scaryblog

Continuing my trip back in time through the album charts 03/07/83 :  Body Wishes - Rod Stewart Well, if I'm being honest, this wouldn't have been my first choice this week but I've double checked and it definitely isn't a greatest hits, so I'm stuck with it.  Ho hum. Actually, the first track "Dancin' Alone" is actually pretty decent - it has a real 60s Stones feel to it.  And that's followed by "Baby Jane" which isn't dreadful, I guess.  After that though, I'm afraid it's all a bit dull and turgid.  OK - it's very dull and turgid.  I struggle to imagine anyone needs this in their lives and the album cover is perfectly horrible as well.  So I wouldn't own up to possessing this even if I did.  Which, of course, I don't - 9/26. Amazingly, we're at #5 in the charts in its fourth week into a 20 week run (peaking at #5, but spending three weeks there).  It then spent another seven weeks in the charts across three ru...

Continuing my trip back in time through the album charts 10/07/83 :  Crises : Mike Oldfield Ah, the second best known Mike Oldfield album - despite no-one remembering it even exists.  But it's got "Moonlight Shadow" on it, so it can't be completely rubbish.  My problem with Mike Oldfield is that, like Jean-Michel Jarre, it always seems like he has a great time producing his music but then very few people have a great time actually listening to it.  So I can't say I was approaching this with any great deal of enthusiasm - and at 185 minutes long, I definitely wasn't going to listen to the super deluxe version. And well, I still like "Moonlight Shadow" so not all is lost.  Once again, we have a game of two sides - the first being the 20 minute title track, which isn't really one track at all but four or five unconnected tracks plonked (it's a technical term) together.  None of them are particularly memorable which leads to the slight suspicion ...

Continuing my trip back in time through the album charts 17/07/83 :  The Luxury Gap - Heaven 17 I remember listening to this, not minding it and then never listening to it again.  More fool me, eh - let's see what I think after a gap of 39 years.  However, first we have to describe a very lucky escape... ...because at #5 this week we have Julio by - the one, the only - Julio Iglesias.  Uh-oh.  Oh well - "rules are rules" I thought, so I started listening to it.  And loving it, obviously.  But, because the first track was in Spanish, I thought I'd read up about it on Wikipedia.  And - guess what?  It's a GREATEST HITS album!  Yay!  Part of me thought it would have been nice to listen to it because I remember my dad's mum liking him - but then I actually listened to it and realised this was not going to be the case.  So it was summarily ditched - phew. So back to Heaven 17 - yeah, overall, I quite liked it.  "Crushed By The ...

Continuing my trip forward in time through the album charts 24/06/22 :  Honestly, Nevermind - Drake Our third visit with Mr Drake (silly me - he's Mr Graham, Drake being his middle name) and neither previous visit has done anything to challenge my view that he's mystifyingly popular - and I'd be amazed if this was the album to convince me otherwise. And well, there are some signs of life here - but as a whole, my views are at least confirmed, if not reinforced.  I actually quite liked "Sticky", "Massive" and "Tie That Binds" - but only the backing track portion thereof (they reminded me of Orbital).  The vocals and lyrics here (and everywhere else) are bland (it's all about either being with or not being his latest woman) and vocoded beyond belief - it's all extremely tedious. I can't help but feel that if we could just get rid of Drake, then there might be a decent album here - but I'm not sure that's all that likely to hap...

Continuing my trip back in time through the album charts 24/07/83 :  Synchronicity - The Police I remember liking this but haven't listened to it in yonks, so am looking forward to it - but I am wondering whether it will feel a bit dated? Oh.  That wasn't at all what I remembered - it's very much a game of two halves. Regarding the first side, apart from the book-ending "Synchronicity I/II" it's really not very good at all and  "Mother" is really, really not a good track (I was expecting Stuart Copeland to be responsible for this, but instead it's Andy Summers).  And then you get to the second side which starts with "Every Step You Take", "King Of Pain" and "Wrapped Around Your Finger" - all of which are very fine tracks.  I even like "Tea In The Sahara" but I can appreciate it won't be for everyone.  So I can only imagine that the first half of the home taped version I had at some time (taking us to 9/...

Continuing my trip down The Guardian's  Top 50 TV Shows of 2021 .   #25 :  Only Murders In The Building A new show starring Steve Martin and Martin Short didn’t have to try very hard; a splash of the old charm and viewers would have fallen in line regardless. The genius of Only Murders in the Building, though, was how deftly it glued its comic shtick to a rigorously tight murder mystery. Much, much better than it had any right to be. I find Steve Martin and Martin Short a charming pair, but possibly a little too pleased with themselves and prone to over-extending the joke (to say the least), so I can't say I'd have bothered with this.  But, I have to now (particularly after my appalling behaviour on #24) and I'd have to say the final sentence of The Guardian's write-up has got my hopes up. And well, to cut a long story short, The Guardian are indeed correct.  The Martins are  charming together but they do need someone to keep them in line - and, obviou...

Continuing my trip back in time through the album charts 31/07/83 :  You And Me Both - Yazoo What a fascinating musical career Vince Clarke has had - but for me this album and Upstairs At Erics are his crowning glory, with his slightly quirky take on things perfectly offset by the enthralling and intense yearning of Alison Moyet (who hasn't had the easiest of lives, but when I saw her at Glastonbury in the early 2010s she was infectiously joyous and could still belt out a tune with the best of them).  I've not listened to this album in many a year, but was very much looking forward to revisiting it. And yeah, it's still great - I don't think people consider it as a classic 80s album, but it's totally up there with the best of them.  "Nobody's Diary" and "Softly Over" are classic opening tracks and the rest of it is no slouch with  "Mr Blue" and "Walk Away From Love" being my favourites.   It's a very 80s sound, but sub...

