scaryblog

Continuing my trip back through the 2001 album charts. 04/11/01 : Invincible -   Michael Jackson Our fourth visit with Michael and I've never heard this - in fact, I don't think I even remembered it existed. I'm expecting it to be an interesting enough historical listen, but I'm not sure I'm going to exactly love it. Actually, this is surprisingly decent - it's got a reasonable amount of variety but it feels like someone's been trying to rein in some of his more outlandish ideas. And at least partially succeeding - yes, there's still an awful load of nonsense on here, but it's at least listenable nonsense. I was also particularly surprised by actively enjoying "Threatened", the closing track - although I was possibly just very pleased to get to the end of the 77 minutes, which really could have done with some pruning. I was also surprised how "The Lost Children" (which is psychological minefield I won't be investigating) stray...

Continuing my trip down The Guardian's  Top 50 TV Shows of 2024 #16 : Fallout  The Last of Us took a big step forward in rehabilitating the maligned video game adaptation genre, and this year’s Fallout represented another. Set in a hellish, heightened post-apocalyptic world, this was a story of mutants and zombies and lost innocence that managed to be cheekily knowing and genuinely gripping in equal measure. Some of this was down to the performances – Walton Goggins and Ella Purnell were particularly good – but a lot of it was down to plain old self-belief. More than anything, this was a show with absolute faith in its source material. I'd heard this was good, watched the first episode, enjoyed it - and then never watched any more of it. I think this was because the first episode was very much a scene setter, which looked particularly impressive but didn't really give you any clues where it was going, so I didn't feel massively invested.  And, to some extent, that comme...

Continuing my trip back through the 2001 album charts. 11/11/01 : Britney -   Britney Spears We move from an artist successfully managing a transition, to one managing it not quite so successfully (and yes, I know things are never quite that simple). I'm expecting to find this tolerable but tiresome for a whole album.  Well, some of the lyrics here are certainly interesting with the benefit of hindsight because there's a lot of complaining about how she's not allowed to do what she wants - and we all know how that ended up (although it sounds very "whiny teenager" without the benefit of hindsight). Musically, it's not dreadful but it's not great - it's interesting to compare it with Kylie's offering because it just feels like they put so much less effort into this. My suspicion is that "they" thought they were on to a winner here and so didn't have to work too hard - and they were both right and wrong.  Don't get me started on he...

Continuing my trip back through the 2001 album charts. 18/11/01 : Fever -   Kylie Minogue Our tenth visit with the pop poppet bringing her level with Madge and The Beatles and this is the one that kicked it all off again - but I'm not sure I've ever listened to it. I'm expecting to enjoy it in places, but suspect the whole album isn't going to be as great as it thinks it is. Nah, this is alright. You can at times almost hear the evil geniuses in the background plotting the reincarnation of our Kylie, but there's no doubt they've served her up some pretty decent songs to achieve it. I like "Into Your Eyes" and "Come Into My World" but "Can't Get You Out Of My Head" is just a work of genius - it's not exactly drowning in content, but just they do so much with it. The whole album is also very well produced because it's got a lovely clean sound to it and the whole thing comes in at a very acceptable 45 minutes. They've a...

Continuing my trip back through the 2001 album charts. 25/11/01 : Whatever Gets You Through The Day -   The Lighthouse Family Our second visit with the family and last time I described them as enjoyable musical wallpaper which was perfect for the sunny weather - it's very sunny here today as well (if slightly colder) and my expectations are high that this is going to easily be the best album of the year. Which is currently setting a very low bar. Yeah, this is pretty easy on the old eardrums. Somewhat forgettably so, but it might stick with future listens and I'm certainly not going to let that get me down in this year. So, do I have anything else to say about it?  Errrr, no... We're at #7 in the charts with a new entry on the start of a very decent 23 week run (although not quite the 153 weeks that Ocean Drive managed). The top five this week are  Robbie  (a new entry, starting a run of seven weeks at the top),  Westlife  and best-ofs from Gabrielle, Step...

Continuing my trip back through the 2001 album charts. 02/12/01 : They Don't Know -   So Solid Crew 2001 - you're really spoiling me! I'm sure this holds fond memories for plenty, but I do not count myself amongst their number. I guess I might be impressed by bits of it, but it's feeling unlikely. Well, let's just start by saying this squarely isn't aimed at me and I shouldn't be offering any opinions on it - not that that's going to stop me. But, to my surprise, I'm going to start by being nice - it certainly isn't 100% dreadful and t here is a reasonable amount of variety across the album. "21 Seconds" is a bit gimmicky, but it's also kinda interesting and the use of the Knight Rider theme tune as the backing track to "Ride With Us" works well (although apparently Busta Rhymes did the same in '98).  It was also fun to recognise Ms Dynamite - she certainly makes it easy by saying "dynamite" a few times, but ...