I know that it's over but I can't believe we're through

Continuing my trip back through the 2001 album charts.

10/06/01 : Rise - Gabrielle


This is an odd one because I've never heard it - but yet I never had any reason to avoid Gabby and it feels like the sort of thing the lovely Mrs Reed would very much enjoy. But somehow I've just never crossed paths with it - I'm expecting I'm not going to enjoy it though.

Yeah, this is indeed perfectly pleasant - an ideal dinner party album, I'd suggest. I can see that some people might not like her voice because it does get a bit nasal at times, but I didn't mind it and all the songs are well put together. I can't claim it was incredibly memorable on first listen, but I did remember (and enjoyed) the title track (and there was a very pleasant acoustic version on the album I listened to) - I suspect it would all settle in there given multiple listens.

We're at #7 in the charts this week on her twelfth week of a 34 week run - but that's only half the story! She first had a run of three weeks in October/November '99 which looked like that would be it, but then the title track happened which resulted in a 59 week run from January '00, including three weeks at #1 in her sixth to eighth weeks - it then took March '01 off before coming back for its final run (and I've no idea what caused that). The top five this week were Radiohead (a new entry), Shaggy, an Eddy Grant best-of (who was and remains a complete dude - we've yet to meet him and there's a strong chance we never will because he's only ever had seven charting albums and five of them are best-ofs), Dido and an Eagles best-of with the next highest new entry being a Tom Petty best-of (#14 - there are six compilation albums in the top 20).

Wikipedia has three whole sentences on the album - it's her third, it did well and the title track also got to #1. The title track has a slightly longer entry because it's notable for a rare authorised use of a Bob Dylan track, borrowing heavily from "Knocking On Heaven's Door" - normally he frowns upon such nonsense, but he liked Gabrielle's take on things. Critically, there's not much information but AllMusic and PopMatters were nice enough about it and commercially, it did better in Europe than I expected, getting to #7 in Norway and #6 in Ireland.

discogs.com tells us this is a fifty pence album but an original vinyl copy is going to set you back £60, which quite surprised me. But I can believe there's a load of love out there for this album - and I've still got absolutely no idea how or why I avoided it for so long.

17/06/01 - Surprisingly bearable

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