Had a picture of you in my mind - never knew it could be so wrong

Continuing my trip back through the 1999 album charts.

14/02/99 : Where We Belong - Boyzone

My wife has plenty of Take That and Robbie Williams albums, but I can assure you that no Boyzone albums have ever darkened our door (21/46) - I'm expecting this to be pretty rubbish, but bearable.

Well, "Picture Of You" isn't a terrible track - it has throwbacks to 60s Motown (with worse singing, obviously).  And "Baby Can I Hold You" is a decent track, even if the lads' cover is somewhat cheesy.  And cheese is a major component of most of the tracks on the rest of the album, but I have to admit I found it way more bearable than either of the previous visits in '96.  And the quality of the singing has definitely improved as well - I guess that's what intensive lessons do for you and thankfully they only really let Ronan and Stephen have a go.  The whole thing is, for me, utterly inessential but at least it's not hateful - I didn't need 68 minutes of it though.

We're at #9 in the charts this week on their 38th week of a 55 week run, having peaked at #1 in its first, 14th and 15th weeks.  The top five this week were Robbie Williams, Fatboy Slim, The Corrs, Lauryn Hill and a George Michael best-of (which I feel is one of the best-of the best-ofs ever) and the highest new entry is 3 Colours Red (#17).

Wikipedia has a bit on the album, but it's nearly all about the singles released from the album and incredibly dull.  The only fact of interest is that this is the only Boyzone album released in the US - it got to #168 in a somewhat crowded boy-band market so they just didn't bother again.  It did somewhat better in Europe, with it also getting to the top in Ireland (surprise, surprise), The Netherlands and Norway - it was the best selling album of '98 over there (and #3 in the UK year-end list in that year).  It also hit #1 in a couple of unusual countries that are rarely mentioned - Taiwan and Zimbabwe which just goes to show something, I guess.

"Customers also listened to" 911, Another Level, A1 and Westlife - no great surprises there.  I'm never going to be Boyzone's biggest fans, but I can at least understand the appeal of this album (unlike their previous two) - if people want to listen to it, then good luck to them.

07/02/99 - An astonishingly successful album
21/02/99 - Again, surprisingly enjoyable

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