I'm the dashboard hula girl of nodding self-deception

Continuing my trip forward in time through the album charts

29/03/24 : Audio Vertigo - Elbow

I don't mind Elbow, but I haven't felt the need to listen to any of their new stuff more than once for many a long year - I'm sure I'll find it all perfectly pleasant, but nothing there to replace the Elbow tracks I already have in my life.

Yeah - it is indeed all perfectly pleasant but, for me, inessential.  I own and like their first four albums and I think they're all interestingly different, whereas all the stuff since has been well-constructed wry observational material that just isn't going to displace anything from my Elbow greatest hits playlist (if I had one).  Do I have anything more to say about it?  Nope - I don't think I have!

Normal service is resumed this week because we're back at #1 with a new entry and the rest of the top five are Future & Metro Boomin (another new entry which I'm perfectly fine avoiding), Olivia Rodrigo (up twelve places because of a deluxe release), Ariana Grande and The Weeknd.  The next highest new entry is a somewhat surprising offering from The Jesus & Mary Chain (#7) with their first album in seven years and their second in 26 - I had a lot of time on my hands (obviously because I was taking down a massive gazebo) so I gave it a quick listen and found it somewhat less challenging than I was expecting.  In a bumper week for me listening to new releases I also checked out The Staves (#32) which felt like it was missing something, which could be because Emily has left and they're now a duo and Waxahatchee (#38) which I checked out because I liked her last album and this one is also a belter.

Back to Elbow, Wikipedia tells me it's their tenth album and their fourth #1.  The critics were very nice about it, with lots of people calling it "gritty" (which I didn't really get on first listen at all) and a load of random influences being called out including Arctic Monkeys, Fela Kuti, Marc Bolan and Tom Waits - I did hear the AM sound from time to time, but can't say the others jumped out at me.  It's done OK commericially elsewhere with #5 in The Netherlands being the pick of the bunch - we've seen bizarre behaviour in Belgium with it getting to #7 in Flanders and #128 in Wallonia.

Last week I said that Kacey would be lucky to hang around at all but guessed #76 - she's at #96, so I was more accurate with my first statement than my second.  Elbow are going to do better than that but probably not as well as they'd hope - I'm going to go for #46.  And this week's Taylor stats are one in the top ten, five in the top twenty and nine in the entire chart.

"Customers also listened to" The Hanging Stars, Black Rivers, John Grant and Travis - two I know and two I don't.  I definitely know Elbow though and have a lot of time for them and there's nothing wrong with this so if you're a fan you should definitely check it out - but it also doesn't give me anything particularly new.

22/03/24 - Mildly disappointing
05/04/24 - Interesting

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