I'm a bruise you soothe in your dancing shoes

Continuing my trip forward in time through the album charts

08/09/23 : Back To The Water Below - Royal Blood 

Somewhat surprisingly, this is our third visit with the lads - I haven't minded either of the previous two visits (although I've struggled to describe exactly what it was I hearing) so I'm keen enough to hear what this sounds like.

Hmmm - it all very much slid past me without notice.  It's a skilful enough rocky sound, but none of it stuck with me - I suspect it would sound much better loud and live, but it just didn't click with me, I'm afraid.  It's a lovely looking album cover though.

We're at #1 with a new entry this week and the rest of the top five are Travis Scott (isn't he doing well?), The 1975 (a re-entry for an album which was first released ten years ago, so I suspect an anniversary version has appeared), Burna Boy and The Weeknd.  We have one more new entry in the top ten which is Slowdive at #6 and I may well check this out at some point (they were great at Glastonbury).  Last week I said that Burna Boy would drop to #21 and we can already see I got that wrong - I can't see Royal Blood doing so well and I'm going for #44.  And this week's Taylor stats are two in the top ten, six in the top ten (including #10-#12) and nine in the whole chart.

Wikipedia doesn't have a lot on the album other than saying the band decided to produce this album all by themselves in order to "force themselves to do things that came naturally" - OK guys, if you say so.  The critics were very complimentary about it, with some saying it would broaden their appeal, which I'm not sure I see.  It's done OK commercially in its first week though, charting in Germany, The Netherlands and Australia as well - none of which surprised me.

"Customers also listened to" Tigercub, Demob Happy, Nothing But Thieves and The Hives - not my thing I suspect.  Which is also true for Royal Blood, although I suspect I wouldn't mind them live.  Unlike the Radio 1 Big Weekend audience, it appears.

01/09/23 - So far out of my frame of reference
15/09/23 - A potential grower

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