I could bore you to death about how much summat went wrong

Continuing my trip forward in time through the album charts

15/05/26 : Is This How Happiness Feels? - Reverend & The Makers 

I like R&TM '07 debut album and was pleasantly surprised when my youngest added their debut single "Heavyweight Champion Of The World" to one of her playlists, which shows that it's travelled well. However, I would never, in a million years, have imagined that nineteen years later I'd be reviewing their latest album as one of the highest new entries of the week - I'm very happy to do so though!

Yeah, this is decent "wry state of the nation and/or relationships" stuff. It's not going to blow anyone away but they're decent tunes with decent lyrics from a slightly off-kilter viewpoint. There are also a couple of unexpected guest artists - Vicky McClure on "Haircut" (which is a surprisingly tender song about how not noticing a haircut can be a reflection on the state of a relationship) and Robbie Williams on "Fucked Up" (which isn't quite such a tender song about the Britpop scene). I'm quite surprised the album has done as well as it has, but they've certainly put the years in and a long-standing band with a loyal fanbase buying physical copies can pull something like this off - I'm pleased for them and I suspect the album title might have been very relevant to the Reverend on Friday afternoon when the chart was announced.

So how well has it actually done? Well, we're at #7 in the charts this week with a new entry which is certainly nothing to be sniffed at. The top five this week are a Michael Jackson best-of, a Westlife best-of (a new entry, but there was never any chance of me bending the rules for it), Noah Kahan, Olivia Dean and Michael Jackson's Thriller, with Bad being at #6 - that film is doing good business for the lad. We also have a lot of new entries to consider this week.

Westlife (#2)
Didn't listen to it, will never listen to it.

Katy Perry (#13)
This is another best-of. I'm quite fine without sampling it, but I wouldn't actively avoid it and I do like the title - The Ones That Got The Plays.

Basement (#16)
I'm not aware I've ever heard of this lot, but the album sounds like they've been around for years churning out 80s/90s US indie. Checking out their Wikipedia entry tells me that's not exactly the case because they're from Ipswich and were first active from '09-'12, then '14-'19, then '23-now - and this is their fifth album. But I really quite liked it.

Chris Brown (#17)
27 tracks lasting over 90 minutes and I guess it's fine if you like that sort of thing, but I can assure you I don't - there are some narsty lyrics on this...

The Covasettes (#34)
Another band I wasn't previously aware of and this is vaguely rocky indie - perfectly listenable and well-done, but it didn't exactly grab me on first listen.

Neil Diamond (#61)
The 35th album from the 85 year old but, fair play to the lad, they're all original songs that he's written. I wouldn't say it's entirely my thing but I imagine there haven't been too many albums from 85 years that are much better than this - the songs are simple but heartfelt and his voice is really remarkably decent.

Midge Ure (#63)
His tenth album and his first in twelve years - this 72 year old needs to take lessons from Neil to up his output! However, this is a double album with the first one being only instrumentals and the second one including lyrics (and sounding very Ultravoxy). And it's all very well put together and sounds like he put a lot of work into it - and I really quite liked it, with it reminding me of Peter Gabriel's later output.

MUNA (#64)
I really liked their last album and this is in a similar vein - quite Haim-ish, but with more synths. And it's another one I liked. 

Black Veil Brides (#72)
Another band I don't know, but I'll be amazed if they're not on the heavy side. Well, they're certainly on the rocky side of things, but what it more is is waaaayyyy over the top. The album starts with an organ instrumental which is then followed by a gothic spoken word piece - these guys take themselves SERIOUSLY. It's all well done, but I struggle to imagine the sort of person who would listen to this. 

Girli (#80)
And another one - and I'm not even going to try and guess from the name. But maybe I should have just gone with the obvious and expected a young female singer-songwriter - she's got quite a MUNA-like sound to her, so it's another one I like (I've been quite well served this week!).

All those new entries prevents there being too much room for re-entries - the only ones we've got are Sleep Token (#51) which I'm still completely mystified about as to who likes it and Conan Grey (#91) who's on tour, so that explains that. Last week I said that Kneecap would be at #85 and I must be about as wrong as I've ever been because they're at #29 - Reverend & The Makers feels a lot more straightforward to call as a one-and-done. And this week's Taylor stats are one in the top forty (just) and three in the entire chart (just).

Wikipedia doesn't have an entry for the album, but their entry tells us that it's their eighth album and they've all charted in the top twenty, so they've done a good job in keeping themselves relevant. It sounds like a lot of that is down to strong fan interaction, with various unusual activities including acoustic car-park gigs at venues, doing gigs in fans' homes and inviting them to sing backing vocals on singles. Google AI tells me that the critics have praised the album for its honesty and integrity but commercially the only thing they've ever had chart away from these shores is "Heavyweight Champion Of The World" which got to #85 in Australia. 

discogs.com tells us you can pick up the CD for £12, the normal vinyl for £20, the special edition clear red & brown butterfly effect (no, me neither) vinyl for £30 or the numbered limited edition clear red & black tri-colour effect (ditto) vinyl for £45 - what a choice! I really quite liked this and it's nice to see a band plugging away through hard work and original thought, so I'm going to give them album of the week - even though I think I probably preferred the offerings from Basement, MUNA, Midge Ure and Girli more and I'm also going to give Neil Diamond and Black Veil Brides namechecks for two albums from very different ends of the musical spectrum.

08/05/26 - An impressive mess