I hope you settlе down, I hope you marry rich - I hope you're scarеd of only ordinary shit

Continuing my trip forward in time through the album charts

01/05/26 : The Great Divide - Noah Kahan 

Our second visit with Noah and this is one I think I've heard most of over the last week thanks to my youngest who is, it's fair to say, quite the fan. My first impressions are that it's all a bit samey, but let's see what a proper listen brings. 

Hmmm - a bit samey feels a bit harsh, so I guess it's more than possible that my daughter was just playing the tracks she likes which all happen to be of a certain type. It is, however, generally more downbeat than Stick Season and not obviously graced with the instant hits of that album, but I do feel that multiple listens (like someone in the house has given it) could result in some tracks settling in there more than others. And it would, in my opinion, benefit from losing some tracks - the standard album is 17 tracks/77 minutes and the deluxe version (which is surprisingly already out) is 21 tracks/96 minutes. 

My other comment is a bit vaguer, but there's something going on with his voice on this album compared with Stick Season - it's just not as "clean" on this which makes the words all a bit less understandable, and part of the overall enjoyment of his break-out album for me was the speed and clarity of the delivery. Overall, I think the follow-up is an OK album hiding a good one, but it seems to be giving the fans what they want, so what do I know - I do like the album cover though!

We are, of course, at #1 with a new entry on the charts this week - nobody expected that now, did they? The rest of the top five are Foo Fighters (a new entry), Olivia Dean, a Michael Jackson best-of (another new entry) and errr, a Michael Jackson best-of (a re-entry) - more on this later, but first, what about them new entries?

Foo Fighters (#2)
I don't mind them Foos, but they don't exactly do much to scare the pigeons or attract new fans these days, do they? And yeah, this is pretty much as expected - possibly a little heavier than usual, but I’m no expert on such matters, so feel to tell me I'm wrong. I didn't mind it, but there's no danger of me revisiting it - I'm also not sure Dave would be happy with how much I laughed at some of the lyrics - "I saw your face - there in the window. You were a window cleaner!".

Michael Jackson (#4)
This is a selection of tracks from the recent film and believe me when I say there's nothing on here that will surprise you!

Paul Weller (#19)
This is a most peculiar collection from al phases of his career - there are 48 tracks so I can assure you I didn't listen to all of it. The only tracks that jumped out at me were covers of Billie Eilish's "What Was I Made For?" and The Kinks "Days" - both of which are fine enough (if his voice isn't always exactly tip-top), but they're not worth buying the whole album for.

Kehlani (#28)
We've met Kehlani quite a few times as a guest artist but never listened to an album of hers - until now! This is 90s style female lead R&B - think Janet Jackson or Aaliyah. I thought it was fine, but once again there's not danger of me ever revisiting it - it also all had ridiculously off-putting bass which could definitely have been dialled back a bit. 

Pink Floyd (#46)
This is a recording of a live concert from '75 (yes, FIFTY ONE years ago) which is basically "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" on disc 1 and Dark Side Of The Moon on disc 2. Which, despite my keenness to be rude about Floyd, I find hard to argue with - but even I would struggle to describe this as exactly required in '26.

Lausse The Cat (#76)
I've never heard of this guy and am intrigued from his name as to what I'm going to get. And well, this is a curious one - it has quite a few childish aspects including nursery song style backing tracks and a sing-song style of vocals, often delivered with a sense of wonder. But - the lyrics are very much (and I cannot stress this enough) not kid friendly. It's all well put together and I actually quite admired the effort, but I'm quite perplexed by the whole thing!

Ringo Starr (#85)
I met a Ringo album in passing last year and declared it "really not good" - so imagine my surprise when this turns out to be exactly the same. It does feature the surprising guest artists of St Vincent and Sheryl Crow though.

Michael obviously has the highest re-entry with one of his best-of (and another one at #14), but he also has Off The Wall re-entering at #80 and a couple of high risers this week for Thriller (#8, up from #65), Bad (#13, up from #52) - I'm quite surprised the film has done as well as it has, but we already know that I know nothing about anything. And the next highest re-entry is the Elvis film soundtrack (#52) - it's been a good week for musical films. Last week I said that Skindred would be one and done, and I'm sorry to say I was right (but I suspect they're not massively surprised) - Noah will be doing no such thing and I'm going to say he'll hang on to the top spot. And this week's Taylor stats are one in the top forty and a mere two in the entire chart - that girl needs to get another album out pronto!

Wikipedia has considerably less than you might expect for his album - he teased it on TikTok and then he released it. Aaron Dessner (from The National) was heavily involved (the man spends more time on other people's albums than his own these days) as is Justin Vernon (Bon Iver - ditto) and quite a few other people who I don't recognise. Critically, people were either very positive about it or surprisingly meh - but Wikipedia doesn't give any details, so I've no idea what anyone's complaints are. Commercially, of course, no-one's opinion was going to change anyone's mind and it's done pretty well everywhere, getting to #1 in most places - except, for no obvious reason, Scandinavia (only #14 in Finland).

discogs.com tells us you can pick up the basic CD for £14, but the special vinyl options are the interesting ones here - you have the choice of beer bottle translucent, morning fog translucent or american rust for £35-£40, headlights in the dark for £70, podunk translucent for £80 or the pond water special edition which is filled with a green liquid for £113 - which is quite the range! Despite my daughter's best efforts, I remain to be convinced by this album - there's certainly skill involved but for me it needs editing and/or altering to reach its full potential. However, I think he's done enough to take the album of the week, but the Pink Floyd album is decent (if inessential) and the Lausse The Cat is certainly intriguing (if somewhat mystifying).

24/04/26 - Certainly something