scaryblog

Continuing my trip back through the 2001 album charts. 25/03/01 : Renaissance -  Lionel Richie Our third visit with Lionel and I'm expecting this to be bearable, whilst at the same time in no way improving the quality of my life. Hmmm - well, it's certainly bearable and I actually found it a surprisingly interesting listen. Not because I liked the music (although I didn't hate it) but because I couldn't for the life of me think who was supposed to like it. It felt like Ricky Martin kinda music, but slowed down for grandad so he doesn't put his hip out whilst trying to grind away to it. I can't fault the production because it's all very clear sounding and the musicianship is also pretty good - I just don't see why anyone would actively search this out.  We're at #6 in the charts this week on his fourth week of a decent 22 week run, with this being as high as it got - however, somewhat peculiarly, this was his third run. It first popped in for five wee...

Continuing my trip back through the 2001 album charts. 01/04/01 : Know Your Enemy -  Manic Street Preachers Our eighth visit with them Manics, which puts them level with Bruce Springsteen, Taylor Swift and Neil Young - which is pretty illustrious company. I quite liked them around this time, but not enough to buy this - I'm not sure I've ever heard it so it will be interesting to see what I think of it. Hmmm. For the most part, I'd say it's a fine, if somewhat underwhelming Manics album - it feels like they've made an effort to be a bit rockier than their preceding (massively successful) albums. Which is fine if that's what they wanted to do but they need the tunes to back up such a move and nothing really jumped out at me (but conversely, nothing jumped out as dreadful either). The only tracks that did jump out were the ones where they've tried something completely different eg there was a disco number somewhere in the middle of it all which I certainly rai...

Continuing my trip forward in time through the album charts 20/02/26 : Wuthering Heights - Charli XCX Well, I don't think this is a controversial choice - but there are certainly questions to be asked as a result of meeting it. More on this later! Well, this is quite an interesting one. I actually quite enjoyed it because it's a decent soundtrack album and yet not really a soundtrack album at all - which is probably something I need to explain a bit further. The music doesn't sound particularly typical for Charli XCX, but it does sound like the sort of thing you'd want for a contemporary take on Wuthering Heights. As far as I'd know anyway - I'm not an expert on such things but it's swirling and emotive (although "House" is a bit of an odd track, but it features John Cale so that's not a huge surprise). However, all the tracks have lyrics, which I wasn't expecting for a soundtrack - I suspect they mostly don't feature in the film (and I...

Continuing my trip up Empire's   top 20 films of 2025 #19 :     The Brutalist In his attempt to make a movie monolith (itself about the making of a monolithic structure), filmmaker Brady Corbet intentionally went… well, monolithic. Captured in big, beautiful, blocky VistaVision, a three-hour behemoth with an in-built intermission and a multi-year-spanning narrative sprawl, The Brutalist is evocative of the structure whose creation it depicts. The story of Adrien Brody’s renowned architect László Tóth – fleeing the Holocaust and attempting to build a gigantic brutalist structure for a wealthy American client (Guy Pearce) – appears to be cold, imposing, sometimes inscrutable. And yet it’s also breathtaking in its construction, its concrete walls revealed to contain a major emotional punch come the final reel. Impeccably performed, laudable in its grand ambition, engrossing across its extended runtime, it’s a major work – entirely by design. I know this was critically well r...

Continuing my trip back through the 2001 album charts. 08/04/01 : Gorillaz -  Gorillaz Our third visit with Gorillaz and this is one where I liked the singles and was intrigued by the whole concept, so bought it (taking us to ten for the year) - I seem to recall I didn't mind it, but maybe there wasn't quite enough content for a whole album. Yeah - the singles are very much the high points with "Clint Eastwood" and "19-2000" easily being the stand-out tracks.  "Clint Eastwood" also has the distinct advantage that it doesn't overdo the Damon Albarn content - his voice is really quite annoying on a lot of this album. The other tracks are generally OK and have some quite interesting bleeps and rhythms involved, but there's not enough variety across the whole album to stop it getting repetitive -  56:56 is just too long, I'm afraid. We're at #3 in the charts this week on their second week of a surprisingly long 53 week run, with this be...

Continuing my trip back through the 2001 album charts. 15/04/01 : Songbird -  Eva Cassidy Yes, there's an argument this shouldn't be here because it's a compilation album but I think it counts as significant enough for us to include it and she's had three compilation albums that got to #1, so I feel we should include the original (and probably best). She opens things with "Fields Of Gold" which I think is a particularly fine cover version because, for me, it just adds something to the original - complimenting Sting on his songwriting ability, whilst also subtly drawing comment on his performing ability. Which is interesting when you compare it with her cover of "Songbird" which is possibly what she's best known for - don't get me wrong, this is still a very decent version but it doesn't really add anything to the original. The other tracks are all very much in the same vein and most of them are cover versions, but I'm not aware of the...