scaryblog

Continuing my journey across the output of The Bard Of Barking... William Bloke (1996) He took a bit of a break after DTTAH , but I continued to listen to it so I was pleased to see the follow-up finally come out and bought it - I think I listened to it a couple of times and never tried again. Which is a bit odd, because it's got one of my favourite songs of his on it... A Side 1. From Red To Blue This is quite a mournful song - it sounds like a lament and I assume that it is really, for some of his friends who have "faded from red to blue". I mean - imagining being mates with Billy and telling him you voted Conservative! 2. Upfield I knew this one and I like it - it's nicely jaunty, but listening back to it, it's maybe not the best produced, being a bit of a mess really. 3. Everyone Loves You Babe I vaguely recognised this one - I think I might have heard him play it live a couple of times. It's a most peculiar song lyrically and not his best vocal performanc

Continuing  my trip back through the 1958 album charts. 13/04/58 : The "Chirping" Crickets - The Crickets No weeks skipped over this time and this is one I'm actually, for a change, quite looking forward to - I believe this is the only Crickets album with Buddy Holly. So it's got to be good, right? Well, it starts with "Oh Boy", which is certainly a good start for any album - and it actually continues in a pretty high quality vein. It's interesting because it's closest to Elvis around this time, but the harmonies are just in a different league and so it's much more obviously a path into a lot of what came later in the 60s. "That'll Be The Day" is the other stand-out track (but quite possibly only because of familiarity) but I also liked "Last Night" - I can imagine Elvis doing a good version of this. All in all, this is a fine album which was an absolute pleasure to visit, particularly within the context of the other stuff

Continuing  my trip back through the 1958 album charts. 20/04/58 : The Pajama Game OST - Various Artists Another six weeks skipped over, of which  My Fair  Lady  was #1 for five of them and we saw no non-soundtrack albums at all, brings us to another soundtrack album about which I have absolutely no expectations. I had to take a punt on which version of this album to listen to because I could have gone for the musical version with John Raitt and Janis Paige or the film version with John Raitt and Doris Day - can you guess which one I went for? Yeah, you've got to love a bit of Doris, dontcha? I think few would describe this is as her finest work - it's fine and I imagine a load more fun if you're watching the visuals, but it felt very dated. John and Doris make a nice romantic couple though - even if I didn't really have the faintest idea what was going on. I was quite surprised to recognise "Hernando's Hideaway" - I never knew it came from this musical. W

Continuing  my trip back through the 1958 album charts. 08/06/58 : Pal Joey OST - Various Artists I've absolutely no expectations here for a bunch of songs from a film I've never heard of - what's the worst that can happen? Hmm, it's a few Sinatra songs, most notably "The Lady Is A Tramp" (which is a fine track), a couple of Jo Ann Greer numbers. of which I liked "Zip" and a LOAD of orchestral filler. There's nothing terrible about it, but it all feels very inessential - I think you'd really have to love the film to bother with this. We're at #4 in the charts this week on the last week of an eighteen week run, which seems amazingly successful. The rest of the top five were  My Fair  Lady ,  South Pacific , The Duke Wore Jeans and  The King And I  - a full house for soundtrack albums! Wikipedia doesn't have an entry for the soundtrack - there is a section in the film entry which gives the most ridiculous level of detail about which tr

Continuing my trip forward in time through the album charts 27/09/24 :  Gary - Blossoms Somewhat surprisingly, this is our FOURTH visit with Blossoms and it's all been a pretty peculiar mix - last time I described it as "indie-folk-disco" (whatever that is!).  So who knows quite what we're going to get here! Well, it's certainly not indie-folk-disco! On face value, it's pretty standard indie fare but the songs also have a definite 70s/80s retro vibe to them. I was trying to decide who they reminded me of and it took me most of the album, but I got there in the end - it was New Order, but the songs aren't as repetitive as you might expect from that reference. I quite enjoyed it, but it feels it would need several more listens to really get into - I'd certainly say it's worth checking out. I can't decide if I like the album cover or not though... We're at #1 with a new entry this week (their fourth #1 album) and the rest of the top five are 

Continuing  my trip back through the 1958 album charts. 29/06/58 : The Duke Wore Jeans OST - Tommy Steele Another week skipped over (which has absolutely nothing remarkable to discuss) brings us to someone I've not enjoyed our previous visits with and I also struggle to imagine me enjoying a film with that title, so let's just say expectations are not high here. Hmmm - it's not great, but it's not dreadful. I can see that it appealed to the "youth of the day" - it's all about a Cockney infiltrating the upper classes whilst pointing out the nonsense of it all. He's got a very characterful voice which tells a story well, if not the best singing voice - but the absolutely best bit about it was that it was only twenty minutes long. We're at #5 with a new entry on the chart this week - and that was all it ever managed. The rest of the top five were  My Fair  Lady  (a new entry at the top - our first of the year),  South Pacific  (another new entry),  Fr