scaryblog

Continuing my trip back through the 2001 album charts. 16/12/01 : Sunshine -   S Club 7 This is going to be cheesy, but it's cheese I remember with fondness - it will be interesting to see how kind time has been to it.  Hmmm - the fondly remembered cheese such as "Never Had A Dream Come True" and particularly  "Don't Stop Movin"  actually stand up pretty well. The rest of it definitely suffered from a lack of familiarity, but was pleasant enough on a track by track basis - yes, it's definitely cheesy but it walks the tightrope being taking itself seriously enough that they do a good job with it and not taking it so seriously that they believe they're creating works of genius. However, a whole album of it did get too much and when that whole album is 52 minutes long, I'm afraid it got far too much - amusingly my youngest listened to some of it and her "wtf is this?" reaction was most amusing. We're at #3 in the charts this week on th...

Continuing my trip back through the 2001 album charts. 23/12/01 : All Rise -   Blue Well, I wasn't expecting to follow Robbie with an album I was actually less keen to listen to - but hey, here we are. I'm lead to believe this is peak Blue (and I certainly don't mind the title track) but expectations are really quite low. Well, I can't assure you it's peak Blue, but it's certainly better than our first visit and probably better than our second visit (but I don't remember it at all). The opening, title track is actually pretty decent and the rest of it isn't dreadful and there's more variety there than I was expecting. Yes, a whole album of it was a bit too much but I think my main complaint is that it takes itself all a bit too seriously without the content to back it up - however, i t's fair to say I'm not the target market for this and I suspect others would be disappointed if they didn't chuck in some "oooh yeahs" and ...

A new year to start the New Year - starting my trip back through the 2001 album charts. 30/12/01 : Swing When You're Winning -   Robbie Williams There's a reasonable argument I should reject this album, but it was such a surprising cultural moment that even I don't feel I can, so it means we're starting the year with one that "we" own. This is our fifth visit with Mr Williams - I'm determined not to enjoy it, but I also have to admit I'm not going to hate it nearly as much as I would like to.  You know what? This is perfectly fine. Completely inessential, but he's not doing anyone any harm. For the most part, it's classic Sinatra-or-thereabouts tracks which Robbie does a decent job with on the vocals (along with some slightly peculiar guests) and they've obviously got some decent musicians in to lay down the backing tracks. He rarely does anything wildly original with them but, most importantly, he doesn't ruin them either - I don't...

     So, having got to the end of The Guardian's Top 50 albums of 2025, how have they done this year?   Overall, I think it was a pretty decent quality level without too many absolute stunners or stinkers. I was introduced to 25   new albums (a pleasing 50%, down from 31 last year) with eight having already been written up (down from ten last year), although there were six further albums which charted at #2 or #3 but were unlucky not to get a write-up. Best 15 I'm not 100% convinced that this year deserves a top 15, but it's what I went for last year and when I picked my initial list of definitelys and maybes, it came to 15 - so I just stopped there rather than doing any more thinking.  #46 - The Tubs #44 - Sabrina Carpenter #42 - Erika de Casier #38 - Ethel Cain #32 - Perfume Genius #30 - Oklou #25 - Wednesday #22 - Little Simz #16 - Pulp #13 - Suede #11 - Jade #7 - Lily Allen #5 - Lady Gaga #2 - CMAT #1 - Rosalia The only ones I hadn't p...

Completing my trip up The Guardian's  50 best albums of 2025 . #1 :  LUX - Rosalia With its lyrics in 13 languages and references to dozens of historical female saints, the fact that Lux manages to transcend scholarly chin-stroking and dry Wiki deep dives is near miraculous, and the credit is solely Rosalía’s. While this isn’t her first album to alchemise the past and present – see 2018’s second album El Mal Querer and its heady flamenco-R&B hybrid – the stakes are far higher on Lux, and the balancing act more pronounced. What elevates it, apart from its multi-layered melodies, rich compositions and engrained drama, is the playfulness at its heart. Like Björk during her effortless 90s peak, there’s a sense of wonderment to Rosalía’s voice that sweeps you up into its tornado. Even when she’s tearing your heart in two, as on La Yugular’s blossoming balladry, or the ascension to heaven on the closing Magnolias, you want to be right there with her. The 25th album I've previous...

Starting my trip up Empire's  top 20 TV shows of 2025 #20 :     Foundation It’s important to have at leat one show in your life that’s an undemanding, easy watch. A show that you can lie back and sink into while letting your brain switch off. Foundation is not that show. The third tranche of this ambitious adaptation of the Isaac Asimov series might have seen showrunner David S. Goyer take a step back from the helm, but its quality remains undimmed. The Cleonic triumvirate begins to crumble (Lee Pace’s Brother Day going full Lebowski), Harry Seldon’s (Jared Harris) plan shows signs of fraying at the edges, and all-powerful antagonist The Mule (a delightfully maniacal Pilou Asbæk) takes centre stage. There’s even a pair of space Influencers (Cody Fern and Synnøve Karlsen) thrown in for the Gen Z crowd. This is cerebral television at its most ambitious and a mind-bogglingly complex (and compelling) work of sci-fi that deserves to be seen by everyone. Come for talk about fou...