Smoky bars and cheap guitars but nothing built to last

Continuing my trip forward in time through the album charts

05/06/26 : The Boys Of Dungeon Lane - Paul McCartney 

Our third visit with Paul on his own, but who knows how many times we've met him with Linda, Wings or The Beatles? I think we're up to fourteen altogether, but who really cares - so far, if he's not with his Beatle-y mates then it's very much best avoided. However, I have heard that this is bearable so I'm going in with more hope than I would normally...

Well, that'll teach me, eh?!? They say it's the hope that kills you, but the bloody awful music doesn't help either. I can see that his fans will love some of the reminiscing going on but it's not for me, I'm afraid.

We're at #1 in the charts with a new entry this week, with the rest of the top five being the Michael Jackson best-of, Boards Of Canada (a new entry), Drake (who is listening to this?) and Olivia Dean. So what's going on with the new entries this week?

Boards Of Canada (#3)
I have to be in the mood for BoC and I can't say I was completely in the right space for it when I caught up with this, but it feels like it's in the same area as previous albums so if you're a fan then I struggle to imagine you won't like this too.

Shinedown (#8)
I've never heard of this lot but I'd never have guessed they were an America rawk band. I was also quite surprised to like it - I reckon it'd be a load of fun live (provided they don't take themselves too seriously).

Dua Lipa (#21)
This is a live album and I'm sure it's all very good, but there's absolutely no danger of me checking out all 2.5 hours of it.

Freya Ridings (#26)
I like Freya and this is another decent offering - she's leaned hard into a Florence kinda sound but there's nothing wrong with that because it suits her. It was lacking an obvious banger or two on first listen, but maybe repeat listens would tease them out.

Kiefer Sutherland (#31)
Huh? Apparently this is his third charting album (including one top-ten visit) but I don't think I was aware of his musical prowess. And whilst prowess might be a slightly generous description, there's nothing wrong with this soft-country/rock offering - although I'd struggle to say it's something I'd be looking for in my life.

Doublespeak (#67)
This is another lot I've never heard of - and that's because it's a "super"group of Vince Clark, Neil Arthur (of Blancmange) and Benge (a "synth auteur" apparently). And funnily enough they make a Depeche Mode/Blancmange kinda sound - it's not dreadful, but it's also not adding anything to the canon.

Bruce Springsteen (#75)
Another live album, from Asbury Park which is a nice nod to his '72 debut album. But if I wasn't going to listen to 2.5 hours of Dua Lipa, I certainly wasn't going to be sitting through 3+ hours of Bruce - but I couldn't anyway because it's not available on streaming.

Devin Townsend (#83)
Devin is someone I'm surprisingly aware of from my #AOTD days - and it's fair to say his work does not lack for ambition or length. Which is certainly the case here with 100 minutes of operatic prog metal - I'm sure his fans will love it, but I'm afraid I just roll my eyes at it.

Jayler (#99)
And we finish with someone else I'm not aware of - and I'm afraid I was perfectly happy in my ignorance. This is 70's style rock which I imagine is fun enough live (again, assuming they don't take themselves too seriously) but just listening the album got very dull very quickly for me.

We have a very surprising (to me, at least) re-entry this week which is Skye Newman (#11 -probably as a result of some deluxe nonsense) and she's followed pretty closely by Ariana Grande's '16 album (#19 - I guess there's an anniversary release) - there's a few more in the 80s and 90s, but nothing of particular interest. Last week I said that Maisie Peters would be at #14, but it was a random guess so I'm not surprised to be some way off because she's at #37 - it's hard to say how well Paul will do, but I'm guessing enough diehard fans will still be interested to keep him reasonably high, so I'm going for #25.

Wikipedia tells us this is his twentieth album and it's been co-produced with Andrew Watt - and it doesn't feel like a bad idea for him to have brought someone in to keep his whimsy (relatively) under control. Obviously, the thing you all want to know is Dungeon Lane "leads from Speke to Oglet Shore on the Mersey, an area that was popular with birdwatchers" and so "McCartney teased the album using bird emojis on his social media" - he's so rock'n'roll, isn't he? Critically, people were pretty nice about it, but there's a definite hint of "it's not nearly as bad as a lot of his stuff" - which I agree with but that's not enough to make me be nice about it. It has, however, done well commercially, getting to #1 in Belgium and The Netherlands and even #11 in Japan, and they usually have no truck with any of that Western music nonsense.

discogs.com tells us you can pick up the CD for fifteen quid, but if you want either the numbered limited edition clear with blue and white liquid splatter vinyl or the white label vinyl or the pink vinyl then it's going to set you back £250 - that's Paul really remembering his working class roots there. I can understand that there's a load of love for Paul out there and I even feel a bit of it having listened to some of the Beatles' albums - but his solo stuff has massively burned through that. Having said that, this isn't even close to being his worst offering - but that doesn't make it any good, so he's certainly not getting album of the week. It's an easy win for Freya for me with Shinedown coming in a very surprising second, although I'd like to listen to Boards Of Canada again when I'm more in the mood for it.

29/04/26 - Yeah, I liked this