scaryblog

Continuing my trip back through the 1999 album charts. 05/09/99 : The Hush  - Texas I didn't mind that Texas single that started it all off (you know, the one that was so memorable I can't even remember its name) but I don't think I've ever listened to a whole Texas album.  And I've never even heard of this one, so I can't say my expectations are exactly sky high, but let's see.  And I obviously never owned it - 7/17. Hmmm - it's absolutely fine, but they made the interesting decision to keep  Sharleen’s voice pretty low in the mix, which seems like an odd choice given that she's the thing they're best known for.  I actually surprised myself by knowing the opening track, “In Our Lifetime”, but after that it all just slid by pretty uneventfully.  So - absolutely fine, but absolutely nothing more. We're at #5 in the charts this week on its 17th week of a 53(!) week run, having debuted at #1 - which feels slightly more successful than it necessa

Continuing my trip up The Guardian's   top 50 films of 2022 #20 :  The Northman Brutal Viking saga based on the same legend as Shakespeare’s Hamlet, with Alexander Skarsgård as the chieftain’s son out for vengeance on the man who murdered his father and took his throne I've heard this is good, so I'm quite looking forward to it but I have a suspicion I might just find it a bit try-hard in its authenticity. Hmmm.  Having watched it, I'm not sure quite what I thought of it - it's diverting, but takes itself a bit too seriously, particularly considering how silly a lot of it is.  It's the age-old tale of someone done wrong and putting things right in a kinda quest-y way with "stuff" happening along the way.   I have to say it didn't half go on (136 minutes) - I was totally "get a move on" for a large chunk of this film and I suspected I knew exactly how it was going to end from the first minute (and I wasn't far wrong - not that I really

Continuing my trip back through the 1999 album charts. 12/09/99 : You Me And Us  -  Martine McCutcheon Well, this is an interesting one - Martine always seemed nice enough (she's actually lovely in Love Actually) but never really seemed to be massively talented, although that never bothered a lot of her contemporaries.  I can't say I'm expecting to like it though and we certainly never owned it (7/16). Well, lordy - that was a surprise!  I REALLY wasn't expecting this to be quite as dreadful as it was - they've really put the effort in for this one.   It's all that annoying piano sound and terrible strings with her suspiciously auto-tuned voice quite low in the mix with some horrible production throughout.  At 50 minutes, it's also far longer than I felt the need for -  I think they do deserve some credit for it being mostly original songs (I didn't recognise any covers, but I'm sure they are there) but maybe they just shouldn't have bothered?  W

Continuing my trip up The Guardian's   top 50 films of 2022 #19 :   Competencia oficial  (Official Competition) Penélope Cruz is on fire in delicious movie industry satire in which she plays an eccentric director using unorthodox techniques to manage lead actors – and polar opposites – Antonio Banderas and Oscar Martínez. Penélope and Antonio are an interesting pair because I totally accept that they're both fine actors but, off the top of my head, I'm unable to think of any films they've been in that I've particularly enjoyed - and a quick Google doesn't suggest anything either, although it does tell me that Antonio is going to be in the upcoming Paddington film, so I'm looking forward to that (it also reminds me what a strange film Spy Kids 3 was).  I'd kinda swerved this because I thought it was a Pedro Almodovar film but it turns out that's a different film we'll be seeing later (also starring Penélope) - so I've got no idea what to expec

Continuing my trip forward in time through the album charts 28/07/23 :  The Ballad Of Darren - Blur   Hmmm - I have liked a bit of Blur in my time, but their later stuff generally left me a bit cold, so I'm not sure what I'm going to think of this.  I'm very much hoping they manage to make it a little less of a chore and less kichen-sinky than some of Damon's recent stuff though. And yeah, I think they manage to make it more of a Blur album than a Damon album - there was a pleasing amount of guitar on there.  And Damon's voice wasn't quite as dead-pan as it has been on some efforts - he doesn't have a classic singing voice, but he manages to put a nice bit of emotion in there when he tries which was nice to hear in quite a few places on this.   At first listen, I liked "Barbaric", "The Narcissist", "The Rabbi" (which reminded me of Lou Reed in his bearable phase) and "The Swan" - which seems a pretty high hit rate for

