We lay on towers, on rented time - I'm yours for hours, you're always mine
Continuing my trip forward in time through the album charts
30/10/26 : Visitor - Sienna Spiro
Well, this is a bit of a surprise. We met this album in passing as a new entry back in mid July and I liked it with her pushing Madonna close for the coveted album of the week award. However, I never imagined that we'd get to meet it properly seventeen weeks later with it not having left the top ten at all in that time - the lass has got to be pleased with that, hasn't she? Interestingly, the Olivias (Rodrigo and Dean) and the Michael Jackson best-of have also been ever present in the top ten during that period and the Fleetwood Mac best-of runs them close, but spent a couple of weeks at #11. But this week is all about Sienna...
Last time I said that it gave strong Amy Winehouse or Raye vibes and she's only 20 but it's got a much more mature sound than that would suggest - but you're obviously looking for a much more in-depth analysis than that, so here goes. Well, errr - I really like "Great Expectation". Will that do? It's interesting to compare her with Amy and Raye because both of them have a tendency to get a bit over-excited from time to time which might scare off the older listener, but Sienna keeps it all pretty reined in. It's also a sound that works well with a stripped back band or a larger orchestral style backing so I can see she attracts a wider audience - and it seems to have worked out well for her. All in all, it's an impressive piece of work and well worth a listen to if you like that sort of thing.
We're at #7 in the charts this week on her seventeenth week after it peaked at #2 in her debut week. The top five this week are the quite peculiar combination of My Chemical Romance's The Black Parade (a re-entry because of a 20th anniversary reissue, giving it its tenth run in the charts), Fontaines D.C., Olivia Rodrigo, Amy Winehouse's Back To Black (another re-entry due to a 20th anniversary, with a very fine concert on iPlayer to celebrate it - and it wouldn't have hurt for them to get Sienna involved) and the Michael Jackson best-of. So how are we looking on the new entries front this week then?
Manic Street Preachers (#10)
This is a live version of The Holy Bible - I usually skip over live albums but I was interested to see what the considerably less manic than they were back then preachers did with this. And well, it's not quite as recent as I was expecting because this is from '14 (which seems a bit random) but even so, James Dean Bradfield's voice doesn't quite live up to the task - and also I didn't like the levels in the mix. So I can't say I loved it.
Tony Iommi and Jørn (#11)
Tony's 78 now, but shows no signs of slowing down - I can't say I loved this but if you like a bit of Sabbath then I guess you'll appreciate this. Jørn is the Norwegian vocalist Jørn Lande - apparently it was originally envisaged as an instrumental album, but I think they probably made the right choice adding some words and Jørn does a good job with them. Brian May also pops up with a solo on one of the tracks - there's certainly some musical skill involved here.
Michael Kiwanuka (#13)
He'd have been hoping for better than this. And, having listened to it, so did I - it's very bland.
And that's your lot on the new entries - and we don't have a load of re-entries either. After the two we've previously mentioned, the only other ones are Sam Fender's Seventeen Going Under (#85), the Nirvana best-of (#99) and Bob Marley's Legend (#100 - back after a couple of weeks away). Last week I said that Fontaines would be at #13 and we already know got that wrong - history suggests that Sienna ain't gonna be going far, so let's go for #6.
Wikipedia tells us that it's her debut album and has quite a lot of text (131 milliPeppers) which tells us that she writes and records songs - I think they could have been slightly more concise on the matter. The only other thing that jumped out at me was the number of string players on the album - I counted 29, which seems somewhat excessive! Critically, most people were nice enough about it, although The Guardian declared it to be "merely competent". Commercially, it's done very well globally though, making the top ten in a load of countries including #1 in Norway and The Netherlands and a very decent #9 in the US.
discogs.com tells us that you can pick up a normal version of this for £20, a tangerine version for £27, a red translucent version for £30 or, if you want to splash out, you can go for the numbered ripple line effect in transparent orange, brown and black (mahogany melt) version for £200 - I don't want to buy it, but it does look very cool. And, all in all, I think this is a pretty cool album - yes, there's an argument she knows exactly what buttons to press but I think she presses them well and it's clear it's gone down well with her intended audience. And, in the face of minimal opposition, it easily takes the album of the week award - with Tony Iommi coming second, which isn't a phrase I imagined typing ever.
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