I had some help - it ain't like I can make this kinda mess all by myself

Continuing my trip forward in time through the album charts

23/08/24 : F-1 Trillion - Post Malone

I'm aware of Mr Malone and am under the general impression I don't like him - but I actually don't think I know any of his stuff apart "Sunflower" which I quite like, so who knows what I'm going to think of this?

Huh?!? You what?!? This is country - whatever I was expecting, I wasn't expecting that. It's not really my kinda thing but it is, as far as I can tell, done well - I can see it would be fun to sing along to in the car with the roof down. It doesn't feel like it's exactly pushing boundaries because it's all the usual stuff like booze, relationships, lurve, trouble with the law, etc but I guess that's what people wanted. I did like the corniness of "M.E.X.I.C.O" though because it's a nice bit of fun - but the album as a whole is too long at 18 tracks and 57 minutes (unless you go for the "Long Bed" version which is 27 tracks and 87 minutes - I can assure you I didn't). I do like the album cover though.

We're at #1 with a new entry this week and the rest of the top five are The Script (another new entry - they still want to be U2 or Coldplay and they still ain't), Taylor, Chappell and Charli (she's hanging around well). The other new entries this week are Scarlet Rebels (#15) which is some surprisingly enjoyable retro rawk, Hamish Hawk (#22) which I assumed from his name would be fey indie folk but it very much isn't, being more like an excitable John Grant and is quite interesting, Falling In Reverse (#29) which isn't a million miles away from Hamish but is VERY overblown (amusingly so) and The Stranglers best-of (#36) celebrating fifty years.

Last week I said that Beabadoobee would drop to #12 and I got that totally wrong because she's at #45 and I've got ABSOLUTELY no idea where Post will end up - let's split the two and go for #28 (but it could be anywhere!). And this week's Taylor stats might possibly be affected by her Wembley gigs with her having two in the top ten, six in the top twenty (including #10-#14) and eleven in the whole chart, which is the best she's had for quite some time.

Wikipedia tells us that he is normally a hippy-hoppy type, but he's giving country a go for a bit and he's got some big names lending him a hand - I can't claim to be an expert but even I recognise the names Dolly Parton, Tim McGraw, Hank Williams Jr, Morgan Wallen, Luke Combs and Jelly Roll (another fan of the facial tattoo). Critical reception was favourable, particularly around the songwriting and it's done well commercially as well, getting to #1 in Australia, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway and the US.

"Customers also listened to" Niko Moon, Morgan Wade, Warren Zeiders and Kelsea Ballerini - yup, never heard of any of 'em. There's no danger of me ever listening to this again but, once I'd got over my initial shock at the countryness of it all, I didn't mind it at all - at least for the first two thirds of it anyway.

16/08/24 - Yeah, I like this
30/08/24 - Pretty average

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