Take no prisoners for me, I'm told you're elevating

Continuing my trip forward in time through the album charts

13/03/26 : Kiss All The Time. Disco, Occasionally - Harry Styles 

Our third solo visit with Harry and I suspect I've been forced to listen to all the tracks already, but let's give the album a proper listen in the order that Harry intended to see if my opinion can rise about the heady heights of "perfectly fine". 

Nope, it's very much sticking at "perfectly fine". There's nothing particularly wrong with any of the tracks (although some of them do use some strange sounds) but a lot of that is because there doesn't appear to be very much to them. I heard an interesting argument on The Rest Is Entertainment podcast that this is because Harry can't put any content in his songs because the fans over-analyse everything and come up with outlandish theories - which may well be true, but I don't see why I have to suffer as a result. Although, to be fair, suffer is an overly harsh word to use here - but there was also very little danger of me actively enjoying them because they just washed over me. However, I know at least one person in this house that would disagree with me because she's listened to very little else all week (and for a change I'm not talking about Elaine, who also doesn't mind a bit of Harry).

And it's people like her that mean that, of course, we're at #1 with a new entry on the chart this week with the rest of the top five being Olivia Dean (of course), Morrissey (another new entry), the Fleetwood Mac best-of and Bruno Mars (I'm impressed that he's hung around so well). Soooo, what are we going to say about THAT new entry? (and a few other ones as well).

Morrissey (#3)
I quite like the "can you separate the art from the artist?" question, even if I generally just end up at "it depends" as an answer. But a definite part of "it depends" for me is whether we're talking about old or new music - I've got less time for new music from proven idiots, but I sampled it anyway so you don't have to. Actually, it's not dreadful and I quite liked some of the tunes, but it's fair to say the lyrics (which is the only bit that Morrissey contributes) aren't up to past high standards - some of them are really not very good.

Squeeze (#15)
It's a good week for the oldies, isn't it? I've a lot of time for the Squeeze of old but can't say I've heard any of their later stuff (although their last stuff was from '17, so there's not been loads to experience recently). And I think it's fair to say this also isn't up to past high standards - it sounds like a load of (admittedly talented) blokes noodling about in a shed (quite possibly because that's exactly what it is).

Katherine Priddy (#22)
I've never heard of her - I guessed a female singer-songwriter from the name, but I would have gone for indie rather than the folk that it most definitely is. Which means it stood a good chance of being up my street - and I really liked it. It's got decent tunes and some proper ace lyrics ("Matches", the opening track, is particularly good) - I was reminded of Kathryn Williams, but Joni Mitchell is probably a better known touchpoint for most. 

Audrey Hobert (#81)
Another name I've never heard of - and again I'd have gone for the generic indie singer-songwriter tag, but we're poppier here. It's very Taylor Swiftesque - and probably more Taylorish than Taylor is these days, now she's settled down and not bitching about men any more. Interestingly, this album was released in August '25 - I'm sure there's a good reason why it's charting now, but I can assure you I don't know what it is.

The highest re-entry is Dave (#34) and there are a few more in the 80's and 90's but nothing of particular interest. The most exciting thing I've got for you is that Nirvana's Nevermind is back at #100, which is the twelfth week that album has occupied that position - which given it's spent 450 weeks in total on the chart feels like a statistical outlier, so I thought I'd investigate! And you'll be fascinated to know it's not really an outlier but instead is just a reflection that it's spent two thirds of its time in the bottom half of the chart - the peak is #5, the median is #70 and the mode is #89 (with 14 weeks, #100 is second). Fascinating, eh?!? (I have a sneaking suspicion this won't be the last album I do that research for!)

Last week I said that Gorillaz would be at #16 and I'm surprised to see it's exceeded my expectations at #10 (because I still don't understand who's actually listening to it) - but I'm going to put my neck on the line and say that Harry will hold on to the #1 spot. And this week's Taylor stats are one in the top thirty and four in the entire chart - she's just about hanging in there!

Wikipedia has remarkably little of interest - it's his fourth album and there were plenty of rumours about him working on it (because there are rumours on everything Harry does) and then he released it. Well done, him! Harry has said it was inspired by LCD Soundsystem, which I can hear - but obviously he's toned it down for the masses. Critically, it was received well enough, although there's a definite hint of "well, it's not what I would have done" about the comments. But never mind because it's got to #1 in all the countries they list except for Japan - and we all know they're odd when it comes to Western albums.

discogs.com tells us you can spend £17 on the CD or £27 on the vinyl but if you want the opaque pink, tomato red or smoke machine (huh?) coloured vinyl then you're going to have to shell out £70 - I'm sure they all look lovely but I think I'm fine. I'm sure I'll get to hear plenty of these tracks several more times (particularly since the lovely Mrs Reed is back from her travels) but I struggle to see them getting any more memorable - so Katherine Priddy easily takes the album of the week for me and I will be making an effort to investigate more of her stuff.

06/03/26 - I struggle to see the appeal