scaryblog

Continuing my trip up The Guardian's   top 50 films of 2024 #47 Emilia Pérez Jacques Audiard’s gangster trans musical about a Mexican cartel leader who hires a lawyer to arrange his transition is carried along by its cheesy Broadway energy. Skipping over Love Lies Bleeding (#49) because we've already seen it and Monster (#48) because The Guardian describes it as "deliberately dense" which I just can't face, brings us to, somewhat surprisingly, our third visit with a Jacques Audiard film. The first one was good and the second one was somewhat pointless, so who knows what we're going to get here?  Well, actually I've got quite a good idea because there's been a LOT written about it, particularly about how the Mexicans weren't all that impressed with how it depicted their country and how its Oscars campaign was somewhat  derailed by some earlier comments made by  Karla Sofía Gascón. So I'm intrigued to see what it's like - but I'm not e...

Continuing my trip back through the 1979 album charts. 23/09/79 : Discovery -  Electric Light Orchestra Our third visit with Jeff Lynne et al and the results have been mixed so far with their 1983 offering being surprisingly bland and their 1977 offering being surprisingly enjoyable - maybe this will surprisingly somewhere in between. Hmmm - it's very ELO, with them also trying out some different stuff like disco or ballads. I guess if you're a fan of theirs, then you're going to be happy with it but it didn't really click with me. I was surprised to recognise "Don't Bring Me Down" because I don't think I ever knew it was them but apparently it's their biggest hit in the US and their second biggest hit - after? Anyone? No, not "Mr Blue Sky", but "Xanadu" which got to #1 in '80. I was also surprised when I was playing this in the car that the lovely Mrs Reed sang along with "The Diary Of Horace Wimp" - I never had ...

Continuing my trip forward in time through the album charts 20/06/25 : Don't Tell The Dog - James Marriott  Not a name I know, but it makes me think of James Herriott - will it be farmyard noises? Probably not... Yeah, I quite liked this - it's got a decent sound to it.  I read he likes Foals and you can definitely hear that on this but I was also reminded of Howard Jones and RHCP in places - I'm interested to see how much James contributes because there's some very decent keyboard and guitar skills on display here. I'm quite surprised it got to #1 but I guess it's all about the fans and he must have enough of them - either that or everyone just loved the dog on the album cover. We're at #1 with a new entry in the charts this week and the rest of the top five are the Oasis best-of (up from #14 in the charts last week, with 615 weeks on the chart),  Sabrina , Ed Sheeran and Pulp (who were very good live ). So what other new entries do we have this week? The ...

Continuing my trip back through the 1979 album charts. 30/09/79 : Rock'n'Roll Juvenile -  Cliff Richard There's really no escaping Cliff, is there?!? This is our sixth visit with him, but do you know - I'm actually expecting this to be bearable. Not great mind (or rock'n'roll or juvenile), but bearable - don't let me down, Cliff! Yeah - it's definitely bearable with Cliff being in "not exactly cool, but not totally unhip" mode. There's no obvious musical theme to the album with him trying out pop, rock, funk and soul and "Sci-Fi" is kinda prog-disco, which is most peculiar, but none of the tracks are awful. And even I have to admit "Carrie" and "We Don't Talk Any More" are actually pretty decent, although it's weird the latter is the last track on the album. We're at #4 in the charts this week on his fourth week of a fourteen week run, with this being as high as it got in its second, third and fourt...

The journey continues... MTV Unplugged (1993) This is an odd one because it's a completely unnecessary cash-in, but it's a completely unnecessary cash-in with the knowledge of everyone involved so that's fine, right? Weirdly, I think it might well be, because I was certainly happy with it. 1. These Are Days A perfectly fine version, but not really adding anything to the album version. 2. Eat For Two Whereas this is slowed down, has added cello and I think I prefer Natalie's slightly more trained/restrained voice on this version than on the original version. 3.  Candy Everybody Wants Nothing wrong with this version, but it's hardly essential. 4. I'm Not The Man This is such a depressing song - I guess it acts as a change of pace, but I'd have been fine without it. 5. Don't Talk This is a much better change of pace, slowed down compared with the initial version - I liked it. 6. Hey Jack Kerouac Not massively different from the original version, but I think...

Continuing my trip back through the 1979 album charts. 07/10/79 : The Raven -  The Stranglers Another mini week of three days to allow them to change over accounting processes, but at least this one gives us an album there's a chance I'll like - this is our third visit with The Stranglers and they've been surprisingly bearable so far. Yeah, it's bearable - but it's also certainly peculiar. It feels like it should be given the dreaded "post punk" label, but more in a literal "what they did after punk" meaning. There's very much a rebellious spirit to it, but it pushes musical boundaries in ways I certainly wasn't expecting and there's also a decent amount of skill involved.  I was also surprised to recognise "Duchess", but only from My Life Story's cover version - even though The Stranglers' version was released as a single that got to #14 at the time (apparently the video was banned because they dressed up as choirbo...