scaryblog

Continuing my trip back through the 1963 album charts. 22/12/63 : West Side Story Original Soundtrack -  Various Artists Ah, I was aware a decision was going to be required as to whether the film soundtrack required a separate visit from the musical  original cast recording  - but I wasn't aware it was going to come around quite so quickly! But actually, it wasn't such a tricky decision after a quick listen to the first minute of both of them because they're significantly different - and the Wikipedia entry also contains quite a few interesting facts which I obviously have to bore you with! It certainly starts in traditional film soundtrack style with  over 11 minutes of a overture and a prologue before we get any singing - they certainly wouldn't do things that way these days. However, it also does something else you wouldn't see these days by including snippets of dialogue, which actually works quite well. The songs are pretty much as you'd expect because if y...

Starting my trip back through the 1963 album charts. 29/12/63 : Please Please Me -  The Beatles Back to the 60s and boom - we're back with The Beatles. This is our eleventh visit with the lads (taking them level with Madonna) and (I believe) our penultimate one - I'm expecting to find it a bit twee, but very much of historical interest. Yeah, I can see this being very exciting if you lived in the early 60s, but it doesn't, for me, translate so well to the current day - there's definitely more harmonica than I feel the need for (although I do have to admit that "Love Me Do" is catchy). It was also nice to catch up with "Twist And Shout" for the third time, after having previously had versions from Status Quo and Chaka Demus & Pliers (fortunately I've avoided The Smurfs version, which I can imagine is somewhat challenging). Overall, I'd say this is  an interesting first step on their musical careers, so I'm glad I caught up with it - an...

I'd given up buying music by this time, so it was interesting to see what we've got here. I'd say the year did well enough across the board, introducing me to some albums I really should have previously heard, but it didn't exactly sparkle. I wasn't expecting the ownership ratio to be high, but I thought there might have been a few bought by the lovely Mrs Reed or the lovely Misses Reed  might have bought  - however it would have been 0% if we hadn't met Olly Murs in the very last week of the year, bringing us to a measly 2%. Or we can stretch it to 6% if you want to include both Ed Sheeran albums we'd previously met.  Looking at the best selling albums of the year, I don't think it will surprise anyone that the top spot was taken by  Ed Sheeran  - it was released in March, spent nineteen weeks of the year at #1 and never dropped any lower than #6. The #2 spot was taken by Rag'n'Bone Man , which was hardly a slouch in the grand scheme of things -...

Completing my trip back through the 2017 album charts. 06/01/17 : 24 Hrs - Olly Murs Well, we've waited a long time but we've finally met an album that "we" own because our youngest went through a huge Olly phase -  amusingly, one of the family still goes to see him live and I can assure you it's not her (or me). This is our third visit with Olly - w e often listened to the CDs in the car but a quick skim of the track titles suggest this wasn't one of the albums we listened to often, but I'm sure it will all be perfectly listenable. Ah, yeah - I actually recognised "You Don't Know Love", "Years And Years" and "Unpredictable", with the rest of the album being pretty much in the same vein. He's either in love, wants to be in love or has just split up (but quite possibly still in love) but there's a decent amount of variety here (within limits, obviously). As usual, this isn't going to convert anyone but it was de...

    So, having got to the end of a hasty run through The Guardian's Top 50 albums of 2017, how have they done this year?   Overall, for what has been a pretty average year for the albums I've met in the main chart, I thought that, once we ignored the left-field offerings to make the list "interesting", this was a pretty decent list with some top albums that I'd missed out on. I'd only actually heard ten of the albums before, with eight of them having been previously written up.  Best 16 Best 16?!? What kind of nonsense is this? Well, just wait until I explain the thinking behind it... I've always done this exercise by listing the albums I like or admire and seeing where that leads us - generally, it's been somewhere between ten and fifteen albums so all has been good. But this year? Not so much... ...but for good reasons! I got to about 23 when I was still halfway through the top ten and decided desperate action was required - so all albums in the top ...

Completing my trip up  The Guardian's 50 best albums of 2017 . #1 : Masseduction  - St Vincent A kind of teasing irony is detectable on Masseduction, a musical striptease on which Annie Clark – who performs as St Vincent – exposes herself on her own terms. The results are spectacular: full of drama and gratifyingly bizarre sonic choices. Clark makes a rock-star power play by embracing thrilling glam traditions while producing something strange, new and unequivocally moving. This is only our second ever visit with Annie Clark aka St Vincent, but she's been mentioned loads of times as a guest artist or an influence. She always strikes me as someone who could have been massively popular if she'd decided to play things that way, but she's very much done things her own way, thank you very much. I listened to this back in the day when it came out and enjoyed it, but can't say I've ever revisited it, so am looking forward to doing so - and because it's #1, let'...