Do you really understand the challenge you've set yourself?

Continuing my trip back through the 2003 album charts.

16/03/03 : Reason - Melanie C

This is a peculiar one because I loved Northern Star which is the only Spice Girl album I've ever owned - I still listen to it from time to time and it's stood the test of time pretty well. But as far as I know I've never ever listened to this, the follow up. I don't remember ever being scared off it - it just never happened, so I'm intrigued to see what we've got here.

Well, it's not Northern Star and that's for sure. The songs seem to have the same set of ingredients so none of them are horrible, but they've all just less of everything - it's just not that interesting on first listen. It probably had enough for the hardcore Melanie C fans but I just don't see it wasn't going to convert anyone and is a disappointment after what came before.

We're at #5 in the charts this week with a new entry on the start of a very short five week run - Northern Star had runs of 10 and 56 weeks. The rest of the top five were Norah Jones, Coldplay, Christina Aguilera and Red Hot Chili Peppers, with the next highest new entry being Daniel O'Donnell (#6).

Wikipedia tells us its her second album and recording it was a bit of a tricky time with Melanie suffering from depression and experiencing friction with her record label - and then once she'd released it, she went on The Games and injured herself badly. The critics were mixed on the album and commercially it didn't do nearly well enough for the record label who dropped her, which she later described as "a bit of a relief".

"Customers also listened to" Melanie B, Emma Bunton, Geri Halliwell and (go on, guess) - Victoria Beckham! Sporty is the easy winner out of that lot for me, but this isn't anywhere close to her best work - sorry Melanie.

09/03/23 - Not clicking like I wanted it to
23/03/03 - Not a good album