You'll remember me when the west wind moves

Continuing my trip back through the 2001 album charts.

15/04/01 : Songbird - Eva Cassidy

Yes, there's an argument this shouldn't be here because it's a compilation album but I think it counts as significant enough for us to include it and she's had three compilation albums that got to #1, so I feel we should include the original (and probably best).

She opens things with "Fields Of Gold" which I think is a particularly fine cover version because, for me, it just adds something to the original - complimenting Sting on his songwriting ability, whilst also subtly drawing comment on his performing ability. Which is interesting when you compare it with her cover of "Songbird" which is possibly what she's best known for - don't get me wrong, this is still a very decent version but it doesn't really add anything to the original. The other tracks are all very much in the same vein and most of them are cover versions, but I'm not aware of the originals - the only ones I knew were "Over The Rainbow" (which she makes different enough) and "People Get Ready" - which I knew from the versions by Bob Dylan, Bob Marley and The Housemartins, but I didn't know it was a Curtis Mayfield composition, originally performed by The Impressions in '65. As a whole, the album is a perfectly pleasant listen with decent enough tracks elevated by her voice, but there's not loads to draw me back in.

We're at #3 in the charts this week on thirteenth week of an impressive 75 week run, with it peaking at #1 in its ninth and tenth weeks. Interestingly, this was its fourth run out of thirteen in total over the years with the first three being one or two week runs in '98, '99 and '00 with it never getting higher than #75 - and then, BOOM! It was last seen in '08 - I assume they've been too busy distracting people with other posthumous albums since then. The rest of the top five were Stereophonics (a new entry), Hear'Say, Dido and a Billy Joel best-of and we have two more new entries in the top ten for Ocean Colour Scene (#7) and Donny Osmond (#10 - of course!).

Wikipedia doesn't have loads on the album - it was her first posthumous compilation album, released in '98, two years after her death from cancer at the age of 33. It didn't really do anything until Mike Harding and Terry Wogan played her stuff on Radio 2 and things took off from there, with it becoming the eighth best selling album of the year. Critically, it was well received and commercially it got to #2 in Sweden and Switzerland and #1 in Ireland - in the US it got to #1 in their "catalog album" chart which is for albums more than eighteen months old, which feels like an idea that the UK chart should investigate to avoid some of the nonsense we see.

I'm not surprised to see that discogs.com tells us this is yet another fifty pence album but if you want the 180 gm vinyl, remastered, reissued '03 version then it's going to set you back £103.37 - one of those numbers is better value than the other. This is a perfectly decent dinner party album, but some of the tracks are considerably higher in quality than the average - she certainly had a lovely voice though.

22/05/01 - For the most part, merely rubbish