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Continuing my trip back through the 1963 album charts. 01/09/63 : Hats Off To Del Shannon - Del Shannon I know Del Shannon did "Runaway" (which I like in an amusing 60s cheesy fashion) and I believe he was American (which Google confirms) but apart from that, I've got nothing, so I'm intrigued as to where this takes us. Hmmm - I wasn't expecting to start with yet more bloody yodelling. Although the track in question, "The Swiss Maid", is actually quite funny because it describes a girl who lived on a mountain and was pining for love and you assume she'll get it sorted by the end of the song - but no, she just dies. I didn't mind the album though and even quite liked "Hats Off To Larry" - I think it's already sounding a bit dated by now, but they are decent enough tunes and with twelve tracks lasting 28 minutes, there's not enough time to get bored with it. He's a bit menacing on the album cover though! We've finally reac...

From Marina to Nerina! For some artists, everything just comes together on one album - and for me, Nerina Pallot's second album Fires, which came out in '05 is just about perfect. I bought it without knowing anything about her and it turned out to be a lovely collection of songs performed well  with decent lyrics and tunes . I've dipped into a few of her other albums over the years, but none of them have stuck with me in the same way that Fires has (and it still gets a listen on a fairly regular basis). But I'd never seen her live, so when I saw she was appearing at the Royal Albert Hall to celebrate the 25th anniversary of her debut album, I thought I'd pop along to see how she's bearing up after all this time - what's the worst that could happen?!? Well - I guess it could have been scheduled on the same date as railway engineering works and Arsenal's victory parade, which mean that my train stopped at St Pancras and I was forced to emerge into an absol...

Continuing my trip back through the 1963 album charts. 15/09/63 : Billy - Billy Fury Our first visit with Billy - I know he was very popular (only for a short-ish time?) but apart from that, I can tell you absolutely nothing about him. Interestingly, this album isn't available on Amazon Music but fortunately Spotify came to the rescue. And it is OK - I imagine it was starting to feel a bit dated by '63 because it's more like late 50's skiffle-ish rock'n'roll but it's got a decent beat and swing, daddy-o. This is the sort of thing that Cliff should have been doing when he was trying to convince us he was Elvis but maybe if he had, he'd had faded into obscurity like Billy did - and we couldn't have that now, could we? I can't say I loved it, but it was nice to finally get round to meeting the lad.  We're at #15 in the charts this week on his 20th week of a 21 week run, with it having peaked at #6 in its fifth, sixth and tenth weeks. The top fiv...

Continuing my trip forward in time through the album charts 29/05/26 : Florescence - Maisie Peters  Our third visit with Maisie (and somewhat surprisingly, I've also seen her live twice) and I've generally liked both her and her music, so here's hoping for more of the same. Well, it's not more of the same - she's switched from a poppy sound to a more folky kinda thang. And I like it - there's definitely a relationship theme going on but there are good relationship and bad relationship songs so it doesn't get too tiresome one way ("yay, men are the best!") or the other ("boo to all men!"). I was reminded of, and I mean this in a nice way, Ed Sheeran - back in the day when he used to just make decent songs with simple but heartfelt lyrics, so don't let that put you off. We're at #1 with a new entry in the chart this week - she's had three albums out and she's had two #1s and one #2, so well done her! The rest of the top five...

Continuing my trip back through the 1963 album charts. 08/09/63 : It Happened At The World's Fair - Elvis Presley Obviously we weren't going to be able to get through the year without at least one visit with The King - this takes up him up to eighteen and two clear at the top ahead of The Rolling Stones. And I'm sure it will all be perfectly bearable but also completely inessential. Well - this is peculiar. Half of it is rock'n'roll-ish, but it's more swing-y in a Sinatra kinda style than I was expecting - unexpected but not bad. And the other half is more like nursery rhymes with some particularly bad lyrics - unexpected but bad. I can't complain too much though because it's ten tracks which are done in 22 minutes, so you can't say it outstays its welcome - but it was surprisingly close to doing so. We're at #14 in the charts this week on his nineteenth week of a twenty week run, with it having peaked at #4 on it's 3rd-7th and 13th-14th week...

Continuing my trip back through the 1963 album charts. 22/09/63 : Summer Holiday - Cliff Richard & The Shadows Oh good - them again. Which brings us up to eight visits with Cliff - but at least I know I'm going to tolerate at least one of these tracks. I even remember not minding the film when I saw it many moons ago - and found it most amusing it had Una Stubbs in it because I only knew her from Celebrity Squares and Give Us A Clue at the time. Well, I obviously knew I was going to recognise the title track, but I'd forgotten that "Bachelor Boy" was also on this album - I also recognised "Foot Tapper", but that was mostly because I'd heard when listening to various Shadows tracks earlier this year. The rest of it is in a similar vein - it's a bit dated and twee, but it is at least charmingly dated and twee, so I didn't mind it. We're at #15 in the charts this week on their last week of a 36 week run, with it having peaked at #1 - for FOU...