Whatever it takes to break, got to do it

Continuing my trip back through the 2015 album charts.

25/09/15 : Rattle That Lock - David Gilmour


I don't think I've ever listened to a David Gilmour album - and yes, I searched here to check I hadn't written one up, because sometimes these things completely pass me by! I'm expecting this to have some decent guitar work on some bang average songs.

Yup - although the guitar work had me think "was it really all that decent?" He certainly has a nice tone to his playing but you feel he could churn this stuff out in his sleep - I checked on the internet and apparently he's such a good guitarist that he makes it look easy (and the internet wouldn't lie to me, right?). If you love Pink Floyd then you're certainly not going to hate this, but I struggle to imagine you'd pick much of it instead of Pink Floyd either. I'd also say that having just had two albums that had arguably too many guest singers, this is one that could have done with a few more...

We're at #1 with a new entry in the chart this week on the start of an eighteen week run - it spent four weeks in the top ten! The rest of the top five were Lana del Rey (another new entry), Jess Glynne, Cliff Richard (a SEVENTY FIVE track best-of to celebrate his, go on, guess which birthday) and Stereophonics (I've not heard this one, but things aren't going to stay that way for long) and we have two more new entries in the top ten for Drake & Future (#7) and Keith Richards (#8) - it's a young man's game once again, it appears.

Wikipedia tells me this is his fourth album, his second #1 and it was co-produced by Phil Manzanera (of Roxy Music fame). Apparently the title track is based around the SNCF jingle - which must be kinda weird for our French listeners. He certainly got his mates round whilst recording it - David Crosby, Graham Nash, Jools Holland, Mica Paris, Robert Wyatt (playing the cornet, obviously) and Richard Wright (one of those things is not the same) are all involved on various tracks. The critics were nice enough about it, but you won't believe the commercial performance - it got to #1 in Belgium, Czechia, France, Italy, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal and Sweden (and #5 in the US). How peculiar.

"Customers also listened to" Pink Floyd, Roger Waters, Richard Wright, Syd Barrett and Mark Knopfler - again, one of those things is not the same, but it's not far off, is it? I didn't hate this and I guess I can understand why people like the overall sound, but I really don't think it's any more than bang average - and it's certainly nowhere near as good as its commercial performance.

18/09/15 - Absolutely fine
02/10/15 - I wanted to like this more than I did

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