But if you sing along a little fucking louder to a happy song, you'll be just fine

Continuing my trip forward in time through the album charts

19/12/25 : That's The Spirit - Bring Me The Horizon

This run of three weeks from Xmas to early January generally result in some weird album selections - but I don't think I would have ever imagined that this week we have a '15 album from BMTH (and yet it's still nothing compared to the weirdness of the album at #1 this week). 

Until I saw them live, I was never a fan of BMTH - but somehow I found myself enjoying their set at Reading and ended up in the moshpit when they brought Ed Sheeran on. How did that happen? So I was considerably better disposed to this than I might otherwise have been - but even so I really enjoyed it. Yes, the vocals are a bit shouty at times but the songs are very well put together and the lyrics are perfectly understandable - listening to this made me think I fancy seeing them again because the songs all sound like they'd translate well live. 

We're all the way down at #20 in the chart this week with a re-entry - this first charted in September '15, debuting at #2 on a 51 week run and then popping back in November '16 for a two week run. The top five this week are Pink Floyd (a re-entry - huh?), Olivia Dean, Taylor Swift, Bublé, and Sabrina Carpenter - and before we consider the new entries, we have to discuss Pink Floyd. Obviously it's an anniversary release but I suspect some people would be surprised to be told it's the 50th anniversary - I remember people listening to it at school but that would have been in the mid 80s. I checked out its Wikipedia entry and was somewhat surprised to see it's charted somewhere in the world in 27 of the 50 years since it's been released. 

OK, well that was weird - so what weird new entries have we got this week?

Oasis (#23)
Sigh. Obviously what the world needs to finish the year off is another Oasis best-of. Who thought this was a good idea? Next...

21 Savage (#55)
Mr Savage is someone we've seen quite a lot of as a guest artist but this is the first time we've had a solo effort from the guy. Well - it's not great, but it could have been worse. And I think that's all I really have to say.

And that's your lot, but this is much more of a week for re-entries. Apart from the two we've already discussed we have Frankie Goes To Hollywood's Welcome To The Pleasuredome (#44 - I assume it's a 40th anniversary release, despite it being released 41 years ago) and THREE Taylor Swift albums (#81, #84 & #87). Obviously the fans had heard my claims that she was on the way out because this week she has one in the top forty and six in the entire chart. 

Last week I said that Kylie would (hopefully) be one and done but I thought #40 was more realistic - unfortunately it's at #29 but I totally blame Alexa ("X-M-A-S!!!" - I can't believe it's the X-M-A-S #1). Bring Me The Horizon is absolutely a one and done though - we won't be seeing this again until the next anniversary re-release.

Back to the actual album of interest, we've already done '15, so we obviously came very close to meeting it but it lost out to Stereophonics. The Wikipedia entry tells us it's their fifth album and "marks a departure from the group's metalcore roots" - there's a load more text there but very little content. Critically, it was very well received and commercially it did much better than you'd expect, getting to #1 in Australia and Canada and #2 in the US. #2 - seriously!?!

discogs.com tells us you're going to have to pay a fiver to get a decent version which is very average, but we've got some doozies here for the most expensive versions. In the UK, you can pay £60 for the deluxe special black with purple & orange swirl 10th anniversary gatefold reissue limited edition - but that's nothing compared to the blue vinyl numbered limited edition repress which is only available from The Netherlands for a mere 1,200 Euros, making this the most expensive album of the year. Who expected that?!?

I was extremely surprised to meet this in Xmas week but actually very happy to do so - it was a "vintage" album that I missed out on both at the time and when I visited '15 (and given this is Xmas week, it really could have been any old random rubbish). It also, in the face of very limited opposition, easily wins the album of the week award. 

12/12/25 - Very not good