celine best-of, Travis and Westlife - that's a very female-friendly top three and the top ten also included Macy, Charlotte Church and Cher as well.  And the highest new entry was Beck's Midnight Vultures (#19) - I don't mind most of his stuff but I don't think I've ever listened to this.

Wikipedia has remarkably little on the album - "I Try" was a very successful single and the critics liked the album, with one of them noting the album was a "confident, bluesy soul debut [...] with a lived-in sound – as if Rod Stewart were a girl", which seems very generous on Rod.  It also categorises the album as neo-soul, which is a genre I've tried to like in the past but failed, so I think I'm going to declare this to be my favourite neo-soul album EVER!  It did really well commercially, top five in loads of countries including #4 in the US and it was #10 in the year-end list over here (and #28 in '00 as well).

"Customers also listened to" Sinead O'Connor, Sheryl Crow, TLC and Natalie Imbruglia - let's hear it for the ladies!  I really liked this album and will be making an effort to revisit it - it feels perfect bbq in the sunshine music.  Thank you 1999 for turning up something new.

21/11/99 - Very much not my cup of tea
05/12/99 - In which I go overboard with praise

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