I'm here again with a sunshine smile upon my face

Continuing my trip back through the 1994 album charts.

23/10/94 : The Return Of The Space Cowboy - Jamiroquai


This is our third visit with the cheeky funksters and I'm expecting to enjoy it for a bit but then decide that a whole album of it is just a bit too much funk for me.

Actually, I think that, in some ways, they get away with it because there's more variety than I was expecting - we've got slow funk, medium funk and fast funk (and yes, the didgeridoo is back). But. I didn't actually enjoy it all that much - it was fine, but kinda just drifted past me. "Space Cowboy" was the only one I knew but I really didn't need 6:25 of it - track lengths are definitely an issue here. Only two tracks (out of eleven) come in at less than five minutes and the opening track "Just Another Story" goes on for 8:49 - just because they're having a good time (and it's not always clear they are) doesn't mean we are. I don't think this is a bad album, but I'm also not convinced it's a good one.

We're at #2 with a new entry in the charts this week on the start of a decent nineteen week run, with this being as high as it got. It stuck around for a lot longer than most though, managing five more runs over the next two years, giving it 42 weeks in the chart in all. The rest of the top five were Bon Jovi, R.E.M., East 17 (another new entry and they've been unlucky not to get a post in several weeks) and Gloria Estefan (another new entry) with the next highest new entry being Stiltskin (#17). who I remember not liking at all.

Wikipedia tells us this is their second album and was a tricky recording session - partly because of the "difficult second album" thang and partly because Jay Kay was off his face for most of it and would regularly change his mind as to whether he liked things. Critically, the responses were generally pretty positive with quite a few noting the resemblance to Stevie Wonder, which I guess I can see, but it didn't really jump out at me. Commercially, it did best here but also did OK in Europe, getting to #9 in Switzerland and #4 in France.

discogs.com tells us you can pick up a decent version for a quid, but, for no obvious reason, there's a CD version on sale for £532 - the double LP version going for £100 seems a more reasonable way to waste your money. Overall, this was just a bit too noodly for me - they need to tighten things up if they want to hold my attention.

16/10/94 - A fine album indeed
30/10/94 - Considerably more bearable than expected

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