Spy on me, baby - use satellite
Continuing my trip back through the 1999 album charts.
31/10/99 : Reload - Tom Jones
Hmmm - this one was touch and go as to whether it was going to be included - it's basically a load of covers with a Tom Jones + 1 spin on them, some of which work well and some of which don't. However, I think it meets the bar as "culturally significant" - because it cemented Tom's place back in the public spotlight. There's an argument that it all started with "Kiss" (with The Art Of Noise) but it surprised me to see that was all the way back in '88 - and he hadn't really done much in the intervening period. Someone obviously decided "well, it's worked once..." so they gave it another go - and it very much worked again, so much so that even we owned it, taking us to 4/9.
Yeah - the quality is a bit variable, but at least he's trying something different. "Mama Told Me Not To Come" is a fine track with The Stereophonics and "Baby It's Cold Outside" is also good with his voice working well with Cerys Matthews - obviously the Welsh connection works well. You did know he was Welsh, right? (it's something he rarely mentions). I also liked "Burning Down The House" and although "Sex Bomb" (actually an original track) is quite annoying but it's a well done annoying - the rest of it didn't quite click so well for me, but none of it's terrible.
We're at #7 in the charts this week on his fifth week of an impressive 68 week run, with it peaking at #1 in it's debut, 33rd and 37th weeks - obviously! It actually enjoyed a 16 week run in the top five in the middle of that - people really went a bit mad for it. The top five this week were Steps (a new entry), Shania, Macy, a Genesis best-of (I wonder how many of them there have been over the years - and it was a new entry) and Travis, with there being no more new entries in the top ten.
Wikipedia doesn't have a lot on the album other than telling us it's the best selling album of his career and, as we know from 1968, the lad had some pretty big selling albums back then. It did very commercially (#23 in the year-end list and it's sold over 1.5 million copies) but, for some weird reason, was never issued in the US - you would have thought they would have given it a go, but maybe it was just too difficult from a licensing point of view given all the covers and other artists involved.
"Customers also listened to" Shirley Bassey (she's Welsh too, you know), John Barry and Burt Bacharach - some old school 60s references there. This album doesn't always work for me, but it's an interesting listen and the high points are very enjoyable.
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