Chaos and the Calm is the debut studio album by English singer-songwriter James Bay. It was first released on 23 March 2015 via Republic Records.
The album was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Rock Album, while the song "Hold Back the River" was nominated for Best Rock Song and Bay for Best New Artist.
Critical reception
Chaos and the Calm received mixed reviews from music critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalised rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average score of 58, which indicates "mixed or average reviews", based on 9 reviews.
Commercial performance Chaos and the Calm debuted at number one on the UK Albums Chart on 29 March 2015, having sold over 64,000 copies in the first week of release.
Track listing
Personnel Musicians James Bay – lead vocals, background vocals, guitars, piano , bass , drums , keyboards Eli Beaird – bass Ian Fitchuk – keyboards , drums , percussion Eric Darken – percussion Jonathan Yudkin – cello and viola Gerry Morgan – drums and percussion Jon Green – keyboards and vocals
Technical personnel Lowell Reynolds – engineer Sean Badum – assistant engineer James Oleksyk – assistant engineer Michael H. Brauer – mixing Mark Bengtson – mixing assistant and ProTools engineer Bob Ludwig – mastering Mark Bishop – engineer and mixing Jon Green – engineer and mixing
Charts and certifications
Weekly charts Chart (2015–2017) Peakposition Latvian Albums (LaIPA) 64
Year-end charts Chart (2015) Position Australian Albums (ARIA) 17 Belgian Albums (Ultratop Flanders) 101 Dutch Albums (Album Top 100) 37 Swedish Albums (Sverigetopplistan) 29 Swiss Albums (Schweizer Hitparade) 25 UK Albums (OCC) 8 US Billboard 200 167 US Folk Albums (Billboard) 12 US Top Rock Albums (Billboard) 49 Chart (2016) Position Canadian Albums (Billboard) 31 Danish Albums (Hitlisten) 42 Dutch Albums (MegaCharts) 37 Swedish Albums (Sverigetopplistan) 46 UK Albums (OCC) 19 US Billboard 200 59 US Top Rock Albums (Billboard) 18 Chart (2017) Position Danish Albums (Hitlisten) 66 Dutch Albums (MegaCharts) 77 Swedish Albums (Sverigetopplistan) 79 Chart (2019) PositionIcelandic Albums (Plötutíóindi)85
Decade-end charts Chart (2010–2019) Position UK Albums (OCC) 68
Certifications
Release history Region Date Format Label Ireland 20 March 2015 United Kingdom 23 March 2015
References