It's like the old man says, we're dead in the water now

Completing my trip back through the 2003 album charts.

05/01/03 : A New Day At Midnight - David Gray

And we end the year with another album I own, bringing us to a measly five for the year, which feels surprisingly low because I was still buying albums at this time. I remember quite liking this one but I've not listened to it in many a year.

Well, this is an odd game of three thirds! I remembered and enjoyed the first third, didn't remember the second third at all and then remembered the last third fine. It wasn't that the middle was terrible (although I'd say there was a bit of a drop-off in quality) - it's just that it didn't ring any bells. So I was somewhat perplexed for three or four tracks - how peculiar! I generally liked the sound of it though and thought it compared well with White Ladder (how have we not listened to this yet?) - "Dead In The Water", "Freedom" and "The Other Side" were my favourite tracks, but he's got a nice mournful voice across the whole thing.

We're at #8 in the chart this week on his tenth week of an impressive 48 week run with it having peaked at #1 in his debut week. The top five this week were Avril, Robbie Williams,  P!nk, Blue and Coldplay and there were no new entries in the chart this week - Happy New Year!

Wikipedia tells us it's his sixth album, is dedicated to his father who died in '11 and that's pretty much it. Critically, the album received mixed reviews but it did well commercially with it also getting to #1 in Ireland and #17 in the US.

"Customers also listened to" Damien Rice, Ray LaMontagne, James Morrison and Elbow - yeah, we're in the same area there, certainly. I quite liked this - it's not going to set the world alight (and, in fact, hasn't) but it's got a nice sound to it and is a perfectly acceptable way to end the year.

2003 (blog timeline) - Another one down!
12/01/03 - Surprisingly tolerable