I'm outta love - set me free and let me out this misery

Continuing my trip back through the 2001 album charts.

13/05/01 : Not That Kind - Anastacia


I'm not aware I've ever listened to this, but I suspect it will be OK - and I might even like it!

Well, it's certainly OK and I liked bits of it. "I"m Outta Love" and the title track are very decent tracks and the ones from her that I know, even if I'd never remember who they're by when I heard them. And the rest of the album is in a similar vein, with her fine voice over a very competent backing track with a decent amount of variety between the tracks. I struggle to say it was entirely memorable on first listen but it certainly wasn't a horrible experience and I'd have no problems listening to it again, but maybe we'll save that for the summer when it would feel more of a natural fit. 

We're at #8 in the chart this week on her 24th week of a 59 week run, with it having peaked at #2 in its 11th-13th weeks. This was actually her second run, with the first peaking at #50 in its debut week and drifting slowly out of the chart - I assume that a single rescued it from oblivion and it went on to have five more runs, spending 93 weeks in total in the chart and last being seen in '03. The top five this week were Destiny's Child, Dido, Shaggy, and best-ofs from Eddy Grant and Paul McCartney (both new entries) - amusingly, Eddy's album spent seventeen weeks in the charts, compared to seven for Paul. And the next highest new entry was Asleep At The Back, Elbow's debut album (#14) which is a very decent album indeed (which I bought at the time)

Wikipedia tells us this is her debut album - she'd been in "the business" for years (I was surprised to see she's only a couple of months younger than me), including singing at Steven Spielberg's wedding and Arnold Schwarzenegger's birthday party. But she'd struggled to make it big until she appeared on an MTV talent show where her voice impressed Elton John and Michael Jackson - the single "I'm Outta Love" followed and after its success the album was inevitable. Critically, the reviews were kinda to her voice than to the tracks themselves but commercially, it did very well globally getting to #1 in New Zealand, Norway and Switzerland and making the top five in a load of countries, selling five million copies in Europe - but interestingly, it only got to #168 in the US.

discogs.com tells us this is another fifty pence album, but if you want the double vinyl 25th anniversary re-release then it's going to set you back £35. Which isn't exactly going to break the bank and I'm sure there's plenty of people with many happy memories of this - but I never went there at the time and there's not quite enough to drag me in now, but there are certainly a couple of very decent tracks on there.

20/05/01 - Go on, guess if I liked it

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