Do you remember when you were seven?

Continuing my trip back through the 2003 album charts.

27/07/03 : Innocent Eyes - Delta Goodrem 

I vaguely remember Delta existing (she was a Neighbours or Home & Away graduate, wasn't she?) but couldn't name one of her songs if you gave me the rest of the year. I'm expecting a female Daniel Bedingfield - nothing hateful about it, but completely inessential.

Firstly, I have to admit she's got a nicer voice than I remembered, but there's not a lot that's particularly memorable about any of this - I didn't mind the title track and I even recognised "Lost Without You" and "Not Me, Not I" but apart from that it all just slid past me pretty much unnoticed. I'm a fan when stuff like this is done well (Nerina Pallot's Words is one that springs to mind) but there's an awful lot that ends up as musical wallpaper - I suspect a few more listens might convince me this is pretty decent wallpaper, but it's not going to get the chance, I'm afraid.

We're at #3 in the charts this week on her fourth week of an impressive 35 week run, with it having peaked at #2 in its first and third weeks. The rest of the top five were Beyoncé, Daniel Bedingfield, Super Furry Animals (a new entry) and Stereophonics and the next highest new entry was Kym Marsh (#9).

Wikipedia has more than I was expecting on the album (150 milliPeppers) but there's not an awful lot of content in there. It tells me that she wasn't just a Neighbours graduate because at this point she was still in the show playing a singer - and one of the songs she sang on the show was "Born To Try", which just happened to be the lead single from this album. What a coincidence, eh?! It also tells me that, amongst others, Gary Barlow and Cathy Dennis were involved in the album, so she had a pretty heavyweight team behind her. 

The critics were nice enough about it with The Guardian saying "the lyrics are a bit la-la-floating-on-clouds, but that doesn't dilute their charm" - whatever that means! Commercially, it did well enough here but things really blew up in Australia - go on, guess how many weeks it spent at #1. Nope, it was quite a bit more than that - TWENTY NINE! It sold over a million copies over there alone and ended up being their best selling album of the decade - so yeah, they went a bit mad for it. Her entry is surprisingly long and tells me she was diagnosed with cancer just after this album came out, but once she got the all-clear she went straight back to work and hasn't really stopped, including the obligatory turn as a coach on The Voice. She's actually sound like a pretty decent egg so keep at it, Delta!

"Customers also listened to" Abram Wilson, Brian McFadden (they were engaged for a bit), Savage Garden and Claire Richards - which seems like a somewhat random selection. Delta's got a nice voice and decent enough songs, but there's nothing exceptional here for me - but likewise, there's nothing horrendous either and it's certainly more obviously enjoyable than Daniel's effort.

20/07/03 - An enjoyable revisit
03/08/03 - Admirable rather than loveable