I can't believe that I endured you for as long as I did

Continuing my trip back through the 1999 album charts.

04/07/99 : Talk On Corners - The Corrs

This is an album I actively avoided back in the day, but I suspect I'll find it at least bearable in my advanced years.  It also feels like an album that the lovely Mrs Reed would have owned, but I don't believe she did - 10/26.

Yeah, it's bearable - if a bit twee.  Their cover of Dreams is probably the best thing on it and a lot of it is too Oirish for my liking, but I realise that there was definitely a market for such things back then.  I don't really have anything else to say about it - I'm sure it brings back pleasant memories for many, but I can't see a lot there to drag in new fans.

We're at #7 in the charts this week on their 89th week of a 157 week run (3 years!) with it having spent ten weeks at #1 in six separate runs with ten months separating the first and last weeks.  The top five this week are Boyzone (just starting a seven week run at the top), The Chemical Brothers, Jamiroquai, Shania and Whitney with the highest new entry being a somewhat surprising Frankie Goes To Hollywood's Welcome To The Pleasuredome at #21 - it seems like it's a slightly early 15 year anniversary release.  Which seems odd.

Wikipedia has more than I was expecting on the album (190 milliPeppers) and most of it goes on reminding me exactly how successful this album was.  It sounds like the band had a great deal of trouble convincing the label to release it - when they delivered it, the label told them to keep recording other tracks and when they refused, they were threatened with a breach of contract lawsuit.  The situation was only resolved when the band's manager agreed to be personally liable if the album didn't make a profit - a bold move, but one that feels pretty successful with hindsight.  

There are some interesting names involved in the album - Glen Ballard (best known for co-producing Jagged Little Pill, and there are definitely some Alanisesque sounds in places), Carole Bayer Sager, Rick Nowells (the man has written many tracks you know) and Jimi Hendrix.   OK - Jimi isn't that heavily involved but I didn't know "Little Wing" was one of his.  The critics were nicer about the album than I expected, but NME have gone after it "retrospectively placing it at number three in their 2014 list of "25 unfathomably popular albums of the 90's"".  I'm sure The Corrs don't overly care though given that it sold over six million copies globally, being the top selling album in the UK in '98, still at #8 in '99 and #33 in the all-time list.

"Customers also listened to" Natalie Imbruglia, Lene Marlin (a Norwegian artist I'm not familiar with), All Saints and Savage Garden - which feels like a slightly odd mix.  I didn't mind this album but I can also see why younger me avoided it - I also suspect if Jim had had three younger brothers then he might not be sitting on a huge pile of cash these days.

27/06/99 - Does what it says on the tin
11/07/99 - Best stopped after track one

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