Is this love we just weaponized?

Continuing my trip forward in time through the album charts

19/04/24 : Yummy - James

Last time we saw James, my expectations weren't all that high but they were comfortably exceeded - so obviously my expectations are slightly higher now!

Hmmm - and maybe the higher expectations didn't do them any favours.  It's all perfectly fine and feels quite adventurous (for them, at least) in places but it just didn't click with me - maybe I just wasn't in the mood for it.  If you're a fan then I can't imagine there's anything here to annoy you but I also can't see it bringing in too many new fans (although - do albums actually do that these days?)

We're at a somewhat surprising #1 with a new entry on the chart this week - I imagine the loyal fanbase pre-ordering vinyl copies has probably helped quite a lot towards making that happen.  The rest of the top five are Beyoncé and a trio of new entries for Mark Knopfler (which sounds exactly liked you'd expect it to), a Linkin Park best-of and The Kris Barras Band (an ex-MMA fighter, apparently).  It's a strong week for new entries in the top twenty with appearances from English Teacher (#8 - I quite liked this, it's very Dry Cleaning), Gun (#10), Future & Metro Boomin (#11 - their second new entry in a month), Maggie Rogers (#12 - I really liked this, it's very Haim) and Nia Archives (#18 - also quite enjoyable).

Last week I said that The Libertines would drop to #84, so I'm taking #93 as close enough for a moral victory.  I think James will do slightly better but not by much, so let's go for #65.  And this week's Taylor stats are NONE in the top ten, two in the top twenty and nine in the entire chart - be prepared for that to all change next week!

Wikipedia doesn't have a lot to say on the album other than it's their eighteenth studio album and their first to get to #1.  The critics were nice enough about it, although I'm not sure I can quite see that it's "like a poppier OK Computer" and it's done absolutely nothing away from these shores commercially (yet, at least!)

"Customers also listened to" My Life Story (yeah, I can see this), Feeder, Erasure and Kaiser Chiefs - quite a varied mix.  I feel I should have liked this more than I did - multiple listens might increase its standing with me (but we know how likely they are to happen).

12/04/24 - Not dreadful, but also not very good
26/04/24 - I still don't understand

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