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Continuing my trip back through the 1977 album charts. 03/07/77 : Kenny Rogers -  Kenny Rogers Country's not been overly well represented here over the years and this is our first visit with one of the senior statesmen - you wouldn't believe how many of his albums are on Amazon, but this one isn't.  I'm expecting a load of cheese, but at least it's got "Lucille" on it so it's not all going to be dreadful. Yeah, it's pretty cheesy but he's certainly got a lovely voice - you can't help but feel that if they stripped back some of the backing singers and instrumentation then a lot of the songs would be a lot more effective.  "Lucille" is a fine track, but unfortunately his version of "Green Green Grass Of Home" isn't a patch on Tom's. We're at #16 on the charts this week on his fourth week of a seven week run having peaked at #14 in his third week - not exactly chart domination from the lad.  The top five this we...

Continuing my trip up the list of the most streamed songs for each year.   2000 : Dancing In The Moonlight  - Toploader And we've made it in to the new century with an odd one - it's both a good track and a terrible one.  I don't mind listening to it from time to time, but if anyone was to put it on repeat and leave the room, I would be having strong words with them.  STRONG WORDS, I tell you. And what a dull video it is - 3:45 of  the band playing their song whilst  young, smug things have "fun", a lot of which looks incredibly forced - almost as though the band had threatened to keep playing until everyone had jolly well showed them how much fun they were having. Wikipedia surprised me by telling me it's a cover version -  I suspect I probably knew that already, but it had completely slipped my mind.  I t was originally recorded by Boffalongo in '70 (Toploader didn't stray too far from their version ) and then was a hit for King Harvest in ...

Continuing my trip back through the 1977 album charts. 10/07/77 : Endless Flight -  Leo Sayer Well, of all the people I'd expect to meet twice in this "year of punk", Leo was pretty low on the list!  Last time I was confused as to what he's was actually trying to do - I've no reason to imagine this will be massively different but I am heartened to see this is his top album as listed on Amazon. Well, I did at least recognise "You Make Me Feel Like Dancing" but I'd completely forgotten it was quite as falsetto as it was.  I also obviously knew "When I Need You" which is a very well done track, but was also surprised to recognise "Reflections" and had to check Wikipedia to realise it was a Supremes cover.  Overall, I thought this album was less confusing than our previous visit with there being more of a constant style to it ("You Make Me Feel Like Dancing" is an outlier) - I wouldn't say it's exactly great but it...

The latest in an occasional series of theatre reviews... ABBA Voyage : ABBA Arena I'd heard this was good and it was a potential Xmas present for the lovely Mrs Reed - but then the Clydesdales decided they were going to venture over from NI to see it, so we all headed in to a strange part of town on a pleasant but chilly enough (but not nearly as chilly as the week before) Saturday afternoon. And the "foyer" area of the arena made me very pleased that the temperature wasn't at the levels seen last week because they've made the somewhat strange choice of not having any walls - it's quite a nice looking structure and I'm sure it's lovely in the summer, but coats were very much required whilst we tucked in to some acceptable whilst obviously overpriced (but not excessively so) food and drink.  This also gave us an opportunity for some people-watching - there were QUITE the array of outfits on display with white boots and sparkly berets being the most freq...

Continuing my trip back through the 1977 album charts. 17/07/77 : Deceptive Bends -  10cc This is our first visit with a band that I know a few singles from, but that's the limit of my exposure - I'm expecting something I can't quite get my head around.  It's also not available on Amazon - they seem to have all the rest of them, but not this one. I actually knew and quite liked "The Things We Do For Love" - the rest of it was perfectly listenable (if a little dated) and there's  a reasonable level of skill on display throughout the album.   It's quite hard to describe - it's like an English take on the American soft-rock sound.  I can't say I loved it - but it was an enjoyable enough listen from the time although I still don't feel I really understand what 10cc were trying to do. We're at #14 in the charts this week on their eleventh week of a 21 week run, with it having peaked at #3 in its second and fourth weeks - they were way more p...

