I was born into a fractured family where a word could start a war

Continuing my trip forward in time through the album charts

26/06/26 : My Mess, My Heart, My Life - Myles Smith 

I know I've heard a Myles track, but I'm blowed if I know what it is - maybe my memory will be jogged here...

Oh yes - "ooh ah, nice to meet you. La la - la-di-da". I can't remember any more words, but it's got a catchy tune. And if that wasn't particularly memorable, the rest of it really isn't - none of it is terrible, but there's really not a lot to it ("it's pretty basic" says Isobel, our guest reviewer). I was reminded of Mumford & Sons in quite a few places (but it's not as good) but finally dredged who it was really reminding me of towards the end of the album. And that was Jack Johnson, who was perfectly tolerable but had no obvious surplus of talent - and Myles feels to be firmly in the same category.

And so, obviously we're at #2 with a new entry this week - there's nowt as queer as folk. The rest of the top five are Olivia Rodrigo, Michael Jackson, Harry Styles and Olivia Dean - no big surprises there! So do we have any surprises in the new entries this week?

Placebo (#14)
This is an interesting one because they've "recreated" their debut album - allegedly. I can assure you they very much haven't - it's just been tweaked to sound a bit more polished. It feels completely inessential to me, but apparently the fans either like it because they've grown up and are a bit more polished now or they don't like it because it reminds them that they've grown up and they miss the days they weren't quite so polished.

When Rivers Meet (#19)
I remembered meeting this lot from a previous new entry list and they're a decent blues/rock husband and wife pairing - I didn't mind it at all and would certainly check them out if I stumbled across them on a sunny festival afternoon.

Joe Bonamassa (#46)
A live album that I'm sure you'll love if you like this sort of thing.

M Huncho (#53)
He's a rappy dude so this isn't my sort of thing, but I recognise there's a decent amount of skill and musicality involved - I'm also intrigued by the whole mask thing he's got going on.

Hard-Fi (#58)
They're back together for their fourth album, fifteen years after the last one - and I didn't mind it at all. It's a decent effort from the lads that feels like it deserved a bit better.

Fredo (#81)
A guy I don't remember but he's had a few mentions over the years and had a #2 album back in '21. To my surprise, I found this almost enjoyable. What's going on?!?

Judas Priest (#83)
A best-of album 49 years after their debut album - it's safe to say it's not for me, but they've obviously still got some fans out there.

The highest re-entry this week is the Foo Fighters best-of (#79) which is something that absolutely no-one can get excited about - the only vaguely interesting thing on the re-entry front is that the Dire Straits (#98) and Mark Knopfler (#99) best-ofs are neighbours once again. Last week I said that Olivia would be at #3 and we already know I got that wrong - I really struggle to see that Myles is offering us anything to make it worth keeping him around at all, but I suspect I've read people's keenness for him wrong, so I'm going to guess #37 (and yes, I'm so late writing this up that I could have cheated, but I didn't - honest!). 

Wikipedia tells us that it's his debut album and has been supported by singles and a tour - how very unconventional of him. Looking at his entry to pad things out, it features absolutely nothing of any interest except that they really like him in Czechia where he's had two #1 singles. Critically, the album hasn't exactly gone down a storm, with Alexis Petridis from The Guardian agreeing with me that "it's hard to see what Smith is actually bringing to the party, beyond an amalgamation of his favourite artists". Commercially, it's charted in more countries than I was expecting, but not exactly shone in most places with #12 in Germany being its best placing away from here, with it only getting to #135 in the US.

discogs.com doesn't have many copies out there and they're all the bog standard album for about £25 - which pretty much sums up the averageness of this entire exercise, I'm afraid. Album of the week for me goes to Hard-Fi, but I'm also going to give When Rivers Meet, M Huncho and Fredo a name-check for doing a good job of what they do.

19/06/26 - I reckon I could like this a lot