If the pieces don't seem to fit
Continuing my trip forward in time through the album charts
08/03/24 : Liam Gallagher John Squire - Liam Gallagher & John Squire
It would be easy for me to prematurely dismiss this as dreadful dad rock from two guys whose best days are arguably way behind them. But, of the two Gallagher brothers, I think Liam has done the more interesting stuff post-Oasis (he has also some done some dreadful stuff) and John hasn't really done anything dreadful, generally because he's spent most of his time painting. So I can't say my expectations are massively high for this, but I'm also not expecting it to be terrible - some decent Oasis-style stuff with more interesting guitar work would be an acceptable outcome.
And yeah, that's pretty much where we are - it's a more sixties-influenced Oasis sound than normal which I think works well. Liam also sounds surprisingly unlike Liam for most of it - the normal yobbish swagger is dialled down and it's all the better for it. And John certainly elevates things - a lot of the guitarwork is very reminiscent of The Seahorses album (which is a great album that I'm looking forward to reviewing when we get to '97) but there's all sorts of influences in there (I certainly got some Hendrix at times).
Don't get me wrong, all of this is completely inessential and the lyrics are often very hackneyed - but it's well done inessential and hackneyed. There's an argument that where Katie Melua was the female middle-class inessential album, this is the male calls-himself-working-class-but-is-really-middle-class inessential album. I might be being harsh and multiple listens may be rewarding and result in a change of opinion - but I doubt it. However, it's wayyyy better than any Oasis albums after the first two, it doesn't have any tracks that you roll your eyes at and the guitar work is certainly worth paying attention to - it was nice to hear from John again.
We're at (of course) #1 with a new entry this week, with the rest of the top five being Rod & Jools (well, I called that one very wrong!), new entries from Bruce Dickinson and Yard Act and a re-entry from RAYE after her spectacular night at The Brits. We also have three more new entries in the top ten with The Kaiser Chiefs (#6), Everything Everything (#9) and Skrapz (#10).
So, as I previously mentioned, my guess for #37 for Rod & Jools this week was very off - I'm amazed it's hung around quite so well and it's making me up my guess for the two slightly less aged veterans to be #13 next week. And this weeks Taylor stats are NONE in the top ten (thoughts and prayers go out to the poor lass), a mere three in the top twenty and nine in the entire chart.
Wikipedia doesn't have an awful lot on the album - it's the first album to feature John's name since 2004 and that's about it. I was interested to see they're going to tour to support the album - I suspect the shows will be quite good but the audiences will be unbearable, but I'll never know because it's totally sold out, except for the Glasgow show and I'm not that interested to find out how good they are. The critics were generally nice about it - five stars from The Daily Express, but only two stars from the famously hard-to-please Financial Times. However, what is surprising is how well it's done globally - top ten in Australia, Belgium, Germany and Italy and #1 in Ireland. And #14 in Japan as well - and very few people do that well over there!
"Customers also listened to" Kaiser Chiefs, Elbow, Yard Act and - surprise, surprise, The Seahorses. My first opinion on this is generally "meh" but the more I think about it, I suspect it's more "meh?" - it's definitely not terrible though and if you like this sort of thing then I'd certainly recommend checking it out.
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