Looked in the mirror - so many people standing there

Continuing my trip forward in time through the album charts

28/07/23 : The Ballad Of Darren - Blur 

Hmmm - I have liked a bit of Blur in my time, but their later stuff generally left me a bit cold, so I'm not sure what I'm going to think of this.  I'm very much hoping they manage to make it a little less of a chore and less kichen-sinky than some of Damon's recent stuff though.

And yeah, I think they manage to make it more of a Blur album than a Damon album - there was a pleasing amount of guitar on there.  And Damon's voice wasn't quite as dead-pan as it has been on some efforts - he doesn't have a classic singing voice, but he manages to put a nice bit of emotion in there when he tries which was nice to hear in quite a few places on this.  At first listen, I liked "Barbaric", "The Narcissist", "The Rabbi" (which reminded me of Lou Reed in his bearable phase) and "The Swan" - which seems a pretty high hit rate for any album, let alone a recent one.  So, all in all, this was a pleasant surprise and if you think there's a possibility you might like it, then check it out.  And it's a very cool album cover as well - it's taken at a lido in Scotland.  Yes, Scotland has lidos (and yes, it's heated!).

We're at #1 with a new entry this week - their sixth #1 album with the previous one being The Magic Whip in May '15, although it's fair to say they've not exactly been prolific in the intervening period.  The rest of the top five are Taylor, The Weeknd best-of (seriously, who's listening to this?), J Hus and the Elton John best-of and we have one more new entry in the top ten with Greta Van Fleet (#8 - and I still call them Transit Van Fleet in my head).  The Taylor stats for the week are four in the top ten, six in the top twenty and nine in the chart in total and, as we've already seen, my estimate of #12 for J Hus from last week was a bit off, so well done to the lad.  Blur's a tricky one to call for next week because it feels like it should do OK, but their core audience probably don't have the time to spend constantly re-listening to the album so I'm going to go for a lower than I feel it deserves #25.

Interestingly, a look at the singles chart suggests this album is actually a distant second in terms of the biggest album of the week - the Barbie OST album has three tracks in the top five and six tracks in the top forty, but it doesn't count towards the "proper" chart, which seems a bit harsh for an album which is mostly original material.  Interestingly, #2 in the compilation chart is The Greatest Showman OST, which hasn't been out of the top ten since it entered the chart in '20 - which is a bit weird because the album was released in '17 (I've tried to investigate why and patently failed to uncover a reason).

Wikipedia doesn't have an awful lot on the album other than everyone claiming it's a "proper" Blur album, whatever one of them is.  It tells us that Darren is both "everyman" and, specifically, Darren Evans, their former bodyguard - there's a picture of him inside the sleeve, but they're not dragging him into the spotlight.  Surprisingly, it also mentions that it's influenced by (amongst others) Lou Reed - it's almost like I sometimes know what I'm talking about.  Unsurprisingly, the critics love it (it feels a very middle-aged critic friendly album) and it's done OK commercially so far - it'll be interesting to see if it does anything in the US, because it's not been a great area for them so far, with their best performing album being (somewhat surprisingly) The Magic Whip which got to #24.

"Customers also listened to" The Hives, Miles Kane, R.E.M. and Inhaler, which seems like an odd mix, to say the least.  I really quite liked this album though and I think there's even a chance I'll listen to it again - is there any higher praise I can give it than that?

21/07/23 - Didn't click for me
04/08/23 - Surprisingly enjoyable