What's it about a kiss that makes me feel like this?

Continuing my trip forward in time through the album charts

10/05/24 : Radical Optimism - Dua Lipa

I like - no, I LOVE Future Nostalgia - it's a really good album that if you like anything from the 80s onwards you should check out.  Yes, it really is that good.  I've also heard (but have yet to experience) that her debut album is pretty good as well.  But...

...can lightning strike three times - or at least twice?  Her recent output (for me, at least) suggests it might be a bit of a struggle.  But here's hoping, eh?

Well - the good news is that there's nothing wrong with any of this.  And, within the context of many recent releases, it's all perfectly listenable and I didn't mind it at all.  But, and this is always the problem with having done something decent in your life (so I'm told anyway) you're always going to be compared with your best work and - well, how do I put this?  Let's just say this is no Future Nostalgia and leave it at that.

We're at #1 in the chart this week with a new entry and the rest of the top five are Taylor Swift, Frank Turner (another new entry), The Weeknd and Olivia Rodrigo and we have one more new entry in the top ten for Kelly Jones (#6).  I actually ventured a bit further down the chart this week to check out a couple more new entries - Rachel Chinouriri (#17) which I wanted to like but was a bit meh about and Camera Obscura (#36) which I did like.  I'm also going to mention #21-#23 where we have Queen, Bob Marley and Fleetwood Mac who have 3,278 weeks on the chart between them - 63 years!

Last week I said that Pet Shop Boys would drop to #35 and I got one number right because they're at #45, which feels close enough for a moral victory for me.  Dua's going to do better than that, but I don't think she's going to do as well as she'd hope - I'm going for #14.  And this week's Taylor stats are one in the top ten, three in the top thirty and seven in the entire chart - is she losing her iron grip on the chart?  That feels unlikely given she's going to be in the country in a month's time...

Wikipedia has loads for a new album (224 milliPeppers) but very little content.  It tells me the album contains neo-psychedelic elements (apparently shoegazing is a subgenre of neo-psychedelia) and the critics liked it well enough, but felt it could have been a bit more radical.  It has done well commercially though, being the best opening week performance for a UK female artist since Adele's 30 in '21 and it's made the top three in quite a few countries and got to #1 in Belgium, The Netherlands and France.

"Customers also listened to" Sia, Lizzy McAlpine, Meghan Trainor and Benson Boone - which seems an interesting mix.  I certainly didn't hate this but there's absolutely no chance of me ever revisiting it.  Yes, maybe that's my fault for having unrealistically high expectations - but we all know who's fault that is.  I would however say that if you caught this and thought "I don't understand what all the fuss is about" then do check out Future Nostalgia - it's really so much better.

03/05/24 - Not bad at all
17/05/24 - I liked this more than expected


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