I'll worship like a dog at the shrine of your lies

Continuing my trip back through the 2015 album charts.

18/01/15 : Hozier - Hozier


I don't mind Hozier, but I really don't see what he has that everyone else obviously sees - his stuff is fine, but I can't help but feel everyone just thinks it's all as good as "Take Me To Church" (which I'm expecting to hear on this).

Oh yes - it's up first just to get us in the mood. But, the acid test is what it's like after that? Hmmm - on a surface listen, I thought it was better than I was expecting and I certainly didn't hate any of it. However, I can't help but feel I was being fooled by the impressive instrumentation - there didn't seem to be a lot of substance to a lot of the songs and you'd hurry past him if he was busking them in the street on his guitar. It's all perfectly bearable for one listen, but I struggle to see too many people making it far past "Take Me To Church" on repeat visits - which is actually a bit of a shame because the most interesting tracks are towards the end of the album. The "special" edition was also 107 minutes long - I gave up way before then.

We're at #5 in the chart this week on his fifteenth week of an impressive 88 week run, with it peaking at #3 in its 32nd week for no obvious reason at all. The rest of the top five were George, Ed, Sam and Taylor which is quite the successful top five with nearly 4.5 years in the chart between them and the highest new entry was Panda Bear (all the way down at #49).

Wikipedia has way more on the album than I was expecting (226 milliPeppers) but it goes into levels of detail that no-one needs, I can assure you. It's his debut album, the critics liked it and it did well commercially is all you need to know. Somewhat unsurprisingly, it got to #1 in Ireland and somewhat more surprisingly, it also topped the chart in Poland. Even more bizarrely it was #107 in the US year-end list last year...

"Customers also listened to" Noah Kahan (a similar vibe, but there's way more to Noah's songs for me), Florence + The Machine (huh?), The Lumineers and Vance Joy. I enjoyed this album more than I was expecting but I remain somewhat nonplussed as to what the fuss is all about - but I guess if you like it, you like it.

11/01/15 - You gotta love a bit of Olly
25/01/15 - Better than I was expecting

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