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Sometimes I like to just hide in the shadows

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Continuing my trip forward in time through the album charts (still running late!) 10/07/26 : Confessions II - Madonna  Our twelfth visit with Auntie Madge, taking her into equal fifth with Rod Stewart on the most visited artist list. This is a sequel to Confessions On A Dance Floor  which I enjoyed, so I have higher expectations for this than I normally would for her latest album. Yeah, I'd say I quite liked this. It's got a much more house-y feel than I was expecting and Madonna is happy to let the music take the spotlight, with her contributions being amazingly low-key on some of them. It's maybe a little long (just over an hour) but I think she's just about got enough variety in there to get away with it. I particularly liked "Betrayal", which is one of the less dance-y numbers, but there wasn't a single track that had me rolling my eyes - which for a recent Madonna album is almost unheard of! I'd say this is well worth a listen if you like that kin...
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I never wanted water once

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Starting my trip back through the 1971 album charts. 26/12/71 : Teaser And The Firecat - Cat Stevens Our fourth visit with Mr Islam and I've generally liked what we've heard from him (although Tea For The Tillerman didn't hold my interest as much as I was expecting) so I'm looking forward to this. Yeah, this is all decent enough with some very nice guitar playing on it and a reasonable amount of variety across the album. I recognised "The Wind" but couldn't remember from where - a quick Google surprised me by telling me it features in several films including The Holdovers , Are You There God? It's Me Margaret , Sing, Almost Famous and Rushmore - all of which are pretty decent. I also recognised "Moonshadow" without knowing why, but at least that was a single so I don't need to Google film usage. But (of course) I did anyway and found it's most famous for not being used in An American Werewolf In London - John Carpenter wanted to but ...
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Another one done!

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Our fourth visit to the swingin' Sixties - how did 1963 do? It definitely felt like a watershed year - how could it be anything other thanks to four lads from Liverpool? There were certainly some decent albums in there though, although I think it's safe to say the women didn't exactly dominate matters. And to no-one's great surprise, the ownership ratio this year was a big fat zero percent. Looking at the best selling albums of the year, we're back to relying on the dubious information from bestsellingalbums.org but I don't think anyone will be surprised to see The Beatles taking the top two spots - although I'm quite surprised that With The Beatles takes the top spot, because Please Please Me was #1 for thirty weeks of the year. The other record which spent an age at #1 was Cliff Richard's Summer Holiday , so it's no surprise to see that at #3 but I wasn't expecting to have West Side Story (which was released in '61) at #4 - it's fair...
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Wah-wah-waaaaah

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Concluding my trip back through the 1963 album charts. 06/01/63 : 'S Wonderful!/'S Marvelous - Ray Conniff Our third visit with Ray and last time I described it as " bizarre instrumentals which are somehow inexplicably elevated from the bland" and I remember being intrigued by it, so I'm pleased enough to meet him again - intriguingly this is two of his albums from the '50s which I assume were repackaged to squeeze a few more sales out of them. I know I shouldn't really like this because it's, at its heart. cheesy easy-listening jazz - but it's really well done cheesy easy-listening jazz. It uses interesting rhythms and instruments and it's exactly the sort of stuff that Zero 7, Air, Royksopp and many others would sample a "few" years later. No, I'm not going to ever listen to it again but it's a lot more interesting than a load of other albums I've heard this year that I'll never listen to again. We're at #18 in t...
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I got some money in my jeans, and I'm really gonna spend it right

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Continuing my trip back through the 1963 album charts. 13/01/63 : Cherished Memories - Eddie Cochran I'm assuming this is a best-of, which feels even more of a cheat than usual because we've already had a best-of from him - but we're in no place to be rejecting albums this year (and I also don't remember listening to the previous one either). Hmmm - well. I'm sure these are memories for some and maybe even cherished for a few - but I can't say they did a lot for me. I recognised "Let's Get Together", but that's because it's exactly the same as "C'mon Everybody" except that those phrases are interchanged. The rest sounded pretty similar, but not all that enjoyably so. I can understand that it was big at the time and is historically significant but it's not something that I need to listen to now.  We're at #15 in the charts this week on his second week of a three week run - I'm guessing those memories weren't qu...
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Broadcasting reckless confessions, we will all beg for extinction

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Continuing my trip forward in time through the album charts (very late - I'm still a week behind!) 03/07/26 : The Wow! Signal - Muse  Our sixth visit with the never knowingly understated boys from Devon - I'll be amazed if this isn't "well done but more of the same". Well, it's certainly in a similar vein, although it seems like they're trying to do a few slightly different things - but don't worry, they're certainly not different enough to frighten the horses. One thing that is different is the presence of Ellie Goulding on "Hush" (their first ever guest vocalist) - I'd say it works better than I was expecting. I didn't mind this all but can't claim I love it - it doesn't feel like it's going to earn them any new fans, but I also don't think it will lose them any existing ones. Of course, I could be basing that analysis on us being at #1 in the charts this week with a new entry! The rest of the top five are  Olivi...
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Twangy-twang, silky-silk

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Continuing my trip back through the 1963 album charts. 20/01/63 : Twangy Guitar Silky Strings - Duane Eddy Skipping over another week where Cliff was #1 (starting a fourteen week run at the top) brings us to our second visit this year and fourth overall with Duane and I can't help but feel I've probably had enough Duane in my life now - but maybe he'll surprise me. Well, there's certainly plenty of twangy guitar and silky strings here, but it's all very pedestrian - it just feels like Duane could have knocked this out in his sleep. And I think that's pretty much all I have to say on the matter. We're at #13 in the charts this week on his last week of an eight week run, with this being as high as it got - for the last three weeks of the run, which is unusual. The top five this week were  The Shadows  (the third artist we've seen at the top all year, but not quite the last),  West Side Story ,  Elvis Presley , Bobby Vee & The Crickets and  South Pacif...
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