You look like fun to me

Continuing my trip forward in time through the album charts

29/09/23 : Tension - Kylie Minogue 

Kylie's an interesting one - I like her as a person and her longevity has to be admired, but it's also somewhat mystifying - when was last time she did anything that warranted listening to?  "Can't Get You Out Of My Head" was 21 years ago now!  I'm sure this will be perfectly fine but also perfectly forgettable.

It's at least perfectly fine - verging on good in places and I definitely preferred it to her previous offering.  It somehow manages to be both pretty "hooky" and forgettable though - you nod along to the catchy tracks as they instantly leave your brain.  I was reminded of Goldfrapp in quite a few places - she's got a fine voice but you do suspect she's given a hand from time to time.

We're at #1 with a new entry this week - her ninth #1 album.  The rest of the top five are Olivia Rodrigo, The Weeknd, Headie-One & K-Trap (a new entry which I am absolutely fine not having to listen to) and Doja Cat (another new entry which I would probably find much more interesting) and that's it for new entries in the top ten, with the next one being Bakar (#16) who sounds like an interesting dude.  

Last week I didn't give Mitski much hope of hanging around and predicted she'd fall to #89 - I'm pleased to report she wildly exceeded that by only falling to #57.  Kylie's an interesting one because she is popular, but I'm not sure how many repeat visits she'll get - I'm going for #26.  And this week's Taylor stats are two in the top ten, five in the top twenty and eight in the whole chart.  I also noticed a somewhat bizarre album at #89 - The Smiths' Hatful Of Hollow which spent 4 weeks in the charts in '95 and then completely disappeared from view until Christmas last year when it popped back for two weeks, then one week in June and it's back on another two week run now - how peculiar!

Wikipedia has quite a lot for a recent album but most of it really just saying much people liked it - but not just her "her loyal (and ageing) acolytes" as a chart analyst put it.  Yes - YOUNG people liked it too, with "Padam Padam" and "Tension" in particular having "achieved a mediatic impact".  The critics also loved it, queuing up to say nice things about it - most of which were utter nonsense, bless 'em.  It's done pretty well commercially with it making the top five in quite a few countries, but it only got to #1 in one other country - can you possibly guess which one?

"Customers also listened to" Troye Sivan, David Guetta, Anne-Marie and Mae Muller - a slightly random selection.  Kylie's album was a bit of an odd one because I quite enjoying listening to it but I can remember absolutely nothing about any of it - but at least I remember not being disappointed.

22/09/23 - A bit of a disappointment
06/10/23 - Astonishingly average

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