I had previously planned to make some hilarious joke about releasing an album called ‘2013’ in 2016, but considering that it’ll likely be 2021 before my list of the best albums of 2016 is actually finished <it definitely isn’t finished now, when you’re publishing this- Ed>, I have to cede defeat. You win this round, Mr Jones

+1

 

‘2013’ is a perfectly adequate collection of arch chamber pop that’s straight up lovely in places and impossible to dislike

+1

But it’s general amiability makes it difficult to garner any real strong reactions toward it

-13

It’s also 2013’s… I mean 2016’s

inaugural recipient of my One Track Mind award, bestowed upon albums that may or may not have more than one good song (nothing off ‘2013’ is any way substandard, as that would require inspiring emotive reactions, which is not its forte), but one song is so much better than the album surrounding it that you wonder why they bothered still turning up at the studio after it was finished

-20

How to Recognise a Work of Art really is bloomin’ marvellous though

+7

The other 11 tracks are far less interesting though, and seemingly evidence that Mr Jones is the only person alive who believes the world is crying out for a successor to The Divine Comedy (ask your Dad) or My Life Story (ask Jake Shillingford, the lead singer of My Life Story and a decent bet for the only other person in the world who remembers that band)

-12

Metacritic: +79

Length 49 minutes -3

Best Lyric: ‘You go to the bathroom to apply your mother’s lipstick/Somewhere no one can find you/You must wear it like she wears disappointment on her face’ +1

Is the last song just the first track but played on Ukulele? No -1

Total 41

Images stolen from:

http://bumpybrains.com/comics.php?comic=200

http://musicvideolyrics.blogspot.co.uk/2011/12/aqua-dr-jones-1997.html

https://meilyrjones.bandcamp.com/album/2013

http://wearecult.rocks/20-years-of-my-life-storys-the-golden-mile