scaryblog

Continuing my trip back through the 1981 album charts. 23/08/81 : Secret Combination - Randy Crawford Only our third ever mention for Randy (with the previous one being her appearance in the top five last week). I know I know some of her tracks, but couldn't tell you what they are - I'm expecting to like it enough though. Ah yes, I obviously recognised "You Might Need Somebody" which is a great track - originally by Turley Richards (who I've never heard of) but I actually prefer Shola Ama's version. I was also vaguely aware of "Rainy Night In Georgia" - originally by Tony Joe White, but popularised by Brook Benton (and I've never heard of either of them). The rest of the album is in a very similar vein - it's all very Gladys Knight-ish so I imagine the lovely Mrs Reed is a fan. I can't say I go quite that far but she's got a nice voice, it's all well done and it's nice to see another lady this year (they've been a bit lack...

Continuing my trip back through the 1981 album charts. 30/08/81 : Duran Duran -  Duran Duran Well, this is a pleasant surprise that's popped out of nowhere - I've not noticed it in the charts until this week. I remember liking it, but I think I've only ever listened to it a couple of times and certainly not in many years, so it will be interesting to see how history has treated it. It opens up with "Girls On Film" which, with its great camera clicking intro, really isn't a poor way to start - and then follows that up with "Planet Earth". Which are obviously the two quality tracks on the album, but there's more variety and the quality doesn't dip as much across the rest of the album as you might expect. It obviously owes several debts to artists who were around at the end of the 70s, but it's also the 80s very much announcing they were here - yes, it's no  Rio , but it's an interesting first step on their journey which I enjoyed re...

Continuing my trip back through the 1981 album charts. 06/09/81 : Time - ELO Our fourth visit with ELO and so far I've liked their '70s offerings but found their '83 album to be very bland - so my expectations are somewhere in the middle. Well, it's certainly not bland - I can see that some people might level accusations of "too same-y" at it because the tracks mostly share the same electro-prog-pop vibe (there are strong Jean-Michel Jarre vibes), but I think it gets away with it by having enough other stuff in there and it's certainly got a reasonable amount of skill involved. What I'm less sure about is whether I actually liked it - I don't think I did on first listen, but I can see I might get into it if I gave it a few chances (which I obviously won't) particularly because I recognised and liked "Hold On Tight". It was an interesting listen though which I was pleased to catch up with. We're at #3 in the charts this week on the...

Another trip overseas! 04/07/26 : Moussette  The big family holiday this year was taken in Canada, which resulted in much excitement amongst the family parkrunners because Canada Day is July 1st and this counts as a special day when they're allowed to put on additional events - which was doubly exciting because it was a Wednesday and so counts towards the daily challenge (the only chances here to get non-Saturdays are Xmas and New Years Day, which rudely always fall on the same day of the week). However, we were in Montreal at the time and the closest parkrun which was actually happening was in Ottawa which is 200km away and I'm not sure the family non-parkrunners would have been too happy about us disappearing for the day just to tick off a Wednesday, so it seems like we're going to have wait until 2030 for a Wednesday parkrun. Fortunately, we didn't have to wait that long for a Canadian parkrun because a mere three days later we were in Ottawa on a Saturday so could c...

Continuing my trip back through the 1981 album charts. 13/09/81 : Dance - Gary Numan Our third solo visit with Mr Numan (who is, of course, older than Mr Oldman) along with one Tubeway Army visit and I've quite liked his stuff - I'll be surprised if this strays too far from the formula (and I'll be very surprised if it features anything you could actually dance to). Yeah, this isn't gonna get the grannies on the dance floor - it's understated even by Gary's standards with all sorts of weird rhythms and sounds on there. It has a very Japan (the group, not the country) kinda sound to it - I didn't mind it, but it got a bit samey across the whole album for me (all 57 minutes of it). I think it's an interesting attempt, but not a complete success for me. We're at #3 in the charts this week on his second week of an eight week run, with this being as high as it got. The rest of the top five were  Meat Loaf , The Rolling Stones , Ultravox (a new entry which...

Continuing my trip back through the 1981 album charts. 20/09/81 : Tattoo You - The Rolling Stones Our eighteenth visit with the Stones, taking them into second place on their own - they're gonna overtake Elvis before we get to the end. I don't remember this album in the slightest but I know I had absolutely no interest in this bunch of old men at the time (and yes, I realise they were considerably younger at the time than I am now). Actually, it starts with "Start Me Up" which I do remember not absolutely hating - and the rest of it mostly isn't too far away from that or a bit more bluesy, which is generally to be expected (although  I didn't like "Little T&A", which is somehow worse than its title). I can't say any of it struck me as absolutely essential Stones material (except possibly "Start Me Up") but that's pretty much been the case for most of the albums we've met from them - it's certainly nowhere near their wors...