I'm thinkin' a thousand different things with no relevance or flow

Continuing my trip forward in time through the album charts

28/03/25 : KOKO - The Lottery Winners 

This is my second album visit with The Lottery Winners and I've also seen them live and both experiences were enjoyable, so I'm very much looking forward to this.

Hmmm - it's quite a clever album because it manages to be both upbeat and downbeat at the same time, focussing, like their last album, very much on mental health. However, I enjoyed them so much when I saw them live because they were so much fun and that just doesn't come across here. So I both liked it and was disappointed by it - I think it's worth a listen, but I won't be checking it out again. They've got an interesting bunch of guest artists on here though - Reverend & The Makers, Chad Kroeger (lead singer of Nickelback), Frank Turner and Shed Sever. I also like the album cover - it's simple yet striking.

We're at #1 with a new entry in the chart this week - their second chart-topping album. The rest of the top five were Sabrina, Deacon Blue (another new entry), Selena Gomez/Benny Blanco (another one!) and Lady Gaga (she's doing well), so we better get on to those new entries, I guess.

- Deacon Blue (#3)
I used to love them back in the day and have kinda kept in touch but I can't claim I'm massively au fait with their recent work, so I'm looking forward to checking it out. And it's decent enough, but it's certainly not going to set the world alight.

- Selena Gomez/Benny Blanco (#4)
No clue what I'm getting here, but I'm quite looking forward to finding out what it is. Actually, i quite liked this - at first listen it feels like the usual "young woman with relationship issues"  thang. But then you realise she's a (relative) veteran and so actually might have some life experience to relate and this comes through in the better than average lyrics - and the tunes are better than usual as well.

- The Horrors (#16)
I have heard some of The Horrors and I don't think I like them, but I could be wrong. And well, on the basis of this album, I might actually be wrong - it's not something I love but it's got a nicely moody goth feel to it and is well put together. Teenage me would have certainly have enjoyed it - older me certainly didn't mind it.

- McFly (#71)
They would have been expecting more than this, surely? Not that I'm sure they deserved it - it's a perfectly serviceable live album which shows they can play their instruments and their fans love them, but there was nothing here to interest me and I was surprised to only recognise one song.

- Japanese Breakfast (#78)
I'm expecting this to be easily the most interesting of the week. Yeah, it's like a cross between Camera Obscura and The Cure - I thought it's quite a British sound for a US indie band. I liked it - I think it's probably tied for most interesting album with Selena Gomez.

I also checked the re-entries out to try to give you this week's totally unexpected album at a ridiculously high chart placement, but the best I've got is Lewis Capaldi at #93 - which is a decent album way down the chart, so I've let you down badly.

Last week I said that Playboi Carti would be at #8 and I can tell you I'm LIVID that he's at #7 - but I'm gonna take that as a win. The Lottery Winners won't do as well but I think they will hang in there so let's go for #67 - and this week's Taylor stats are the usual one in the top forty and six in the entire chart.

Somewhat surprisingly, Wikipedia doesn't have an entry for the album - their entry tells me that KOKO stands for Keep On Keeping On, but that's all I've got for you other than a myriad of articles that tell me it got to #1 and a load of press releases that tell me it's their most adventurous album (which I'm not sure I believe on the evidence of the two I've heard).

"Customers also listened to" The Covasettes, Crystal Tides, Red Rum Club and Reverend & The Makers - which isn't a selection I know much about. And I can't claim to know loads about The Lottery Winners but I still managed to be slightly disappointed by this, although it's still an interesting enough listen. I preferred Selena Gomez and Japanese Breakfast's offerings though - they're both pretty decent albums.

21/03/25 - Mystifyingly popular
04/04/25 - Perfectly nice

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

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

Who are ya?!?

Image
A point each for the name, the song and the artist. 1. Her boyfriend’s a dick – he brings a gun to school 2. He took me to the future in the flux thing and I saw everything 3. He lives on the second floor 4. She told my baby we'd danced 'til three, then she looked at me 5. He tempted her with his treacle tart and his tasty wholemeal bread (2 names) 6. He’s stepping through the door 7. His girlfriend's pregnant too - he’s about to be a father 8. She’s gotta be strong to fight them, so she’s taken lots of vitamins 9. She came from Miami, F.L.A - hitch-hiked her way across the U.S.A. 10. Her smile is like a breath of spring, her voice is soft like summer rain 11. He’s darning his socks in the night when there's nobody there 12. He was jamming good with Weird and Gilly 13. Two American kids doin' the best they can (2 names) 14. I just act like I don’t remember and she just acts like she don’t care 15. She got a double wide and she rode a plane 16. You could have heard a...
Read more