Schyeah - ayy, Swamp

Continuing my trip forward in time through the album charts

2103/25 : Music - Playboi Carti

Playboi has popped up as a guest artist on a couple of albums we've met recently, but we've yet to experience an offering from the man - I have a sneaking suspicion I'm not going to like it.

Well - every so often these rappy types surprise me by coming up with something surprisingly tolerable! But, let me assure you, this is not one of those times - this is shouty-gabblerap over some bleepy static. Actually, to be fair, as a sound it's not dreadful - but it's completely indecipherable and the album has 30 tracks lasting 75 minutes, which is just waaaay too much. I'm happy for you if you like this, but if you don't think you're going to like it, then I can assure you that you won't.

We're at #1 with a new entry in the charts this week and the rest of the top five are Sabrina, Steven Wilson (a new entry), Lady Gaga (well, I got that wrong) and Tate McRae (she's hanging around well) - as well as Steven, we have quite a new entries to consider this week

- Steven Wilson (#3)
To begin with I was a bit "what am I supposed to do with this?" but when I just decided it was pretty much like Peter Gabriel or Pink Floyd, I just relaxed and enjoyed it - although some of it was a bit too proggy for my liking.

- The Slow Readers Club (#11)
From the name, I guessed this was either ambient or shoegaze. And I was wrong, because it's indie-rock - I was reminded of Editors or Interpol. I didn't mind this at all.

- Ricky Warwick (#25)
I was guessing at male singer-songwriter here, and I'm kinda right because he is male and I suspect he's written these songs, but it's all a lot rockier than I was expecting - Wikipedia tells me he's the lead singer of the current line-up of Thin Lizzy and, having listened to this, that doesn't surprise me at all.

- Florence + The Machine/Jules Buckley (#38)
This is their orchestral version of Lungs that they did for the Proms - it's pretty decent if you've not heard it.

- Charli XCX (#40)
ANOTHER version of Brat!?!

- Coheed & Cambria (#70)
I couldn't even begin to imagine what this might be - but maybe I should have just guessed it was more rock because that's what seems to be in this week. It's a bit shoutier than I like in places, but overall I didn't mind this either.

Disappointingly, the new Throwing Muses album didn't make it into the chart but I checked it out anyway and I think it's more of a Kristin Hersh album than a Muses album, if you care about such things (which you probably don't!)

Last week I said that Lady Gaga would be at #36 but deserved better - as we've previously seen she's done considerably better at #4. Stuff like Playboi's tends to hang around the charts considerably longer than I feel it deserves, so let's go for #8 and this week's Taylor stats are her usual one in the top forty and six in the entire chart.

Wikipedia tells us this is his third album and came five years after the previous one because of years of development hell. He's got quite the list of guest artists on it including Travis Scott (he appears on EVERYTHING!), The Weeknd, Kendrick Lamar, Jhené Aiko, Skepta, Future, Lil Uzi Vert, Ty Dolla Sign and Young Thug. Apparently it's a trap album, incorporating elements of rage music - I'm still going for bleepy-static-shouty-gabblerap as my description though. The critics generally disagreed with me though, with NME declaring it "a refinement that spins his characteristic chaos into something cinematic" - how could I argue with that? Slant did mention the "incomprehensible lyricism" though, so I'm taking that. It's done very well commercially, getting to #1 in Australia, Iceland, Lithuania, New Zealand and Norway - and I suspect they'll go for it in the US as well.

"Customers also listened to" Travis Scott, Metro Boomin, Don Toliver and The Weeknd who are all people I can tolerate in very small doses. And the same is true for Playboi Carti - if you want to listen to it then knock yourself out, but I'm mystified as to the appeal. Florence + The Machine was easily the best new album for me this week, but if you want to check something new out then The Slow Readers Club offering is worth a listen.

14/03/25 - Pretty good actually
28/03/25 - Good, but disappointing

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