The third in an occasional series of play reviews... The Glass Menagerie : The Duke Of York's Theatre Three plays so far this year - which is more than I've managed in the previous decade, I reckon.  I decided that because I wasn't going to be working for a bit, I'd make more of an effort to be cultural - but obviously my unfortunate inability to remain unemployed meant that failed miserably.  But I'd already booked this so I thought "well at least I'll be working in London, so it'll be easy to go".  And then the train strike happened - but luckily I'd booked a matinee, so whilst it had the potential to be touch and go if it was a long play, at least I'd get to see most of it before the last train back home, at the incredibly late time of 5:50 (and as it was, the play was a normal length and I was on the 5:19, so all was good). I booked to see this for two reasons - firstly it's by Tennessee Williams and his Orpheus Descending (featurin...

Continuing my trip back in time through the album charts 07/08/83 :  Punch The Clock - Elvis Costello And The Attractions Our third visit with Mr Costello and I have a sneaking suspicion that this is going to be much better received than the previous two - I like a lot of stuff he's done over the years but I also find a lot of it pretty tiresome, however from what I can gather from a sneak peak at the track listing, this has a far better quality/dross ratio. And yeah, I really liked this - "Every Day I Write The Book", "Shipbuilding" and "Pills And Soap" are all very fine tracks indeed (I own the latter as a single) but the rest of the album didn't suffer a noticeable dip in quality.  I don't feel the need to say a lot more about it - if you know the classic Elvis Costello sound, this has it in spades.  If you don't, then check it out - what's the worst that can happen?  It is however, another album that neither of us own (although I be...

Continuing my trip back in time through the album charts 14/08/83 :  The Principle Of Moments - Robert Plant I remember the single "Big Log" from around this time - I remember it sounding a somewhat incongruous presence in the charts which made me wonder what this Robert Plant guy had ever done which meant he'd crashed the charts with it.  Look, I was young - right?  But yes, I still should have known - I was aware of Led Zep, but just wasn't aware of their personnel for a few more years.  Anyways, back to the album, I've never heard it in all the intervening years so am quite looking forward to it. Hmmm - it's all a bit low-key noodley for me, I'm afraid.  It might sound great turned up loud, but I listened to it in the garden and I'm not sure the neighbours would have appreciated it.  "Big Log" is still a fine track - it's kinda different from what you're expecting, being more of an Eagles track than anything else. And neither of us...

Continuing my trip back in time through the album charts 21/08/83 :  Alpha - Asia I vaguely remember the band, but can't tell you anything about them - I seem to recall they were prog/soft rock but I could have been totally making that up. No - it turns out, I was pretty much on the money there.  I can see this would have appealed at the time to a lot of dads harking back to the 70s - I think my dad would have liked it, but I don't remember him being into it.  I was reminded of Yes (with good reason, as we'll discuss later) and ELO - it's not really my sort of thing, but I enjoyed it more than I was expecting in an "oooh - this is different" kinda way.  If you like overblown guitars and keyboards without the sound being too challenging, then check this out - I suspect it'll be right up your street.  Again, it's not very 80s but we've had quite a lot of that recently (alongside some fantastically 80s albums!) - it's also a very 70s album cover! ...

Continuing my trip down The Guardian's  Top 50 TV Shows of 2021 .   #24 :  Call My Agent! Call My Agent!’s fourth season saw a change of personnel, with showrunner par excellence Fanny Herrero moving on to pastures new. With her departure came a noticeable drop in quality, but let’s be clear. A Herrero-less Call My Agent! is still Call My Agent! It was stylish, funny and star-studded, and still ran circles around most other shows. This year’s season was publicised as its last, but calm down – a fifth season and a movie are now on their way. So, currently I've still got #21 and #23 on the go - not sure the former is going to be finished, but the latter looks like I'll stay the course (I did!).  So how can I possibly be writing up #24 already?  Maybe I've already seen it and so just have the review all lined up in my mind ready to go?  Well, no... This is going to sound odd but I've decided not to watch this because I've heard it's really good.  Bas...

Continuing my trip back in time through the album charts 28/08/83 :  Flick Of The Switch : AC/DC Our third visit with AC/DC and I found their 1980 album far preferable to their 2020 album , so I have some hope for this (but not an awful lot). Well, it's safe to say it doesn't stray too far from their previously winning formula, so if you like Back In Black then I suspect you're going to like this - but I'd struggle to describe it as progress and a whole album's worth does get a little tiresome for me.  The title track and "Guns For Hire" are fine examples of "that sort of thing" though and I liked "Landslide" because it was slightly different (only slightly mind) from the rest of the album.  The album cover really doesn't work well against a white background though, does it?   And no, neither of us never came anywhere near to owning this one so we slip to 8/18.  We're at #4 in the charts for a third week in a row - this was a n...

Continuing my trip forward in time through the album charts 17/06/22 :  Gold Rush Kid - George Ezra I am aware of Mr Ezra and have even heard him live (I wasn't quite close enough to see him and didn't quite care enough to move), so I'm expecting an album of faintly cheesy tracks sung by a man with a very deep voice desperately trying to regain the heights of "Shotgun".  And failing. And I'm partially right.  On the tracks where he's attempting to out-Shotgun himself, he does indeed sound somewhat desperate - "Green Green Grass" is so bad that even my youngest turns her nose up at it.  But, when he's not trying such things, there are some reasonable tunes on there - "Sweetest Human Being Alive" is really quite a decent track indeed (although it is, obviously, still pretty cheesy).  This is the sort of album that will be played an awful lot over the summer - without anyone owning up to putting it on.  I can't say I'm convince...