All I have is my legacy - I been losing my memory

Continuing my trip forward in time through the album charts

07/02/25 : Hurry Up Tomorrow - The Weeknd

Our fifth visit with Mr Tesfaye (አቤል መኮንን ተስፋዬ in Amharic apparently) and I've generally found his stuff to be pretty decent, with one or two stand-out tracks on each album - so I've no reason to expect anything different here.

And yeah, "pretty decent" is where we are here, with a very expansive and varied sound, although I did find myself thinking the lyrics were a bit lame at several points. I'd also say that, at first listen, only one of the tracks stood out from the pack for me - "OK - which track was that then?" seems to be the obvious response here. Honestly, I'd love to tell you but I was running at the time so didn't note its name and I just don't have the patience to search through the 22 tracks and 85 minutes again to find out. Sorry, but I suspect if you're going to listen to this you'll already have done so and don't need my opinion - and if you're not going to listen to it then me telling you there's one particularly decent track on it is not going to draw you in.

We're at #1 with a new entry in the chart this week and the rest of the top five are Central Cee (well that held up MUCH better than I was expecting), Sabrina, The Weeknd (who he?) and Ed Sheeran. And boy do we have an interesting selecting of new entries for you this week!

- Hallucinating Love - Maribou State (#9)
Nicely retro electronica - I assume I must have heard some of their stuff beforehand, but I don't remember it.

- Restoration - Rory (#10)
Chappell Roan crossed with Rina Sawayama (with maybe a hint of MUNA) - this wasn't aimed at me in the slightest, but I didn't mind it at all. In fact, I think I'd go as far as saying I liked it.

- Closer - Kim Wilde (#27)
Well, I wasn't expecting this! I also wasn't expecting it to be nearly as good as it was - if you like that 80s Kim sound then I struggle to imagine you're not gonna like this.

- The Summer Portraits - Ludovico Einaudi (#71)
I was vaguely aware of his name and believed he was a classical pianist, but had no idea if that was true so it amused me to see it's only taken me until he's reached the ripe old age of 69 to actually confirm this (his first album came out in '88).

- Dancing At The Edge Of The World - Brooke Combe (#83)
I've never heard of her, but this is a pretty good album - she's got a great strong voice and some decent tunes. It's well worth checking out imho.

Last week I said that Central Cee would drop to #27 and boy did I get that wrong. I'm not going to make the same mistake of underestimating The Weeknd because I'm going for him holding at #1 - it's somewhat dependent on what new releases happen next week but I reckon it stands a good chance. And this week's Taylor stats are one in the top twenty, two in the top forty and six in the entire chart.

Wikipedia already has a massive 408 milliPeppers on the album and it tells us it's his sixth studio album and the last part of a trilogy along with After Hours and Dawn FM (obviously I knew this already). I really couldn't be bothered to read all the entry, but there's an impressive variety of guest artists involved - Justice, Anitta, Travis Scott, Florence and the Machine, Future, Playboi Carti, Giorgio Moroder and Lana Del Rey. The critics were pretty nice about it, although The Guardian also thought the lyrics were "shallow, self-pitying". And, obviously, commercially absolutely no-one cares what either I or The Guardian think with it having made #1 nearly everywhere, although only #29 in Japan.

"Customers also listened to" Chase Atlantic, Madjesla, Post Malone and The Noise, most of whom I can tell you absolutely nothing about - never mind, eh? If you're in the market for a The Weeknd album, I suspect this will satisfy all your requirements - I thought it was perfectly fine, but never really hit the heights that most of his other albums have achieved. I am going to call out Rory and Brooke Combe though for making interesting and very decent albums that I may well check out again. And Kim Wilde's offering was also waaay better than I was expecting.

31/01/25 - Certainly not entirely without merit