scaryblog

Continuing my trip back through the 2017 album charts. 18/08/17 : Adiós -  Glen Campbell There's an argument this should be ignored, but it gets included for sentimentality reasons because it's his last album - I'm such an old softie really. It's also, somewhat surprisingly, our first visit with the man.  Yeah, no-one's going to claim this is his best material, but things could be a lot worse - it was recorded after he had been diagnosed with Alzheimers and it's a load of tracks he'd always loved but had never recorded. I didn't know most of them, but I was surprised he'd never done "Everybody's Talkin'", best known for the  Harry Nilsson version but written and originally recorded by Fred Neil - Glen's version is a bit fussy, but his voice is spot on. As a bonus, t he streaming version of the album has been expanded to include some of his classics and things like "Rhinestone Cowboy", "Galveston" and "Tr...

Continuing my trip back through the 2017 album charts. 25/08/17 : The Peace And The Panic -  Neck Deep Our first visit and only our fourth ever mention for Neck Deep - apparently they're a Welsh pop-punk outfit, which doesn't exactly fill me with confidence, but let's see what we've got. Nah - this is OK. They're aiming for a British Blink-182 sound and they pretty much hit the spot. It's not aimed at me, but if you were looking for something to throw yourself around to in order to demonstrate some harmless teenage rebellion then there are far worse things you could subject yourself to - I imagine they were fun live too. We're at a surprisingly high #4 in the charts this week on the start of an unsurprisingly short three week run - but it's still their longest charting run of four albums from '15 to '24. The rest of the top five this week were  Ed Sheeran , an Elvis Presley best-of, Steven Wilson (a new entry) and Everything Everything (a new en...

Continuing my trip back through the 2017 album charts. 01/09/17 : Villains -  Queens Of The Stone Age Our fourth visit with QOTSA and my previous reactions have been indifference, aversion and mild appreciation - so we could be anywhere with this! Hmmm - they sound like they're going for a David Bowie/T Rex 70s-ish sound on this. And, whilst it's certainly not a sound I know that well, I feel like they've achieved a certain amount of success with it. I can't say I loved it, but it was an interesting enough listen which I can see people could get into (and possibly even me, given a few more listens) - whether the QOTSA fans did is less clear to me, but I guess Wikipedia will let me know. We're at #1 in the charts with a new entry this week on the start of a nine week run, which feels about what it deserved. The rest of the top five are  Ed Sheeran , The War On Drugs (a new entry), PVRIS (another one - and I like a bit of PVRIS so might check this out) and Shane Filan...

The first one I've never listened to... Peace In Our Time (1988) I've no idea why I never bought this. I remember a couple of the singles and quite liked them, but for some reason I just never got round to it - so I'm intrigued to see what I think of it. 1. King Of Emotion I remembered liking this - it wasn't as enjoyable as I was expecting, but it's not dreadful. It doesn't sound very Scottish compared their previous stuff though and the drums are ridiculously high in the mix. 2. Broken Heart (Thirteen Valleys) This was another one I remembered I liked - and this one has stood the test of time better (and it sounds more Scottish). It's still pretty understated on the guitar front - maybe they were given them a rest on this album. I wasn't expecting the pan pipes at the end though 3. Thousand Yard Stare Fine, but a bit repetitive - and that's all I can remember about it. 4. From Here To Eternity This starts with some ambient pan pipe-y things as well...

Continuing my trip back through the 2017 album charts. 08/09/17 : Freedom Child -  The Script For some reason, my default position on The Script is to be a bit sniffy about them, but then whenever I hear some of their stuff I don't mind it - so I'm trying to go into this with an open mind. Hmmm. I didn't like it, but I'm not entirely sure why - I think I feel it's just trying to be Snow Patrol (with bizarre Police-ish reggae notes in places) but without really having any understanding as to what that involves or even whether it's a good thing. It was all intensely forgettable without suggesting that repeat listens would make any better impression. We're at a somewhat surprising #1 with a new entry in the chart this week on the start of a decent twenty week run (god knows how). The rest of the top five were  Ed Sheeran , LCD Soundsystem (a new entry), OMD (another one) and Queens Of The Stone Age, with two more new entries in the top ten for Mogwai (#6) and J...

Continuing my trip back through the 2017 album charts. 15/09/17 : Sleep Well Beast -  The National This is our third visit with The National - I liked their early stuff but feel they somewhat lost their way after that, although the two visits from '23 were certainly listenable enough. I don't believe I've ever listened to this one, so am intrigued as to what I make of it. Yeah, this is pretty decent - it was the laid-back National sound that I like, but it has a load of interesting twiddly bits layered on top of it. It very much hit on first listen but also suggested that multiple listens would reveal more hidden jewels - and I would actually like to give it multiple listens (but obviously I'll report back in my end-of-year write-up that I've totally failed to manage to do so). We're at a somewhat surprising #1 with a new entry in the chart this week on the start of a five week run - this has been their only album to make it to the top (so far, at least). The re...