I just want to tell you all the things you are

Continuing my trip back through the 2001 album charts.

25/03/01 : Renaissance - Lionel Richie


Our third visit with Lionel and I'm expecting this to be bearable, whilst at the same time in no way improving the quality of my life.

Hmmm - well, it's certainly bearable and I actually found it a surprisingly interesting listen. Not because I liked the music (although I didn't hate it) but because I couldn't for the life of me think who was supposed to like it. It felt like Ricky Martin kinda music, but slowed down for grandad so he doesn't put his hip out whilst trying to grind away to it. I can't fault the production because it's all very clear sounding and the musicianship is also pretty good - I just don't see why anyone would actively search this out. 

We're at #6 in the charts this week on his fourth week of a decent 22 week run, with this being as high as it got - however, somewhat peculiarly, this was his third run. It first popped in for five weeks in October '00, then came back for three weeks around Xmas before properly settling in in March '01 - it also had three further smaller runs before properly disappearing in October '02. The top five this week were Eva Cassidy, Manic Street Preachers (a new entry), Dido, a Billy Joel best-of (another new entry) and David Gray with the next highest new entry being a Chris de Burgh best-of (#19). 

Wikipedia tells us this is his sixth album and apart from telling us he picked a new production team, it's all about the critical response - which is mixed, but not markedly so. Those who liked it, didn't love it and those who were more down on it, didn't hate it - a collective shrug from all. Commercially, it didn't exactly set the world on fire, but it did well enough in some places - somewhat unexpectedly. #3 in Germany was the best it did anywhere. 

discogs.com surprises me by telling me that this is a £1.50 album, but there are very few of them about and the most you can spend on it is £12 - so it's not exactly something that's massively in demand. Which doesn't overly surprise me because whilst there's nothing particularly wrong with it, I just don't see the point to it all.

01/04/01 - Needs better tunes

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