You must think that I'm stupid

Starting my trip back through the 2017 album charts.

29/12/17 : The Thrill Of It All - Sam Smith


This is our fourth visit with Sam and although I know they've done some decent stuff in their time, the only things I can remember are "La La La" with Naughty Boy and "Unholy" because of their silly costume. I'm expecting this to be OK though...

Ah, I did remember the opening track "Too Good At Goodbyes", which is decent enough, if a little overwrought (I reckon Adele could do a cracking version of this - she does understated overwrought well). To be honest, "a little overwrought" applies to most of the rest of the album (I suspect a break-up might have been involved) but somehow they get away with it - the boundary to "wildly over the top" is never breached (imho - other opinions are undoubtedly available). I didn't love any of it, but I can see if you just fancy a good old mope then this would hit the spot nicely - and there's no denying that Sam has a lovely old voice,

We're at #2 in the chart this week on their third week of an impressive 51 week run with it peaking at #1 in its first and fifth weeks and spending the first ten weeks in the top three - you forget how big they were for a bit. The rest of the top five were Ed Sheeran (his 19th week at the top out of 43 weeks on the chart, so I suspect we might be mentioning him quite a lot this year), Eminem, Rag'n'Bone Man and P!nk, with the highest new entry being Quavo & Travis Scott (#34).

Wikipedia tells us this is their second album but there's remarkably little else there other than reminding me that "Too Good At Goodbyes" got to #1. The critical reviews were generally positive and I was pleased to note that several people mention Adele, moping and the quality of their voice - it's almost as if I know what I'm talking about at times. Commercially, it did very well globally, getting to #1 in Belgium, Canada, Denmark, The Netherlands, Ireland, New Zealand, Norway and the US - it seems like the world felt pretty sorry for itself back then, but who wouldn't go back there in an instant right now?

discogs.com tells us you're going to have spend a whole pound to get a copy but if you want the double vinyl special edition then it's going to set you back £41.98. This is certainly an accomplished album which I was glad to catch up with, but I found a little hard to love on first listen.

2001 - A "nice" year

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