scaryblog

Continuing my trip up the list of the most streamed songs for each year.   1966 : Paint It, Black  - The Rolling Stones  Yup, I know this one and like it - it's gotta be one of my favourite Stones tracks (it's probably between this, "Mother's Little Helper" and "Sympathy For The Devil").  I'm not entirely sure it's one of most people's favourites though, but let's just assume that logic isn't involved here - that seems safest. Wikipedia has a massive amount (354 milliPeppers) for a single song - firstly, we have to note that it comes in at 3:46 which is far and away the longest track we've had so far.  Apparently, it's a " raga rock song with Indian, Middle Eastern, and Eastern European influences and lyrics about grief and loss " - I don't think I'd ever considered what it was about but think I'd assumed it was about depression.  Apparently all the Stones contributed to the songwriting, based around a &q

Continuing my trip back in time through the album charts 18/02/73 : Who Do We Think We Are  - Deep Purple My first Deep Purple album - which feels like a bit of a surprise to me because I would have expected one of the #AOTD dinosaurs to pick one of them - I also don't think I can name a single album of theirs.  It's safe to say I'm expecting a bit of rawk. And yeah, rawk is what we've got.  It's not exactly my sort of thing, but I didn't mind it at all.  It's interesting to compare this with the Faces and Status Quo albums because, like those two, this doesn't sound like an awful lot of planning went into it.  But, unlike those two, this just sounds like a set of guys gelling well and giving each other a bit of space to breathe - there's a lot of skill on display.  I quite liked "Girl From Tokyo" but I was intrigued by "Mary Long" - it's obviously about Mary Whitehouse but I'm wondering why she's been renamed.  It&#

Continuing my trip back in time through the album charts 25/02/73 : Piledriver  - Status Quo Nine months before this , it's our second Quo album of the year as well.  And w e know what we're going to get from a Quo album, don't we?    But actually, there's a lot more variety here than I was expecting (that's doesn't mean it's any good though).  T he opening track, "Don't Waste My Time" is very Quo indeed, but  "A Year" has a surprisingly Eagles sound to it, "All The Reasons" is just some very odd noodling with downplayed vocals and "Roadhouse Blues" is just waaay too long.  I didn't mind "Paper Plane" but on the whole album  Francis's voice really isn't the best - he's never reached great vocal heights in his career, but he was certainly still on the upward slopes here.  And the guitar playing isn't exactly great either - it all reminds me of the Faces album in terms of its ramshackle

  The lovely Mrs Reed and our eldest disappeared off to New York for the weekend (as you do), leaving me and the youngest at somewhat of a loose end.  By chance, free tickets to see The Vamps popped up with work so I asked her if she fancied it - not expecting too much enthusiasm, but she was keen so I thought "what's the worst that can happen?".  What I saw surprisingly little enthusiasm for was the news that we'd been moved into a suite - I was way more excited about this than she was.   Either way, Isobel & I toddled off to The O2 on a Sunday night, queued for ages to purchase a wildly expensive teeshirt (35 quid - and one look at the rest of the audience told you they sold a LOT of them) and headed off to find our seats.   At which point the excitement kicked in - "Are we REALLY in here?!?".  That's more like it, my girl! But, before we get to the main act, we have two support acts to enjoy/experience/endure.  First up - Henry Moodie who is one o

Continuing my trip forward in time through the album charts 25/11/22 :  Sonder - Dermot Kennedy I always forget my opinion of Dermot - is he the slightly wet male singer-songerwriter type for which I can see no reason for their existence (eg James Bey, Tom Odell, Ben Howard) or is there something more to him which surprises me, but not enough that I actually remember there's more to him?  There's only one way to find out... Ah, he's the latter - he uses an beepy rather than acousticy background to slightly lift him above the morass.  But only slightly.  It's "fine" but, writing this up two days after listening to it, I remember absolutely none of it - I seem to recall it was mostly about finding and losing your soulmate, but I can't be bothered checking.  If you like Dermot, then you like him - and the good news is you don't have to compete with me for his affection. We're at #1 with a new entry this week  (the things that top the charts these days

Continuing my trip back in time through the album charts 04/03/73 : The Six Wives Of Henry VIII  - Rick Wakeman I knew of Rick Wakeman from his appearances on various chat and panel shows long before I had the faintest idea he could even play the keyboards, let alone had a long and illustrious career doing so.  I'm expecting this to be very show-offy, but in a nice (if somewhat pointless) way. Yeah, this is all perfectly melodious and obviously features a lot of skill from Rick and others but I've got no idea why anyone would want to listen to it.  That's prog for you I guess.  It is, however, surprisingly short at only 36:36 long - I was fully expecting to have to give up most of my weekend to listen to his frantic noodling. We're at #10 in the charts this week on his third week of a thirteen week run (which feels generous) with it having peaked at #7 (ditto).  Surprisingly, it then popped up in the charts on seven more runs, only providing nine weeks in total but with

