Are you trying? Are you patient? Are you blind?

Continuing my trip forward in time through the album charts

27/06/25 : Idols - Yungblud 

Somewhat surprisingly, this is our third visit with Yungblud and he's been interesting and enjoyable so far, so I've got high hopes for this. We've also got a lot of new entries in the top ten to investigate - there were some heavy hitters at play this week!

Hmmm, well. I guess this isn't dreadful, but I'm not sure it quite gets up to the dizzy heights of interesting or enjoyable. It's all well put together and feels like it should be good, but, well - it's just a bit boring. And if there was one thing I wasn't expecting Yungblud to be, it was boring. All a bit odd really - it's quite an IggyPop-esque album cover though, isn't it?

We're at #1 with a new entry in the chart this week (his third #1 album) and the rest of the top five are Loyle Carner (another new entry), HAIM (ditto), Benson Boone (ditto) and (of course) Sabrina. So let's check out those other new entries and hope they deliver something of more interest than Yungblud managed.

Loyle Carner (#2)
Yeah, I didn't mind this at all. I was expecting a bit more attitude but it's very laid-back in a summery jazz style, with some very decent musicians playing on it - I also suspect if you pay more attention to the lyrics than I did then it probably increases your enjoyment. I recently heard him on Adam Buxton's podcast and he came across as a very intelligent and open young man - I also learned that his name is actually Ben Coyle-Larner.

HAIM (#3)
If you like that HAIM sound (and I do) then there's nothing here to scare you off. Lyrically, it's quite reflective and nostalgic which always makes me wonder if they're OK but, as with Loyle's album, it's a very pleasant summery sound so you can always just ignore those pesky words.

Benson Boone (#4)
This surprised me by opening with "Sorry I'm Here For Someone Else", which I think my youngest has played me about a million times but I don't think I ever knew it was Benson. The rest of the album continues in a similar vein - it's a very US Harry Styles kinda sound. Not something I need, but not something I hate either.

Aitch (#7)
I was surprised that Aitch is at #7 this week whereas AJ Tracey was at #37 last week - my expectation was very much that I wouldn't be able to tell the difference between the two of them. So imagine my surprise when I found myself certainly admiring and almost liking this - he's very skilful lyrically, both in terms of content and speed of delivery and there are some very decent accompanying backing tracks. All in all, a pleasant surprise - plenty of people would still hate it though.

Malevolence (#32)
I'm never going to like a group called Malevolence, am I? Not my thing at all, I'm afraid

Lucy Spraggan (#34)
I'm not saying I get my Lucy's mixed up, but when we bumped into Ms Dacus recently, I thought she was the X Factor contestant but she's the member of boygenius - and this week, I thought Ms Spraggan was the member of boygenius, so you can probably guess where she came from. I didn't mind this - she's got a nice voice and there are some decent tunes on it, but maybe it's a bit lacking in oomph. It does have a very decent duet with Robbie Williams on it though - their voices work really nicely together (and I'm really not the biggest fan of Robbie). 

No particularly wild and wacky re-entries this week with the highest being Dua Lipa at #47, but she's on tour, so that's no surprise - with the next being the Guns'n'Roses best-of at #77 and I assume there's a reason for this but I have no idea what it might be. Last week I said that James Marriott would drop to #35 but he's at #73 so I'm a fair way off - Yungblud feels like he'll do better than that, so let's go for #35 for the third week in a row! (I've got to be right eventually, haven't I?) And this week's Taylor stats are none in the top fifty and a mere four in the entire chart which is the lowest we've seen since I started paying attention to such things - is this the beginning of the end for the lass?

Wikipedia has a few bits on the album, but little of content other than it's his fourth album, took him four years to put together and is "a project with no limitations" - whatever one of those it.  There's absolutely no word on the critical response, but commercially it's done well in Europe getting to #2 in Germany and #1 in The Netherlands.

discogs.com only has four copies for sale and the cheapest is £65, but they're all coloured vinyl with a black/white split - I won't be purchasing one but I have to admit it looks pretty cool. But, unfortunately, I think that's possibly the coolest thing about this album - maybe I was in a funny mood or not playing it loud enough, but it just didn't have any spark for me. The albums of the week for me are either Loyle Carner or HAIM, but I also have to admit I was considerably more engaged by Aitch than I was expecting.

20/06/25 - Really quite enjoyable
04/07/25 - Giving the fans what they want