Circle di enz, circle di block

Continuing my trip forward in time through the album charts

17/11/23 : 2 Ruff Vol. 1 - Chase & Status

I can't say I'm overly familiar with Mr Chase & Mr Status's work but I think I caught them at Glasto one year and quite enjoyed them, so I'm interested to see what I make of this.

Hmmm - it's OK but nothing special for me.  It's pretty old school jungle/drum and bass/something - all perfectly listenable if you like that sort of thing but it doesn't (for me) stand out in a pretty crowded arena.  The female vocalists do add a certain something for me but apart from Clementine Douglas I'm unable to identify them - the internet assures me that Becky Hill is on the album but her track wasn't on the version I listened to, so I'm all a bit confused.

We're at #4 with a new entry this week (which is a lot higher than I'd expect) and the rest of the top five are Taylor, The Beatles (blue), The Beatles (red) and Baby Queen (a new entry for a South African alt-pop singer who I'm not aware I know anything about).  We also have some interesting albums in the lower half of the top ten - Noah Kahan is spending his first week in the top ten at #6 on his 23rd week of his run, Passenger has a new entry at #7, The Rolling Stones and Olivia Rodrigo are still hanging in there at #8 and #9 and there's a very bizarre re-entry for New Order's Substance at #10.  I also don't want to encourage the lad, but I am going to mention Chris Brown at #11 because his album is called 11:11 and I love coincidental shit like that!

Last week I said that Jung Kook would drop to #34 - I had no idea at all really, so I'll take #21 as surprisingly close.  I actually feel like #34 isn't a bad guess for Chase & Status so let's stick with it for the third week in a row, shall we?  And the Taylor stats for the week are one in the top one, five in the top twenty and ten in the entire chart - for the third week in a row.

Wikipedia doesn't have anything on the album - it hasn't had anything on any of their last three albums which is a bit odd because they've all made it to the top twenty.  Their entry isn't exactly that chatty either - they've been going for twenty years and are highly regarded, so that seems a little unfair as well.

"Customers also listened to" venbee, Sigma, Jazzy and Shy Fx - all of whom I can tell you absolutely nothing about.  Which is also pretty true for Chase & Status (despite reading their Wikipedia entry) but from what I've heard they're pretty good at what they do, but there's nothing particularly special about this album for me.

10/11/23 - Remarkable average pop
24/11/23 - Well, I wasn't expecting that!

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