scaryblog

Continuing my trip back through the 1971 album charts. 26/09/71 : Man In Black - Johnny Cash Our second visit with the original MIB (and the last one was over five years ago!) - I'd struggle to say I'm a fan, but I admire the man for his dedication over the years, so I'm happy to listen to this. To my surprise, I didn't mind this at all! It's pretty straightforward guitar-based US country/folk, but it's well done - earnest but not overly so. And I actually liked the title track and "Look For Me" - the addition of June Carter Cash on the latter definitely lifts it. It's also nicely different from everything else we've heard so far this year, so that made for a pleasant change. And it's a pretty cool album cover as well. We're all the way down at #18 in the charts this week (skipping over a LOT of compilation albums) on his third week of a seven week run, with this being as high as it got. The top five this week were  Rod Stewart , Deep ...

Continuing my trip forward in time through the album charts 07/08/26 : petal - Ariana Grande  Our third visit with Ms Grande and every time I've tried to get over her portrayal of Cat Valentine, but never quite managed it - third times a charm, eh? You know what - maybe it is. I obviously didn't love it, but I also didn't find it too annoying and at 36 minutes long, it can't be accused of overstaying its welcome. I actually think I'd go as far as saying I liked "Never Get Over Me" - what was I thinking? Our guest reviewer this week is my youngest and she declares it to be a great album (and she wasn't that impressed with the last one ) - I'm guessing Ariana will probably be more interested in her opinion than mine, so all is good. I also don't think I've have recognised her in the photo without the slight clue of it being on the album cover. We're obviously at #1 with a new entry in the chart this week - her sixth consecutive album to d...

Continuing my trip back through the 1971 album charts. 03/10/71 : Every Good Boy Deserves Favour - The Moody Blues To my surprise, this is our third visit with The Moody Blues - I don't remember either of the previous ones but my posts tell me they were both very strange, so it's hard to imagine we're not going to have some more strangeness here. Actually, there's not a lot of strangeness here - this sounds much more like I was expecting a Moody Blues album to sound. There's obviously a load of musical skill involved - in places there are many different melodies all going on at the same time and it makes a nice enough sound. But...the lyrics are (in most places) really quite bad and, despite the album only being 45 minutes long, it felt like it went on for hours, so it's a no from me. And what is going on with that album cover? We're at #12 in the charts this week on their tenth week of a sixteen week run with it having peaked, to my surprise, at #1 in its s...

Continuing my trip forward in time through the album charts 31/07/26 : Music, Fashion, Film - Charli XCX  Our fourth visit with Charli and our second this year and I'm expecting this to be the usual well put together likeable, whilst not entirely loveable, stuff. And yeah, that's where we are. It's a bit more backward looking and old school than I was expecting, but the girl certainly knows how to put a choon together. My only other comment would be that nothing really jumped out at me on first listen - so "likeable, but not entirely loveable" is a very fair comment. We're at #1 with a new entry in the charts this week which makes her the first British female artist ever to have two #1 albums in the same year. The rest of the top five are Michael Jackson, Olivia Rodrigo , Snow Patrol (a re-entry) and Olivia Dean  - the ladies are definitely winning the charts at the minute, with Sienna Spiro also doing well to hang in there at #6. So what other new entries ha...

Continuing my trip back through the 1971 album charts. 10/10/71 : Second Album - Curved Air This is only the third ever mention of Curved Air - both previous ones came on entries for Focus albums which were most peculiar things, so that pretty much sets the scene for some 70s weirdness. I believe they're viewed as pretty important these days though, so I'm slightly intrigued as to what I'm getting. Yup - it's pretty intriguing, if only because it features a WOMAN! How very enlightened for the world of prog. And it is very proggy, but it doesn't feel like your standard prog - partially because of the presence of the female vocals from Sonja Kristina but also, for me, because it doesn't seem to be taking itself quite so seriously. I liked this a lot more than I was expecting - I'd struggle to argue that it's not a load of old nonsense, but it is at least an interesting pile of old nonsense. I can also imagine it inspired quite a few artists across multiple...

Continuing my trip back through the 1971 album charts. 17/10/71 : Surrender - Diana Ross Our third solo visit with Diana (along with two Supremes visits) and what you get with Diana is very dependent upon the year in question - and I've absolutely no idea what sort of stuff she was doing at this time. I'm sure it will be done well, but whether I actually like it is very uncertain - it's nice to see an album featuring a named woman on it though (our first of the year). Hmmm. Double hmmm. This is a curious one. There's no doubting Diana's got skills, but this album very much does not show them off. Both the recording quality and the sound levels of the various instruments are really remarkably poor - I'd have guessed this was a mid 60s album if I didn't know better (particularly when you consider how decent some of the production has been on albums this year). And the songs are also decidedly average, with the exception of "I'm Still Waiting" (wh...