DJ got the party started, there's no end in sight

Continuing my trip back through the 2001 album charts.

16/12/01 : Sunshine - S Club 7


This is going to be cheesy, but it's cheese I remember with fondness - it will be interesting to see how kind time has been to it. 

Hmmm - the fondly remembered cheese such as "Never Had A Dream Come True" and particularly "Don't Stop Movin" actually stand up pretty well. The rest of it definitely suffered from a lack of familiarity, but was pleasant enough on a track by track basis - yes, it's definitely cheesy but it walks the tightrope being taking itself seriously enough that they do a good job with it and not taking it so seriously that they believe they're creating works of genius. However, a whole album of it did get too much and when that whole album is 52 minutes long, I'm afraid it got far too much - amusingly my youngest listened to some of it and her "wtf is this?" reaction was most amusing.

We're at #3 in the charts this week on their third week of a 25 week run, with this is being as high as it got in its first, second, third and fifth weeks. The rest of the top five were Robbie, the Gabrielle best-of, Blue and Westlife (not the most exciting top five ever for me!) and the highest new entry was Joe (#96) - apparently he's a US R&B singer who's had four top ten albums over there and he's still plodding away.

Wikipedia tells us this is their third album (and last under the S Club 7 name, with Paul Cattermole leaving the band after this came out) and includes a surprising amount of text which includes some very random facts - the favourite thing I learned was that The Beautiful South have covered "Don't Stop Movin' and it's quite nicely done. The other item of interest is that the album was never released in the US, despite their previous album doing relatively well and they were recording their TV series, Hollywood 7, over there. Critically, there's absolutely no word on the reception - I suspect they just didn't bother because they knew it would do well no matter what they said. And it did well enough commercially, doing best here and in Ireland, where it got to #11.

discogs.com tells us it's a hat trick of albums which you can pick up for fifty pence, but if you feel the need to splash out, then the limited edition, numbered, HMV 100th anniversary, translucent yellow with red splatter vinyl reissue, complete with misprint, is going to set you back £140!! I imagine this album brings back some pleasant memories for plenty, but I struggle to imagine even the most ardent fans could declare this to be essential listening. 

09/12/01 - Not good
23/12/01 - Could have been a lot worse

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

And all at once I owned the earth and sky

Image
A new year to start the New Year - starting my trip back through the 2001 album charts. 30/12/01 : Swing When You're Winning -   Robbie Williams There's a reasonable argument I should reject this album, but it was such a surprising cultural moment that even I don't feel I can, so it means we're starting the year with one that "we" own. This is our fifth visit with Mr Williams - I'm determined not to enjoy it, but I also have to admit I'm not going to hate it nearly as much as I would like to.  You know what? This is perfectly fine. Completely inessential, but he's not doing anyone any harm. For the most part, it's classic Sinatra-or-thereabouts tracks which Robbie does a decent job with on the vocals (along with some slightly peculiar guests) and they've obviously got some decent musicians in to lay down the backing tracks. He rarely does anything wildly original with them but, most importantly, he doesn't ruin them either - I don't...
Read more

I wanna keep the door from closing, yeah

Image
Continuing my trip forward in time through the album charts 26/12/25 : I Barely Know Her - Sombr Christmas week gives us some odd albums - last year we had Lana del Rey's album from '12, which hasn't left the chart all year. I'm pleased to say we're somewhat more up to date this year with an album that came out in August - I met it as a new entry  and was somewhat nonplussed by it, but I have mentioned it a couple of times since because it's just not gone away, which is somewhat unusual. So let's see what I make of it on a second listen (this trick totally failed to convince me of the virtues of Addison Rae earlier today). Well, well, well - Sombr at least intrigues on second listen. I'd struggle to describe it - it's kinda poppy indie with a woozy vibe to it, but it feels like it has depths to it and I reckon the more you listen to it, the more you pick up on. Intriguing indeed - I'd love to tell you more but that's all I got for the time ...
Read more

Ciara, be nice, and you wear too much foundation

Image
Continuing my trip up The Guardian's  50 best albums of 2025 . #2 :  EURO-COUNTRY - CMAT Despite its fraught creation, CMAT’s third album sounds like the supremely assured work of a songwriter whose powers have reached a new peak. It is, by turns, poignant, moving, furiously angry, uproariously funny and packed with incredible tunes. It strides confidently away from the country-infused style she minted on her 2022 debut If My Wife New I’d Be Dead – into territory that variously touches on jazz (Janis Joplining), raging alt-rock (The Jamie Oliver Petrol Station), soul-kissed pop (Running/Planning; Take a Sexy Picture of Me) – without in any way losing the essence of what made her successful in the first place. The 24th album I've previously heard and when I met this as a new entry (in the same week I met Sabrina Carpenter and Blood Orange  which also made this list), I described it as "interestingly cryptic" so it will be intriguing to see what I make of it on a seco...
Read more