Try to please me with your lies in my face

Continuing my trip forward in time through the album charts

12/01/24 : A Matter Of Time - Shed Seven

Well - I really wasn't expecting this.  I liked a couple of S7 tracks back in the day, but generally their output was second-rate at best, so this is either going to be surprisingly bearable or absolutely dreadful.  I'm intrigued to find out which.

The good news is that it's surprisingly bearable - I'd go as far as saying it's good for that sort of thing.  If you like a bit of Britpop, then this has nice enough tunes with sing-along choruses - there's not really anything to dislike about it.  None of the tracks are going to be considered as masterpieces of modern songwriting, but if you compare it to the current output from the Gallagher brothers, I'd take this any day of the week.

We're quite obviously at #1 with a new entry this week (as we will be for the next six months, no doubt) - this is their first #1 album so I'm pleased for them despite my astonishment.  The rest of the top five are Lewis Capaldi, The Weeknd, Noah Kahan (his highest position so far - I won't be surprised to see him climbing higher) and (of course) Taylor and the next highest new entry is Sprints (#20) who are a garage punk band apparently.

Last week I made the wild and random predictions that Joel Corry would be at #45 and I'm taking #39 as a moral victory, Tate MacRae would be at #30 but she's actually at #45 and RAYE would be at #43 and she's even further away at #59.  I think Shed Seven will actually be doing well to stay in the chart at all, which is a bit of a shame because I'd be happy for it to get some more exposure - hopefully the fact that they're #1 will keep them in there, so let's go for #77.  And this week's Taylor stats are two in the top ten, five in the top twenty and ten in the entire chart (including both versions of 1989).

Wikipedia doesn't have an awful lot on the album - it's their sixth album and their first in six years but that's about it.  Amusingly there are two critical comments - one positive and one negative and they both ring pretty true to me.  And, obviously, it's not dented any charts anywhere away from here.

"Customers also listened to" The Seahorses, Kula Shaker, Cast and Skylights - and it somewhat surprises me that I've never heard of the latter.  I didn't mind this at all - it's not pushing any musical boundaries and there's no danger of me revisiting it, but it does exactly what it set out to do and those people that are looking for this sort of thing will be perfectly happy with it.

05/01/24 - An odd week
19/01/24 - A terrible album

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