It's kinda funny how life can change - can flip 180 in a matter of days

Continuing my trip back through the 2003 album charts.

12/01/03 : One Love - Blue


Having recently had our second visits with P!nk and Sugababes this year, we now have our second visit with Blue - it's safe to say my expectations are rock bottom for this.

OK -  to be fair to them, the opening and title track is actually pretty bearable, although I think it's the production that makes it so rather than their actual contribution. And, taken a track at a time, I actually think this is a vast improvement on our previous visits - there's just more oomph to it all (even if there's far too many "oh yeahs" and "come ons" thrown into the mix - we even get an "I say Blue, you say what" at one point). But fifteen tracks lasting 53 minutes is just way more than I had the patience for I'm afraid. Their cover of "Sorry Seems To Be The Hardest Word" is also completely unnecessary - given they had Stevie Wonder as a guest star and they've got Elton John on this, you do have to wonder who managed to organise this - I struggle to imagine that either global megastar views their collaboration with these idiots as the highpoint of their career.

We're at #7 in the chart this week on their tenth week of a thoroughly undeserved 30 week run, with it having peaked at #1 in its debut week and spent its first eight weeks in the top three - sigh. The top five this week were Avril, P!nk, Robbie Williams, Daniel Bedingfield and Red Hot Chili Peppers and, in keeping with tradition for the first couple of weeks of the year, we have no new entries in the chart.

Wikipedia tells us this is their second album, lists the singles and that's your lot! The critics were nice enough about with The Guardian declaring "a decent showing from one of the less idiotic boy bands" - which is almost at least half true I guess. Amusingly, Becky Betts from BBC Radio Suffolk absolutely loved it, declaring it "varied, brilliant and packed with talent" - was she listening to the same album that I was? Commercially, it did way better than it deserved, doing well across Europe including getting to #5 in Ireland and #6 in The Netherlands - it also did surprisingly well in Asia getting to #4 in Singapore and #9 in Japan.

"Customers also listened to" Simon Webbe, Lee Ryan, Westlife and, amusingly, Ryan Lee. Much as it pains me, I do have to say this isn't nearly as bad as it could have been - I can at least understand why people liked it, even if there's no danger of me doing so. 

05/01/03 - Fine, yet perplexing
19/01/03 - Not bad at all

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