It's a life long project of a life on the lash

Continuing my trip forward in time through the album charts

12/04/24 : All Quiet On The Eastern Esplanade - The Libertines

Lordy - I didn't ever expect to see this lot again.  Particularly not with both Pete and Carl involved - if it works it could be surprisingly good.  Hell, even if it doesn't work it'll probably still be better than Babyshambles...

Well, it's not dreadful but it's also not very good - it just lacks the urgency that the early Libertines stuff had and the vocals definitely haven't improved with age (from a pretty low bar).  It's probably worth a listen if you were a fan back in the day, otherwise I suspect you're absolutely fine without this in your lives.

We're at a quite astonishing #1 with a new entry this week - there's so much more nostalgia for The Libertines than I ever imagined there would be.  The rest of the top five are Beyoncé, The K's (another new entry), Conan Grey (another new entry who is very popular with my daughters) and Olivia Rodrigo (the girl is hanging around well) and we have two more entries in the top ten - J Cole (#7) and Feeder (#8).  I also feel the need to mention Vampire Weekend (#11), Black Keys (#13), Benson Boone (#16) and Khraungbin (#18) - it's a busy week for new entries in the top twenty and I was also very surprised to see Hawkwind (#51) appear in the chart this week.

Last week I confidently announced that Beyoncé would stay at #1 and I still find it hard to understand how The Libertines displaced her - I've really no idea where they will be next week so let's randomly guess at #84 because I really can't see this getting too many repeat listens.  And this week's Taylor stats are NONE in the top ten (that's what five new entries in the top ten will do for you), two in the top twenty but fortunately the poor lass still has nine in the chart.

Wikipedia doesn't have a load on the album - they started working on it in September '22 and apparently got on well, with all band members sharing credits for all tracks.  Critically, there's absolutely no word from anyone but commercially it's done surprisingly well globally - #7 in Germany and #31 in Japan (really?!?).

"Customers also listened to" Elbow, Babyshambles, Paul Weller and Shed Seven - a slightly peculiar mix.  But not as peculiar as The Libertines and nowhere near as peculiar as the fact that this got to #1 - I've got absolutely no idea what's going on.

05/04/24 - Interesting
19/04/24 - Just didn't click with me

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