Continuing my trip up The Guardian's   top 50 films of 2022 #12 :  Moonage Daydream Glorious, shapeshifting eulogy to David Bowie from director Brett Morgen, whose intimate montage of the uniquely influential artist celebrates his career, creativity and unfailing charm. Well, we've completely given up on the correct order this year, haven't we?  The excuse this time is that I had a thirteen hour flight and a completely random selection of films on my iPad - and this was the one that I was in the mood for.  I can't claim to be a Bowie aficionado (and there's plenty of his stuff I have no time for at all) but I like the man and his constant efforts at reinvention - I'd also heard great things about this and so was really looking forward to it. And yeah, it's lovely.  It makes quite an interesting choice because it makes very little effort to educate you about the man - it "merely" presents footage from the archive running from the early 70s to his un

Continuing my trip back through the 1999 album charts. 19/09/99 : Liquid Skin  -  Gomez Like Leftfield , this is another album I bought because I liked the previous one, but rarely listened to    (taking us to 7/15 - keeping up with the 50%) .  However, unlike Leftfield, I'm pretty certain I remember not really liking it. Hmmm - well, I wouldn't say I hated it, but I was spot on with not really liking it.  I quite liked "Blue Moon Rising" and one other track that I couldn't tell you the title of, but the whole album is so mumbly that it really is a bit of a chore.  However,  I have to say part of me admires their determination in taking out all the bits from Bring It On (their debut album) that might have contributed to that being a surprise hit, but I'm not quite sure why they felt the need to be quite so contrary - there's been more than a few such groups over the years though. This week, we're at #2 with a new entry - the fourth we've seen this

Continuing my trip up The Guardian's   top 50 films of 2022 #28 :  Cow American Honey director Andrea Arnold’s meaty slice of bovine socio-realism, detailing the life of dairy cows with unflinching and empathic precision. Skipping over #29 for the time being (for various reasons, I'm really struggling with it), I'm moo-ving on to this one (do you see what I did there?).  I was previously aware of this film and the concept and I can assure you that there would have been no chance of me ever watching it under any other circumstances - I'm hoping it's not going to be as bad as I suspect it will be. Well - it wasn't quite as bad as I feared, but it's not exactly great either.  For those of you that aren't aware, the concept of the film is to follow a cow's life from cradle to grave (although obviously neither of these things is actually involved) - and that's very much what it does,  But, I hear you ask, does a cow actually lead an interesting life? 

Continuing my trip back through the 1999 album charts. 26/09/99 : Supergrass  -  Supergrass I always think I quite like Supergrass, but the only album of theirs I've bought was their best-of, which I only really liked about half of and so only listened to it once or twice - which leaves me questioning whether I really like them at all.  Let's see, shall we?  And, as you can probably guess, we didn't own it (6/14). Having said I wasn't sure whether I like them, they open up with "Moving" which I really like - but after that, I think I'll just say the tracks aren't so immediately catchy.  That's not to say I don't think I could like them but they just didn't quite click with me - it feels like I'd need to listen to this several times to "get" it..  Until we get to "Pumping On Your Stereo" obviously - you can't go wrong with that. We're at #3 with a new entry this week on the start of a 26 week run - this was as

Continuing my trip up the list of the most streamed songs for each year.   1991 : Smells Like Teen Spirit   - Nirvana Finally - one I'm not going to argue with!  I'm perfectly happy with this - it really was a breath of, well maybe not "fresh air", but there was certainly something different to it. I remembered the overall tone of the video and the cheerleaders, but I wasn't sure whether much more happened in it - and there's not a lot, to be honest.  It's 4:38 long and there's also a creepy janitor dude, a school assembly, David Grohl doing his best Animal impression and a riot at the end - Wikipedia tells me the riot was pretty much for real because the kids had been made to sit there for shoot after shoot. Wikipedia has loads on the track (326 milliPeppers) and some of it even manages to be interesting!  Kurt wrote the song trying to rip off Pixies (although the similarity with Boston's "More Than A Feeling" is also noted), but the ba

Continuing my trip back through the 1999 album charts. 03/10/99 : Rhythm And Stealth  - Leftfield I bought this album because I liked Leftism (taking the ownership numbers to 6/13) and I think I listened to it once or twice and never revisited it again.  I don't even remember if I liked or hated it though, so this is going to be an interesting one. Hmmm - I didn't hate it, but I didn't love it either.  It has a lot of interesting sounds on it, but it also has a lot of not so interesting sounds on it - in fact, it might actually have ALL the sounds on it.  It's a very kitchen sinky kind of album - when it works, as it does on "Phat Planet" (cracking bass), "Chant Of A Poor Man" and "Africa Shox" (echoes of "Open Up"), it works well.  But a lot of the rest just sounds a bit of a mess to me, I'm afraid.  It's certainly got a cool album cover though. We're at #4 in the charts this week on its second week of a 19 week run,