Maybe I'm foolish, maybe I'm blind

Continuing my trip back through the 2017 album charts.

04/08/17 : Human - Rag'n'Bone Man


We've mentioned this album as being in the top five seven times already this year - he's always been unlucky, but there was never any danger of him not getting his moment in the spotlight (as we'll get on to later). I obviously know the title track and suspect I'll recognise one or two other tracks, but have never heard the album - I'm expecting to like it without massively loving it.

And yeah, that's where we are - it opens with the title track and I also recognised "Skin", but the rest of the album doesn't stray too far from that formula. I was reminded of my response to Seal albums - they're all decent songs which are sung well so I don't have anything bad to say about them, but I also struggle to fully engage with them. I do like the cover art though!

We're at #3 in the chart this week on his 25th week of a very decent 90 week run - it debuted at #1 for its first two weeks and didn't leave the top five for its first 23 weeks, so it did very well for itself. The rest of the top five were Arcade Fire, Ed Sheeran, Lana del Rey and Passenger (a new entry), with one more new entry in the top ten for Alice Cooper (#6). 

Wikipedia has remarkably little for such a successful album, telling us it's his debut album - and that's about it. Looking at his entry to pad things out, we learn that he started out as a rapper and got his name from watching repeats of Steptoe & Son (hmmmm). Critically, the album was received well enough but it's done very well commercially globally, getting to #1 in Belgium, Czechia, The Netherlands, France and Ireland - but didn't crack the US, only getting to #117.

discogs.com tells us you can pick up a decent version of this for a mere quid but if you want the limited edition double vinyl option then it's going to set you back £100. Which feels a bit toppy for me, but I can quite see that a load of people will love this - however, although the title track is very decent, it's still not quite for me.

11/08/17 - Yeah, I liked this

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