Maybe I feel like I've been gathering dust

If you've been paying close attention (as I'm sure all of you are) you'll have noticed that I've finally progressed past the album titles that begin with numbers. But with that shift begins my annoyance with Apple's method of alphabetizing.

I'm surrounded by a fairly large number of copy editor or English major types and more than one has questioned me about the way albums are listed on Declan. "How can 7 come after 69 Love Songs?" asked Jeff. The answer is Declan has a short attention span and he only looks at the first (and only first) letter or number. So now that I've made it past the numbers, I have a whole list of albums that begin with the word "A" to get through. That is so wrong.

Apple, pissing off copy editors everywhere.

So using this novel method of alphabetization, next on my list is A Century Ends by David Gray. This was actually Gray's first album (released in England in 1993) but it didn't see a U.S. release until 2001. Fresh off the success of White Ladder, everybody was looking to cash in on Gray's new popularity and suddenly every label he'd ever recorded for had a new compilation or old reissue.

I was quick to hop on that bandwagon and I picked up many of these aforementioned reissues and compilations. I enjoy each of them to varying degrees with Flesh probably being my favorite. It has all the unabashed sincerity of A Century Ends with just a little more catchiness to the music. Did you get that?

Now, there is a small group of diehard fans out there who will swear that Gray has never recorded anything better than "Shine" and "Birds Without Wings" (both on this album) but I just don't see it. They have nice lyrics but if you can't match that with a good melody you should probably just be a poet.

Luckily, Gray did get better at the whole melody thing and he has White Ladder to show for it. A Century Ends is probably best kept to the hardcore fan.