I steal the moon on silver nights

Continuing my trip back through the 2017 album charts.

07/04/17 : Automaton - Jamiroquai


Our SIXTH visit with Jamiroquai (making them the 32nd artist to reach this milestone) and I'm amazed to see they were still going in '17 - and even more amazed to see they're still at it, touring Europe and Japan later this year. I expect this is going to be yet another album which is way more Jamiroquai than I've ever needed in my life. 

Yup - and yet, whilst that's true, I'd much rather take this album than some of the didgeridoo infested waters we've previously experienced. They've just dialled it all back a bit here and it's much the better for it - it's lacking a killer track or two, but it's all very listenable. Also, amusingly, both daughters entered the room when it was playing and started to get down to the funky beats - which is reasonably impressive for a band who were 25 years old at this point in time.

We're at #4 in the charts with a new entry this week on the start of an eight week run - this was their last album to chart (so far, at least). The rest of the top five were Ed Sheeran, Rag'n'Bone Man, Drake and Take That (coming soon!) and we have two more new entries in the top ten for Goldfrapp (#6) and Kidz Bop Kids (#7) - one of which I think I'd prefer over the other.

Wikipedia tells us this is their eighth album and their first in seven years - the inspiration is apparently "the rise of artificial intelligence and technology in our world today and how we as humans are beginning to forget the more pleasant, simple and eloquent things in life" (obviously, I missed this). Critically, the reviews were either middling or pretty positive - you'll be pleased to hear that The Yorkshire Times gave it four stars! Commercially, this did waaaay better than you might expect, making the top twenty in many European countries including #5 in Germany, #4 in The Netherlands and Spain, #3 in France, #2 in Switzerland and #1 in Italy - good effort, lads! Only #94 in the US, but that stills seems quite a reasonable result.

discogs.com tells us you're going to have spend £7.50 to get a decent CD version but if you want a double vinyl copy then it's going to set you back SEVENTY FIVE POUNDS! I wouldn't go that far, but I think this is a pretty decent Jamiroquai album - various J-fan sites tell me I'm wrong, but what do they know?

14/04/17 - Impressively forgettable

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