Can you feel the light inside? Can you feel that fire?
Continuing my trip forward in time through the album charts
01/11/24 : CHROMAKOPIA - Tyler, The Creator
Our third visit with Tyler - previously I've not minded him but have no real clue what I'm supposed to do with it, and I've no expectations that things will be any different here.
Yeah, we're pretty much there again - it's got some nice enough noises on it and feels musically quite interesting. You can also at least understand the lyrics - I'm not sure I always wanted to but he wasn't as full of shit as these rappers often are and he was nicely uncertain about things at times. I won't be revisiting it, but I didn't hate it and it did intrigue me - and I think that's pretty much all I have to say on the matter. It's quite the album cover though, isn't it?
We're at #1 with a new entry in the chart this week and the rest of the top five are The Courteeners (another new entry), Sabrina Carpenter (HOW is this doing so well?), Bastille (another new entry) and Charli XCX - and boy do we have a load of new entries to consider this week, with six in the top ten alone...
The Courteeners (#2)
It's not world-shattering but it's at least got decent tunes and lyrics which talk about things I can relate to. I just don’t understand how this is less popular in this country than Tyler - if the argument is that people think Tyler is aspirational then why does Tyler just sound so miserable?
Bastille (#4)
This isn't a million miles away from The Courteeners but it's way more downbeat - some more joy here wouldn’t have hurt for me!
Tears For Fears (#6)
And this isn't a million miles away from Bastille - I wasn't blown away by it, but it's a lot better than I was expecting it to be, so I suspect fans from back in the day will like it. It's also got a great title - Songs For A Nervous Planet.
Amyl And The Sniffers (#9)
There's definitely no lack of energy here - it's all go, go, go. It's not really my kind of thing but at least it's fun and they're not holding back. It's "quite" the album cover as well.
Queen (#10)
This is basically Queen I which was first being released in '73 but it's a new entry rather than a re-entry because this version features 63 tracks (most of which are remixes or live versions of the original ten tracks) and lasts for over four and a half hours. Safe to say, I did not listen to it.
Laura Marling (#13)
I quite like a bit of Laura, even if I find her to be somewhat inconsistent (contrarily so, some might suggest). She's very Joni Mitchellesque on this - it's not quite my thing, but it's all well put together. And, then in the middle of it all, there's a weird instrumental track, "Interlude (Time Passages)", which is very different and I really quite liked it.
Andrea Bocelli (#14)
He's gone early for Xmas, hasn't he? 37 duets with a surprisingly eclectic mix of artists - once again, I didn't feel the need to torture myself (although I have a sneaking suspicion that some of them are probably bearable, but don't tell anyone I said that).
ABBA (#17)
Bryan Ferry (#73)
Another two Xmas contenders both of whom are celebrating 50 years in the business - although quite why anyone needs either of these compilations is beyond me. Interestingly, the ABBA release has also resulted in ABBA Gold dropping out of the chart, which feels like an own goal to me (although I suspect it will be back soon enough).
Halsey (#19)
I really liked this - it's got some decent tunes and lyrics on it. Boy, does that girl have some issues (her Wikipedia entry has a sub-section on her health and lists TEN separate issues she's dealing with), but "I Believe In Magic" has some absolutely gorgeous lyrics to it about the joys of parenthood.
Pixies (#22)
Underworld (#43)
These two are bunched together in order for us all to consider the very fine line between "revisiting the classic sounds of the past" and "churning out the same old same old". If you like either of their classic sounds, then I suspect you'll like their latest offerings.
Razorlight (#68)
This is probably exactly the album both their remaining fans were crying out for.
Kids In Glass Houses (#73)
Perfectly serviceable indie pop that reminded me of The 1975 - nothing didn't particularly jump out at me except for the line "you’re chewing your hair like there’s nutrients there”, which I found nicely quirky.
Jerry Cantrell (#99)
Apparently he's the lead singer and guitarist in Alice In Chains and this sounds exactly the sort of thing he'd be making these days. Yes, it's a bit earnest but there's nothing wrong with it.
In a marked contrast to the previous two weeks, we've only got one re-entry this week which is Green Day's American Idiot (#32) - I suspect the American election might be responsible. Last week I said that Kylie would drop to #13 and it's fair to say I got that wrong because she's at #52 - what a terrible guess! I've absolutely no idea about Tyler so let's randomly select #23 and this week's Taylor stats are one in the top twenty, four in the top forty and seven in the entire chart - she's on quite the slide at the minute.
Wikipedia has a lot for a new album (117 milliPeppers) but the main thing we have to talk about is the MAJORLY controversial action that Tyler took with this release - it's quite outrageous so you'd probably better sit down for this. As we know, those rappy types like to shock us to gain notoriety but Tyler has, for some, gone just too far this time. Yup - he released this album on a MONDAY! Apparently, since Beyoncé dropped this as a surprise package the industry standard is to release albums on a Friday and it's quite frowned upon to do anything different - I only hope people can get over the shock.
The only other fact of interest is that people have speculated that the album title refers to Chroma, a powerful conductor whose orchestra creates the colours of the world in the 1961 children's novel The Phantom Tollbooth - which is a book I read when I was quite young and I absolutely loved. Back to the album content, the critics absolutely loved it with most of them praising the messiness and uncertainty on display and it's done very well commercially, getting to #1 in Australia, The Netherlands, Ireland, New Zealand, Switzerland and, of course, the US.
"Customers also listened to" the usual suspects of Frank Ocean, Kendrick Lamar, Steve Lacey and Kanye West. And, like most of them, I've no idea what I'm supposed to do with Tyler's music - but in this case it was a surprisingly worthy of attention and I suspect further listens would uncover more detail.
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