All the things she said, running through my head

Continuing my trip back through the 2003 album charts.

09/02/03 : 200 Km/h In The Wrong Lane - t.A.T.u



I remember this lot getting various people in a tizzy with their lesbian antics and I also remember the single being both dreadful and catchy at the same time. So I suspect I'm either going to hate this or grudgingly enjoy it.

Well - that's a surprise because, for the most part, it's just a bit boring. None of the songs are what I'd call great, but quite a few of them have a kernel of a good idea which, if worked upon, could probably have worked out well - but "they" (and I'm pretty certain t.A.T.u had very little to do with it) just couldn't be bothered, so they just repeated it over and over. It's all very East European Eurovision and super forgettable. 

There is one decent song on there - yup, they've included a cover version. I think you'd be guessing for quite some time though before you began to suspect they'd have gone for The Smiths "How Soon Is Now?" - while I'm sure many would consider it an abomination, I actually think it's quite interesting and they definitely could have made it a helluva lot worse. But the whole album was just surprisingly dull - the most interesting thing about it is that it also includes the original Russian version of their singles, which just emphasises how little effort they put into it. I also have to stress, for the avoidance of doubt, that this is not a good album.

We're all the way down at #12 in the charts this week on their fourth week of a twelve week run, with this being as high as it got - although it managed a further nine week run later in the year. The top five this week were Kelly Rowland (a new entry - which surprised me), Justin Timberlake, best-ofs from Lisa Stansfield and Aaliyah (both new entries) and Avril Lavigne and the next highest new entry was quite obviously an Ella Fitxgerald best-of (#14).

Wikipedia has way more on the album (233 milliPeppers) than I was expecting but most of it is about how the duo came to be formed and the "tawdry" way in which they were marketed (hey - it worked!) - it's quite amusing to watch the video for "All The Things She Said" to see how tame it seems now compared to all the controversy it caused at the time. The album got some surprisingly good reviews from some critics, whilst obviously being ripped to shreds by others - "heavy, portentous Europop, badly sung by two girls with annoying squawks for voices". Commercially, it did way better than it deserved, making #1 in Austria, Hungary and Japan (they do love a naughty schoolgirl over there) and getting to #13 in the US.

"Customers also listened to" The Rasmus, Lourose, Lena Katina and Avril Lavigne - I'm only aware of Avril's version of teenage rebellion there and I have to say I find it considerably more bearable. For me, this is just dull and lazy - although I have to admit I was expecting worse.

02/02/23 - A decent album
16/02/23 - Some interesting bleeps

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

I'm not wishing I was back in the USA, coz I come from Morecambe and the skies are grey

Image
Continuing my trip forward in time through the album charts 15/11/24 : Earth To Grace - Massive Wagons I will listen to the new entry at #1, but there's absolutely NO WAY I'm writing a whole entry on it - so instead we have this which I know absolutely nothing about. But it has to be better than the abomination at #1. Well, it's something you don't hear too much of these days - I guess "hard rock" is probably as good a description as any. It’s not going to win any awards for musical complexity but it’s quite catchy - I was r eminded of Gary Moore in his heavier days that teenage me used to like. It also certainly doesn't take itself too seriously - "Free And Easy" tells us "I don't shoot guns, it's not healthy - I drive a Ford C-Max I got off my dad and it's filthy" and "Rabbit Hole" offers up an amusingly sceptical take on conspiracy theories and then abruptly ends "Auf wiedersehen, adios - this song fucking ...
Read more

Time is the fruit of patience

Image
Continuing my trip back through the 1990 album charts. 27/05/90 : Passion And Warfare : Steve Vai I know that Steve Vai is a highly respected guitarist, but I've got no more clue about him than that.  I also don't have a great history with albums from highly respected guitarists, so I'd have to say my confidence isn't sky high going in to this one (and nothing would have convinced me to buy it - 7/32). Ohmigod, this is rubbish.  The guitar playing is indeed of a very high quality, but man cannot live on guitar playing alone and everything else about it is just pretentious bombast.  "The Audience Is Listening" deserves a specific mention for being particularly rubbish, with a teacher introducing "young Steve Vai" to the class to play a lovely tune and then providing an increasingly histrionic running commentary on how much she doesn't like it.  I can imagine he's very impressive live, but such virtuosity often doesn't translate onto an alb...
Read more

And she'll tease you, she'll unease you

Image
  A first for me! Cheap tickets often pop up to various All Points East events through work, but it often coincides with holiday time - and the one time I did make an effort to go a train strike prevented me from making out into the wilds of East London. Until now when, for no obvious reason, I went to a day when I had no great interest in the headlining act. It's based in Victoria Park in Hackney and it's a BIG site. The set-up is similar to Reading Festival with two main stages which alternate between acts, involving a lot of audience migration across the site. The distance between the stages might even be bigger than at Reading, but there's also a sizeable tented stage about halfway between so you can always stop off if you're feeling tired - and I did, on several occasions! Also, unlike both Reading and BST Hyde Park, there is a lot of shaded area on site which was also much used throughout the day whilst a LOT of music was being enjoyed, because I saw... Liana Flor...
Read more