My 1001 Albums Journey

Saw the cover and thought this is gonna be awful. By half way through the first song that was confirmed. Somehow, it then continued to get worse. It manages to offend and bore me at the same time.

Five stars all the way. It's unfair, I guess, because it's an album I've listened to at least five million times and I love every part of. I remember buying this when I was visiting family in Leeds and they had a Virgin Megastore. It's pretty much calibrated for one side of me. Loud but fragile, often feeling ready to fall apart. It's beautiful. I still skip that last song though!

How to listen again to an album I've probably listened to thousands of times before and where three of the tracks are on my heavy rotation Spotitfy playlists? It also feels like a record whose influence loomed over most of the music I've loved in my life. I actually remember the first time I heard it, when my brother played me the vinyl copy he had, and I remember when I bought my own copy, at a CD fair in Southampton. Trying to listen afresh now it's still an amazing record. I realise, however, that I'd got into the habit of stopping it at the start of the five minutes noise at the end of European Son :D

Somehow I've managed to not know about this band but half way through the first song I'm loving it... although I've definitely heard this song before. I'm hearing Blur pretty strongly in here. Looking at it, it's the same year as Modern Life, makes sense. Problem is the album quickly settles into Britpop mediocrity. It's OK but it feels quite by-the-numbers. I was looking forward to later tracks because other reviews called up some of those as great tracks but they didn't break through the tedium to me. By the end of the album I just wanted it to be over. Yawn!