Would you cry if I called you my angel?

Continuing my trip forward in time through the album charts

28/11/25 : One More Time - Aerosmith/Yungblud

I wasn't aware Aerosmith were still going (they've got to be pretty old now, surely?) but Yungblud doesn't seem like the worst fit with the boys - even if it's not exactly something I feel I've been waiting for.

Well, the good news is that if I didn't like it (go on, guess...) then there's only five tracks and nineteen minutes of it to endure. Wtf's going on here - call that an album?!? (it transpires they don't - apparently it's an EP). And actually, I wouldn't say I don't like it but, from my general position of not giving a single fuck about Aerosmith, I really can't begin to state how fewer fucks I give about this. And whilst it has Yungblud's name on it, I'd be hard pushed to say where he fitted in to the mix - the whole thing seems utterly, utterly pointless.

And so, obviously, we're at #1 with a new entry in the chart this week - what were people thinking? The rest of the top five are Olivia Dean (her third consecutive week at #2), Taylor Swift, Tate McRae (up from #24 - my youngest tells me her deluxe is out) and Olly Murs (a new entry) - what other new entries have we got for you this week?

Olly Murs (#5)
I've quite enjoyed a few Olly albums in the past but he's gone very ska on this - it's not dreadful, but I'd struggle to say it's really any good or what, I suspect, most of his fans are looking for. 

James (#6)
Here come the Xmas best-ofs - a quick scoot through the titles suggest I know 9/58 tracks but I expect it's a bearable listen.

Madness (#8) 
And another one - I knew 17/23 on the first CD (which is very much of my era and has some banging tunes) but 0/22 on the second one (not so much of my era!).

The Beatles (#9)
This is Anthology 4 which is the fourth in a collection of utterly pointless out-takes and different versions - the "highlight" of this has to be AI "improved" versions of "Free As A Bird" and "Real Love". Because everyone was crying out for them right? I still recognised 18/45 tracks, but given it's The Beatles that gives you an idea what we're looking at here.

Sub Focus (#10)
I recognise the name, but couldn't give you any more than that. And it's dancey stuff, but I'd struggle to describe it - understated drum'n'bass maybe? I didn't hate it, but I didn't love it either.

Beatles (#29)
This is the Anthology collection with all four pointless albums in one big pointless box set with 8 CDs in it - and it's expensive too being £95 on CD and £310 on vinyl. And no, I didn't check how many of the 191 (ONE HUNDRED AND NINETY ONE!!!) tracks I knew.

Simply Red (#45)
This is a best-of with all the tracks being re-recorded which I quite like as an idea both in terms of getting people to listen to it and also showing it's not just charting because people listen to their tracks anyway. I did, however (of course), not actually listen to it - I only recognised 7/40 tracks involved.

Sadly, the highest re-entries this week are not all that surprising being The Stone Roses (#25) and their best-of (#37) - I've read quite a few articles about Mani from various people in the business and he sounds like he was a thoroughly decent bloke. And the next two aren't all that surprising either given that Radiohead have played The O2 this week, being In Rainbows (#64) and The Bends (#76).

Last week I said that 5 Seconds Of Summer would be at #67, so imagine my complete surprise when I saw them at #66 - it's weird how you can be both pleased and disappointed at the same time about something. I hope no-one's going to listen to Aerosmith more than once, so I reckon they're outta here (and I'm gonna be amazed if I'm wrong). And this week's Taylor stats are one in the top forty and a mere three in the entire chart - she's officially lost it! Any more of this behaviour and I'll have to stop reporting on her. In happier news, Bublé is up to #24 but he's still got the only Xmas album in the charts - it will be interesting to see if any others appear over the next month.

Wikipedia only gives the "album" one sentence in Aerosmith's entry (and that's more than it deserves). In fact the only new entries this week that get an entry are the offerings from The Beatles, so I think it's safe to say it's not a classic week for new music - I blame Christmas! 

Even allowing for the time of year, I really don't understand how this counts as an album, unless they just looked at the price which is £13 for the CD or £24 for the vinyl - shocker! If we're going to ignore best-ofs, then the album of the week has to be Sub Focus but it's more of a win by default because I just couldn't get with Olly's offering. If we consider best-ofs as well, then the first CD from Madness is an easy winner because it's required listening for everyone, but I'm going to give Simply Red some bonus points for doing something different.

21/11/25 - Bearable

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