Baby you're the one, you still turn me on

Continuing my trip back through the 2001 album charts.

12/08/01 : Right Now - Atomic Kitten

Well, I can't say I'm massively looking forward to this, but there were some decent singles, weren't they? (although I fear I may live to seriously question my life choices after that statement)

Ah yes, I remembered "Whole Again" which wasn't dreadful, but it also wasn't as good as I remembered. And, obviously, "Eternal Flame" isn't nearly as good as The Bangles version (which also isn't nearly as good as a lot of other stuff they did). The rest of it is very average, with the singing not as strong as I remembered - they so wanted to be what Girls Aloud ended up being, but they were nowhere near. All in all, it's not completely dreadful but it was a long 47 minutes.

We're at a somewhat surprising #1 with a re-entry in the chart this week - I've only found one previous example of a re-entry at the top that we've met so far, but we'll learn later that things are even more unusual here. This was its third run in the charts and by far the most successful, lasting 28 weeks but it managed seven runs in all with a total of 55 weeks in the chart between '00 and '03. The rest of the top five were David Gray, a Prince best-of, Destiny's Child and Wycelf Jean with the highest new entries being Catatonia (#6) and O-Town (#7). 

Wikipedia explains that this, confusingly, both is and isn't their debut album. It was originally recorded in '00 with the group's line-up being Kerry Katona, Liz McClarnon, and Natasha Hamilton - this spawned several top ten singles, but never charted any higher than #39. They were on the verge of being dropped by the label, but were given one last chance with "Whole Again", which saved them because it got to #1 for four weeks. However, just before this happened, Kerry quit the band (either because she was pregnant or because the others couldn't stand her - you can pick which one to believe) and was replaced by Jenny Frost, so they re-recorded the album vocals and re-released the album - which then shot straight in at #1!

Wikipedia also reminds me that OMD were the brains behind the beauty here, writing all the songs - which feels like an odd thing to do, but I imagine it made them shedloads of cash, so maybe isn't all that odd. Critically, the initial release of the album was generally well received, but people had had enough of them by the time the re-release came around with NME stating "Is the rest of the album any frikkin’good? And the answer is (of course): No, don’t be daft. It’s shite" and RTE going even further with "this album may be the first sign of the decline of Western civilisation as we know it – or just the worst record of the new millennium". But commercially, it did well in Europe, getting to #6 in Germany, #4 in Denmark and Switzerland and #1 in Iceland.

Somewhat surprisingly, this is one of the more expensive albums of the year, with the cheapest version available setting you back three whole pounds - although you're not able to spend any more than a tenner on any version of it. But I will not be spending any amount of money on it - it's a very average offering which I suspect some remember fondly, but never actually listen to it these days (which is best for all concerned).

05/08/01 - Not as good as I expected
19/08/01 - A very pleasant revisit