Yo, this one here goes out to all my players out there, man

Continuing my trip back through the 2005 album charts.

15/05/05 : Trouble - Akon

I think I find Akon inoffensive but mystifyingly popular, but I could be confusing him with someone else - I've certainly never invested any time in trying to clear up any misunderstanding.  I also had a surprising amount of trouble finding this because Amazon Music seemed certain that searching for "trouble akon" meant I really wanted to listen to "Troublemaker" by Olly Murrs - it only took me about five goes to work out that "akon trouble" was what I needed to use!

Hmmm - it was better than I was expecting but that was only because I'd set my sights so low.  It's mostly aspirational hip-hop/R&B nonsense lyrics that I find so annoying but the backing tracks are better than average and feature some nice bass.  I know "Lonely" was his breakout track but I find the Alvin & The Chipmunk style accompaniment really, really annoying - why did people encourage him to do that?  Because it worked I guess, but he does it again on "Don't Let Up" which definitely had me grinding my teeth.  Also, "Bananza" appears to have been a strong inspiration for Louis Theroux's "Jiggle Jiggle" which made me laugh - overall, the album is very much not aimed at me and I didn't like it, but I also didn't hate it as much as I was expecting to and I can see why people liked it.  It did feel like a long 50 minutes though...

We're at #2 in the chart this week on his 16th week of a frankly astonishing 33 week run, with it peaking at #1 in its 13th and 15th weeks - what were people thinking?  In a similar vein, at #1 in the chart we have Steve Brookstein's Heart & Soul which was a new entry so we really should have been listening to it - despite it being an album of all covers, it's culturally "significant" because he was the first X Factor winner.  However, he achieved significant infamy by later slagging the whole thing off and claiming it was fixed, so I suspect Mr Cowell has adopted a scorched earth policy and deleted the album from the internet, including YouTube (which is extremely rare).  The rest of the top five were a Basement Jaxx best-of, Gwen Stefani and Athlete - I was also surprised to see a Cream best-of at #6 and the highest new entry was Weezer (#11).

Wikipedia has a few paragraphs on the album, all of which amount to "it exists".  The critical reception was pretty mixed and commercially it did better over here than anywhere else - it only got to #18 in the US (although it did reach the dizzy heights of #2 in New Zealand).  Bizarrely, his entry tells me he's currently working on building a CITY in Senegal based around his cryptocurrency (yes, it's called Akoin) - apparently it's due to open in 2026 and a company has signed a $6 billion contract to build it, but progress has yet to start and some have concerns that the whole thing is a massive fraud.  Say it ain't so, Akon!

"Customers also listened to" Kardinall Offishall, P-Money, Sean Kingston and Jay Sean - none of whom I really know anything about, but having merely viewed the album covers I can assure you there's no danger of me listening to any of them.  Which would also be true for Akon, but I have to admit it was better than I was expecting - which still being pretty dreadful in places (particularly where chipmunks are involved).

08/05/05 - Not quite my thing, but certainly skilful
22/05/05 - Certainly intriguing