It couldn’t be. The Last Dinner Party have not managed to repeat the number 1 in the United Kingdom that they achieved with their debut. Things were looking very good for ‘From the Pyre’ last weekend. In the midweeks on Monday, it turned out that The Last Dinner Party’s second album was in the top 1 with 19,000 units sold. Both Tame Impala and Taylor Swift were within a safe distance, with 11,000 copies collected between Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
But the concern began to be visible on Wednesday, when the girls had only risen to 20,800 and Taylor was already rising to 17,600 with part of the streaming not counting. Taylor has finally won and without tricks or cardboard in terms of reissues. Of the 32,500 copies that have been sold this week in the UK of ‘The Life of a Showgirl’, 25,000 come from streaming that continues to decline.
On the other hand, the majority of the 26,800 copies sold of ‘From the Pyre’ come from the physical. There have been almost 12,000 CDs, almost 11,000 vinyls and almost 2,000 cassettes. Solid figures that lead us to conclude: “it doesn’t matter, this would have been number 1 for many weeks this year.”
And in any case, what will endure will be the quality of The Last Dinner Party’s second album. It’s our Album of the Week. The very Arctic Monkeys and a bit Queen ‘This Is the Killer Speaking’ was already Song of the Day, ‘The Scythe’ is another of their fans’ favorites, and today we select ‘Second Best’ as Song of the Day.
‘Second Best’, which seems to have advanced the album’s position in the UK, was released as the third single from this project on 1 October. Queen and ABBA – definitely something from the 70s – seem to have influenced the choral intro of the composition, which then leads to the rock sound of Yeah Yeah Yeahs in the chorus. Of course, guitarist Emily Roberts has spoken more of Sparks and Wet Leg as her influences for ‘Second Best’.
The song, between quotes over bubblegum and white wine, talks about a relationship in which the narrator was treated as “a second fiddle”, with all the implications that entails. “I’m going crazy,” she admits at one point, between memories of better days walking hand in hand on the beach and caressing her hair. Up to 3 times Abigail Morris returns to that day on the beach without that part conforming to the chorus of ‘Second Best’.