      Well, I'm not happy yet - this final list had better sort me out, 43.  Wear glitter Apparently Ganni have launched biodegradable glitter, so all you Guardian types can breathe easy now.  Unless you have sparkalophobia, apparently.  Either way, I'm pretty certain that me wearing glitter would not cheer my children up. 44.  Ice, baby Follow an online tutorial and ice a cake.  That might cheer me up, but I suspect a spot on Bake Off - An Extra Slice would be a more likely result - the rubbish cakes are one of the few things I'm almost guaranteed to laugh at on telly. 45.  Make your own hair treatment You can just tell this is going to be so, so Guardian without reading the rest, can't you?  Apparently you need " mayonnaise, eggs (raw, not fried or scrambled), rosemary oil, olive oil and honey " and " Yes, it’s a little messy. Yes, you will smell like a salad dressing ".  I'm kinda sad they made it clear not to use fried eggs though because the

Continuing my trip back in time through the album charts 11/03/73 : The Strauss Family  - LSO I've no idea what this is all about - I'm expecting a load of waltzes. And yes, that's what we've got - although I've no idea whether there were all waltzes because I very soon lost interest in them.  The only thing that maintained my interest was wondering what bizarre set of circumstances meant that I was listening to it. We're at #11 in the charts this week on its ninth week of a 16 week run, with it quite bizarrely having peaked at #2 for two weeks.  Are we sure those sales figures didn't drop through a wormhole from 1873?  The top five this week are  Elton   ,  Focus ,  Simon & Garfunkel , Strawbs and David Cassidy  (which is quite the mix), the highest new entry this week was John Denver at #44 and Carly is once again the highest woman at #22. Wikipedia certainly has some explaining to do - which it both does and doesn't.  There's no entry on the

     Our penultimate attempt at being happy 32.  Get debobbling " Discover the disproportionate pleasure of restoring a bobbly cardigan, or rug, to its former pristine glory with the electric debobbler ".  I can imagine that it is pleasing, as opposed to full on cheering - but I struggle to imagine me ever buying an electric debobbler. 33.  Make personalised biscuits "Stamping rude, personalised messages on to biscuits is huge, childish fun" - who knew?  And what rude message do The Guardian suggest?  Yes, it's "You disgust me" - I struggle to imagine anyone I know using that particular insult.  I can, however, imagine quite a few people I know being inventively offensive with this task. 34.  Whittle while you work Spoon whittling is a thing, apparently.  Not for me it isn't. 35.  Wash your dirty trainers I can't see this would exactly cheer me - but if I owned white trainers then it might at least slightly lighten my mood.  It also contained t

Continuing my trip up The Guardians  Top 50 Films of 2019 #44 :  Dolemite Is My Name Eddie Murphy’s glorious return is the richly entertaining tale of cult 70s blaxploitation star Rudy Ray Moore’s rise from nightclub standup to the movies I've heard this is good but suspected it wouldn't really be my thing because I'm not the biggest fan of Mr Murphy's latest material - and by latest, I mean most things after Coming To America, which came out in 1988! But actually "richly entertaining" is a fine description - Rudy Ray Moore had a pretty wild life story which deserved to be told, and this film does a fine job in telling it.  You don't really need me to describe the story - just strap yourself in and enjoy the ride.  It's not a subtle tale (it features a surprising number of bare breasts!) but it's told with warmth, humour and sincerity.  A lot of this is down to the script which is very well put together - a winning combination of smart and filthy (

Continuing my trip back in time through the album charts 18/03/73 : Focus III  - Focus So I've gone from never having heard of Focus to listening to two of their albums in a week.  Last time I was thoroughly perplexed by the whole thing, especially the yodelling and the eefing (who could forget the eefing?) and I have absolutely no reason to suspect this is going to be anything different Choirboys, flutes, jazz piano, lutes, birdsong, cows, Bach, a ridiculously long drum solo - this really does have it all.   I actually didn't mind "Sylvia" - it has a 70s Queen feel to it (and yes, I realise this isn't going to be a recommendation for absolutely every(/any)one).  There's no doubting the skill involved and my description for their last album  "mostly instrumental soft prog" is still pretty accurate - this is maybe a bit jazzier than their previous offering, but it's not a million miles away.  It also felt like an extremely long album, but it'

Continuing my trip up the list of the most streamed songs for each year.   1965 : I Can't Help Myself  - The Four Tops This was a track I was sure I knew, but couldn't quite place it - until I saw it was sometimes called "I Can't Help Myself (Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch)" which somewhat gave the game away.  So it's a hat-trick for the Motown sound (even if "Be My Baby" isn't strictly a Motown track). And yeah, this is a fine 2:46 (2:4? is a very popular track length in this period) of Levi Stubbs doing his usual singing/wailing/pleading thang over a top backing track.  And this is probably peak Motown, written and produced by (as Billy Bragg puts it) " Holland and Holland and Lamont Dozier too - here to make it all OK with you ".  I like the song but can't claim it's one of my absolute favourites - for The Four Tops, I'd go for "Reach Out", for male Motown artists, I'd go Smokey or Marvin, but for absolute Motown fa