scaryblog

Continuing my trip back through the 1963 album charts. 24/02/63 : Sinatra And Swingin' Brass - Frank Sinatra Our seventeenth visit with Frank (taking him into second place on his own) - his swing albums are generally fine, but there's just too many of them! Actually, I'd say this is pretty decent - but it's quite annoying because Wikipedia tells me he'd recorded most of these back in the 50s on a different label, so I guess he was just being the Taylor Swift of his day. I obviously knew "I Get A Kick Out Of You" and "They Can't Take That Away From Me" but was pleased to be introduced to "At Long Last Love" and "I'm Beginning To See The Light" which I really liked.  We're at #18 in the charts this week on his tenth week of an eleven week run, with it having peaked at #14 in three separate weeks - it does seem like the public's enthusiasm for "more of the same" was finally waning. The top five this week...

Continuing my trip back through the 1963 album charts. 03/03/63 : The First Family - Vaughn Meader This is an album I've never heard of by someone I've never heard of - and that cover is certainly quite something! But Wikipedia will explain to us that this was a big deal, so buckle in for this. It's a comedy album based around JFK and his family, with them struggling with "normal" household issues - and somewhat unsurprisingly, it's dated. However, surprisingly, quite a bit of it was still relevant - and some of it was also actually funny (which was something TW3 didn't manage). I imagine quite a few people greatly objected to the whole thing, but it all feels to be good-natured to me (although I imagine sensitivities were very different back then). It's also of note for featuring a woman in a major role - wonders will never cease. We're at #16 in the charts this week with a re-entry for this one week, but it had previously had a seven week run wi...

Continuing my trip back through the 1963 album charts. 10/03/63 : Caribbean Guitar - Chet Atkins Skipping over a week where Cliff was #1, we also have to skip over our second Joe Brown album of the year - it just doesn't seem to be available anywhere. And that brings us to Chet's first proper visit - he's previously had a couple of mentions for new entries in the lower reaches of the chart but, as far as I'm aware, this will be the first time I've ever heard anything by him. I'm assuming he's a guitar player and he adopts a Caribbean style here, but the title might just be to throw me off the scent. Well, he's certainly a guitar player - I'm not sure I quite the Caribbean influence on all the tracks, but there's certainly a sense of palm trees and dancing girls from time to time. It's a bit more of a classical style than I was expecting, but it's interesting enough to avoid being musical wallpaper and he's obviously a skilful player -...

Continuing my trip back through the 1963 album charts. 24/03/63 : Dance With The Guitar Man - Duane Eddy Our third visit with Duane and I've been generally pretty impressed so far, although I'm not convinced I'm going to exactly need another album of it. Well, I guess it is another album from Duane, but the guitar is surprisingly low in the mix on a load of the tracks which means you'd be hard pushed to tell it's him. The tracks aren't terrible but he has also used some awful backing singers to make some very distracting noises throughout - a ll of which makes the whole thing seem less bearable than it probably should be.  We're at #14 in the charts this week on his third week of a four week run, with this being as high as it ever got. The top five this week were  Cliff Richard , Frank Sinatra & Count Basie , Elvis Presley , Frank Ifield and West Side Story  - it's funny how not having The Beatles in there just makes it feel more old-fashioned. And ...

Continuing my trip forward in time through the album charts 19/06/26 : you seem pretty sad for a girl so in love - Olivia Rodrigo  This is our third visit with Olivia and I've liked her previous two, so I imagine I'll like this as well. Yeah, nothing wrong with this, although it's a bit of style departure from the previous two, feeling more grown up (she's getting old, I guess). It's maybe lacking the instant bangers of the previous two on first listen, but I suspect it wouldn't take more than another visit or two for me to change my opinion there. It's quite a good album title because a lot of the tracks are about being in love and also not being entirely happy about it or the aftermath, but she avoids the Taylor Swift-esque general moaniness - there's a general "it's complicated" vibe to it (which for me is a much better starting point than "it's all his fault"). I think there's a decent amount of variety on there with s...

Continuing my trip back through the 1963 album charts. 31/03/63 : Bobby Vee Meets The Crickets - Bobby Vee & The Crickets Bobby was so Buddy-like that I cannot consider myself surprised that he got together with The Crickets - giving us our third visit with Bobby in the year. I'm guessing it will be perfectly enjoyable - but possibly a bit more Bobby than anyone needs in swift succession. Somewhat to my surprise, I actually don't think it is too much Bobby - and he's also not trying too hard to be Buddy either. There are a few Buddy tracks on there, with the opener "Peggy Sue" being a somewhat concerning statement of intent, but they don't go overboard with it. Most of the album is covers of 50's rock and roll numbers and they do a good job - I particularly liked their versions of Chuck Berry's "Sweet Little Sixteen" and Little Richard's "Lucille". There's certainly an argument that it's a bit dated for '63 but I...