Michael Jordan eyes, neck yellow - look like bing, baow

Continuing my trip forward in time through the album charts

25/07/25 : DON'T TAP THE GLASS - Tyler, The Creator 

It feels like no time since our last visit with Tyler (it was only nine months after all) - he's not someone I love, but I don't hate him nearly as much as you might expect me to.

Hmmm. I guess there's some skill involved, but I've still no idea what I’m supposed to do with it. It's got quite a retro feel - I was reminded of the various OutKast albums that Rolling Stone made me listen to. It's also very n-word heavy - I suspect John Torode should probably steer clear of it for the time being (oooh - so topical!). It's fine I guess and it's only 28 minutes long, but it's certainly not aimed at me - and it has a most peculiar album cover. 

We're at #2 with a new entry in the chart this week and the rest of the top five are Alex Warren (spending a first week at the top, after a previous high point of #9 and having been #25 last week) and a somewhat depressing Oasis, Oasis and Oasis - hard to imagine, but I kinda miss Sabrina. And the other new entries this week are...

Jim Legxacy (#29)
Jim's first mention ever - I think I've heard some of his stuff, but it's not ringing any bells. It's another one that's not aimed at me, being rappy R&B but I thought it was more tolerable than Tyler and, given the album is called Black British Music, it's slightly more relatable (even to me, with my well-hidden urban roots).

Panic Shack (#32)
I feel I'm gonna like someone called Panic Shack - it's gonna be indie cool kids, innit? Yup - they're a mostly-girl group (the drummer is a bloke) doing (possible fake) angry girl indie. Hailing from Cardiff, it's nice to hear some regional accents and there are some amusing relatable lyrics - “Pockets” asks the important question “how hard would it be to put some pockets on women’s trousers?”. What they'd probably like me to say is it reminds me of Fuzzbox, but I have to say a more up-to-date reference would be Lady Parts (and this isn't a bad thing).

Joe Bonamassa (#39)
Joe is generally someone who I am impressed by as opposed to actively enjoying their output. And yeah, there's some lovely guitar playing on here, but the songs seem pretty average to my uncultured ear.

Billie Marten (#46)
I feel Billie is either gonna be a cool kid or an X Factor winner - and she certainly was a cool kid, starting on YouTube at the age of NINE! But now, she's a slightly less cool adult - this was fine in a singer-songwriter kinda way, but didn't really grab me. 

We Are Scientists (#78)
I used to like a bit of WAS back in the day, but was completely unaware they were still going (they formed in '99). And I think it's fair to say they haven't massively changed (or at the very least they've reverted to form) but I liked a bit of 00s indie and this pretty much ticks that box - with a bit more variety than I was expecting. All in all, a nice trip back to the past without having to actually go anywhere. 

The highest re-entries aren't particularly wild or wacky but are a somewhat poignant Black Sabbath (#52) and Ozzy Osbourne (#60 - a '14 release we are unlikely to visit) - I really hope Ozzy's tearing things up wherever he is now. Last week I said that Wet Leg would be at #21, so I'll take #26 as a victory (as an aside, I've no idea how Justin Bieber clung on at #6) - rappy stuff tends to hang on longer than I expect, so let's go for #7 for Tyler next week. And this week Taylor stats are none in the top fifty and four in the entire chart, but they're all at least as good as last week, so she's hanging in there.

Wikipedia tells us this is Tyler's ninth album and has all sorts of pre-release info, most of which is nonsense but there is an interesting point about the pre-release party because Tyler banned phones from it. Mainly, I assume, to prevent people recording the music but he said he really enjoyed it because people danced - which people generally don't do any more for fear of being recorded. Which seems kinda sad and shows that times have certainly changed since my day - as my daughters will tell you, we also no longer have to worry about dinosaurs. Critically, the album has been well received - according to HotNewHipHop, its the "shortest, sweetest, most blunt, and most smack-talking LP in his entire discography" (I knew that, of course). Commercially, it's done well but hasn't made #1 anywhere (yet) - getting to #4 in Australia, Germany and New Zealand and #2 in The Netherlands and Ireland, as well as here.

Interestingly, the cheapest you can get this on discogs.com is £69 for the limited edition clear vinyl version - and the most you can pay is £115, for EXACTLY THE SAME VERSION! You know what - I'm not sure this vinyl second-hand market isn't something of a racket. And, on a lot of tracks, this album is also a racket but I've heard far worse from the genre so I'm reasonably tolerant of Tyler - without, to any extent, actually enjoying his stuff. The albums of the week for me are the old (We Are Scientists) and the new (Panic Shack) - WAS is a better album, but PS is a helluva lot more fun. 

18/07/25 - Not as immediate as their debut
01/08/25 - Decent enough, I guess