Can you catch a medicine ball? Can you catch yourself when you fall?

Continuing my trip forward in time through the album charts

18/07/25 : moisturizer - Wet Leg 

Our second visit with Wet Leg - I'm looking forward to this particularly because I'd forgotten how much I liked their debut album. 

As much as I remember things, this is in a similar vein but has a bit more variety - which sometimes works and sometimes doesn't. It doesn't, on first listen, have anything as immediate as "Chaise Longue" but "catch these fists" (the first single off the album) did jump out for me as being pretty decent. The rest of it feels like it would need a few more listens, but I reckon it would sound good live. I also got the impression that one of them is in lurve because there were some surprisingly soppy lyrics at times!

We're at #1 with a new entry in the chart this week and the rest of the top five are Oasis, Oasis, Justin Bieber (a new entry) and Oasis - making this the first week in 48 weeks that Sabrina isn't in there. She's all the way down at #11 - and this is at least partly due to the number of new entries.

Justin Bieber (#4)
Credit where credit's due, Justin is no longer the assault on your eardrums that he once was - but this is actually pretty dull, lazy and, at times, ridiculously self-indulgent. I didn't hate it, but I've absolutely no idea who's supposed to love it - and I definitely didn't need 55 minutes of it.

Burna Boy (#6)
I know Mr Boy is very popular with many people, but I just don't get it I'm afraid - I don't mind that Afrobeats sound, but am unable to distinguish one artist from another. But I'm sure if you like this, then you'll like it.

Amy McDonald (#8)
Amy's been around for ages but I don't really know any of her stuff - despite having reviewed one of her albums. I didn't mind this at all though - as with the last one, KT Tunstall comes to mind, but I was also getting hints of Sam Fender here too. Not that she sounds anything like him, but they both convey a load of emotion in their voice in pretty propulsive songs.

Barry Can't Swim (#10)
For some weird reason, I thought Barry was a country artist - but he very much isn't! It's electronic dance-y music that you probably wouldn't want to try dancing to - I was reminded of Mylo. I didn't mind this at all - but Mrs Reed would hate it. 

Clipse (#16)
This is the sort of hip-hop/rap nonsense I'd normally have no truck with - but for some reason I actually quite liked this, with it reminding me of early Kanye stuff with evidence of both intelligence and humour. Wonders will never cease!

Giveon (#38)
Our first mention ever of Giveon and he sounds exactly like you'd expect from his picture on the album cover - very smooth R&B à la Luther Vandross. It's well done, but it won't be bothering my eardrums again, I'm afraid.

Steve Hackett (#68)
I know Steve is famous from back in the day, but I always have to check to remind myself he was in Genesis in the Peter Gabriel days. He's obviously still well regarded though because this is a live album recorded at the Royal Albert Hall - there's some very decent guitar work on there (particularly considering he's 75 now) but I didn't listen to all 144 minutes of it, I'm afraid.

Jethro Tull (#81)
And there is absolutely no danger of me listening to 489 minutes and 68 tracks of this, but I'm sure the hardcore fans will love it. 

Gigi Perez (#99)
My daughters saw her live when they went to watch Noah Kahan - they were very complimentary. So I was surprised it was considerably more lo-fi than the usual sort of thing they go for - I can see her working well with Noah though. Amusingly, the album's Wikipedia entry has one critical review saying it's "not a conventional debut album by any stretch" and they're spot on with that comment - it's not at all what I was expecting.

We're a bit lacking in wild and wacky re-entries this week - the best I've got is the Rolling Stones compilation at #93, which isn't going to surprise anyone. Last week I said that Tate would drop to #27 and she's at #30, so I'll take that as a win, if quite an an obvious one. Wet Leg are harder to guess - their last album hung around for ages but this one lacks the novelty value, so I'm going for #21. And this week's Taylor stats are none in the top fifty and a mere four in the entire chart, with two albums being in the #80s - she's losing it, I tell ya with Oasis having as many in the chart as she does. Any more of this and I won't feel the need to report weekly on it...

Wikipedia tells us it's their second album and their first as an official five piece band, although you can probably guess from the album cover that Rhian and Hester are still very much taking the limelight (and it's Rhian that's in a new relationship and being all soppy). There's a load of text in there, but not an awful lot of content - but I was pleased to learn that "Davina McCall", the third track on the album, was named after (and you might find this hard to believe) "the English television presenter, Davina McCall"! Critically, the album was well received, although Pitchfork tell me it's a "near re-invention" of the band which I'm afraid I somewhat missed and commercially it's done OK getting to #4 in Australia, #6 in The Netherlands, #8 in New Zealand and #10 in Germany, 

discogs.com tells us it's a tenner for the CD or £21 for the vinyl which is pretty par for the course but if you want the limited edition cream vinyl with a 3D lenticular gatefold sleeve it's gonna set you back £150 - I like a bit of lenticular action, but I think I'll pass this time, thanks. I kinda want to listen to this one again, but I never revisited their debut and I was much more positive about that, so I think we have to accept it ain't gonna happen. I think the album of the week has to go to one of Amy McDonald, Barry Can't Swim or (surprisingly) Clipse - they're all so different that I don't think I can really split them, but they're all good examples of that specific kind of thing.

11/07/25 - Not bad at all
25/07/25 - Not for me