Yeah, okay - this shit is outta control

Continuing my trip forward in time through the album charts

04/08/23 : Utopia - Travis Scott 

Our second visit with Mr Scott - last time I didn't mind it, but wasn't sure how to describe it, coming up with "hazy hip hop".  So who knows what I'm going to think of this?!?

Yeah, hazy hop hop still sounds as good a description as anything - although bits of it quite reminded me of Tricky from back in the day, so I might go for trip hop as well.  I didn't mind it at all, even if I'm not entirely sure what to do with it - it's not like you could dance to it or sing along with it or anything.  I really like "Delresto (Echoes)", the duet with Beyoncé on which they both make some strange noises (there's some impressive vocal control on display) but the whole album has a nice dark atmospheric sound - check it out if you think you might like that sort of thing.

We're at #1 with a new entry this week on a bumper week for new entries.  The rest of the top five are Anne-Marie (another new entry, which I'd probably like), Post Malone (another one, which I'm less convinced I'd like), The Weeknd best-of and, of course, Taylor and we have one more new entry in the top ten, which you'd NEVER guess - Dexys Midnight Runners (#6).  The Taylor stats for the week are ONLY two in the top ten but six in the top twenty and nine in the whole chart and Blur, last week's album, is at #10 which is considerably better than my estimate of #25 - my guess for Travis next week is #7.

Wikipedia has more on the album than we usually see for a new release (193 milliPeppers) but most of it just deals with all the people involved with the album and the myriad of ways in which Travis teased the release.  The guest artists I recognise are Drake, Beyoncé, 21 Savage, The Weeknd, Kid Cudi, Bad Bunny, SZA and (somewhat bizarrely) James Blake (out of 17 listed) and the producers I've heard of are Kanye, Pharrell Williams and Metro Boomin (out of 21 listed!).  The critics were mostly favourable, but there are some peculiar questioning comments with one stating that Travis "sounds maddened by the pursuit of finding that vague world" - I've got no idea what anyone could do to address such criticism.  It certainly hasn't struggled commercially though being his first #1 album over here and hitting the top three in all the countries Wikipedia cares to list, except for Japan who often march to a different beat!

"Customers also listened to" Lil Uzi Vert, Young Thug, Gunna and ProdByWeed - I can't say I can inform you much on any of them but I'm sure they're all charming fellas (along with Mr Scott, obviously).  I was surprised how much I liked this though - there are some very interesting sounds on there.  Thanks, Trav!

28/07/23 - A fine album
11/08/23 - Better than expected

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