Time goes by so slowly

Continuing my trip back through the 2005 album charts.

18/12/05 : Confessions On A Dance Floor - Madonna

I don't think I've ever listened to this - as far as I was concerned she'd lost any cultural relevance by this time because she was soooo old.  So God knows what me-back-then would think of her-right-now - she's massively stretched that relevance envelope in the intervening years.  And to be fair, when we think about this album it's not all that long after Ray Of Light which I really like so maybe there's hope for it...

You know what?  It's not bad at all!  I was aware of "Hung Up", the opening track and I quite like it, but you'd have to say it leans so heavily on that ABBA sample that it doesn't really feel like a Madonna single.  And I'm sure the rest of it isn't lacking in samples (I definitely noticed "I Feel Love" at one point) but it's all done pretty well and I actually really liked "Forbidden Love" - it's got a real Giorgio Moroder feel to it.  Me-right-now should have a word with me-back-then and tell me I should listen to this - it's not bad at all and I feel it would benefit from multiple listens.  Nobody expected that - I also really liked the album cover as well.

We're at #7 in the charts this week on her fifth week of a thirty week run, with it having peaked at #1 in her first two weeks - somewhat surprisingly it spent another 26 weeks in the charts throughout '06/'07.  The top five were the Eminem best-of, Robbie Williams, Westlife, James Blunt and Il Divo (which some might argue I should have listened to because it featured an original track - but I'm not having any of that nonsense) and the highest new entry was Mary J Blige (#48).

Wikipedia has a massive amount on the album (506 milliPeppers) - it gets to the point that more is not more and that's definitely where we are here.  The critics were nice enough about it but the general public went mad for it with it getting to #1 in 40 countries which earned it a place in the Gunness Book of Records.  One further comment that did ring true was the influence this had on Dua Lipa's Future Nostalgia - I can totally see that.

"Customers also listened to" Kylie Minogue, Britney Spears, Gwen Stefani and Lady Gaga - a load of shy retiring women for you there.  Just like our Madge but I found this a lot more bearable than I was expecting - there are some decent tracks on there and I may well revisit some of them at some point.

11/12/05 - Surprisingly bearable
25/12/05 - Oh joy

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