Continuing my trip back through the 1977 album charts. 24/07/77 : Steve Winwood -  Steve Winwood We've met Steve once before as part of Traffic and my verdict then was "skilful, enjoyable nonsense" so who knows what I'm going to think of this! He's got a nice voice over some gentle noodling - I wouldn't say it was exactly memorable, but it was certainly pleasant enough.  And do I have anything else to say about it?  No, I do not... We're at #12 in the charts this week on his fourth week of a nine week run, with this being as high as it got.  The top five this week were the Johnny Mathis best-of, A Star Is Born,  Yes  (a rare new entry in the top five), a Neil Diamond live album and the Connie Francis best-of and the next highest new entry was a Rainbow live album (#17). Wikipedia tells me this is "the debut solo studio album by blue-eyed soulster Steve Winwood " which struck me as weird because I didn't know that "blue-eyed soul" wa...

Continuing my trip up Empire's   top 20 films of 2022 #9 :     Nope A fresh, original vision from Jordan Peele is always an instant ‘Yep’. But even by his standards, Nope feels special – a step-up in scope from Get Out and Us, combining his horror instincts with sci-fi spectacle for a film that interrogates our desire for (and exploitation of) the spectacular. If that sounds dry, Peele grounds his sometimes abstract thematic explorations in a thrilling, scary alien-encounter blockbuster with stellar setpieces – that nightmarish ‘Gordy’s Home’ sitcom (the key to the film’s central preoccupations), the Jupiter’s Claim show, the mid-way blood gush, that thunderous final ride… Threading it all together is Daniel Kaluuya’s low-key but nuanced turn as the grieving OJ, leaving plenty of room for Keke Palmer to steal the show as his livewire sister Emerald, intent on claiming their place in history by capturing the extraterrestrial phenomenon on camera. Nope is a Spielbergian ble...

Continuing my trip forward in time through the album charts 26/01/24 :  Saviors - Green Day Our fourth visit with the lads -  Dookie  and  American Idiot  are both very fine albums, the other one not so much.  So let's we have more of the former than the latter, shall we? Fortunately, I'd say American Idiot is probably the closest touchpoint here but there are hints of Dookie here as well - I actually quite liked it on first listen and suspect it would be a grower given half a chance.  If you like classic era Green Day, then I suspect you should check this out - with 15 songs in 45 minutes, none of them can be accused of outstaying their welcome and the quality level stays impressively high throughout the album.  We're at - go on, guess?  Yup - #1 with a new entry with the rest of the top five being  Noah Kahan  (he's been climbing slowly since the beginning of December but he'll need a week of poor new entries to go any further), ...

Continuing my trip back through the 1977 album charts. 31/07/77 : A New World Record - ELO Our second visit with the lads this year - and after my last experience , I'm quite looking forward to this one. Yeah - it's not bad at all.  Maybe not quite as memorable as the previous one, with only "Livin' Thing" really standing out from the crowd for me - and that was undoubtedly because I already knew it.  I'd be more likely to revisit Out Of The Blue than this, but I'd be happy enough to catch it if it came on.  High praise indeed, I know!  I guess they also get some humour points for the album title. This week we're at #16 in the charts this week on their 35th week of a 46 week run with it having peaked at #6 in its 29th week - somewhat unusually for albums from this year this had quite the life afterwards, with it having a further 54 weeks in the chart with it last being seen in October '79.  The top five this week were the Johnny Mathis best-of (rea...

Continuing my trip back through the 1977 album charts. 07/08/77 : Works - Emerson, Lake & Palmer Our first visit with the prog legends - I've no idea what I'm expecting to get here, but I suspect I'm not particularly going to like it. Well, I don't hate it but I'm not entirely sure how many people would say they like all of it - there's just so much variety on there.  It starts with an 18 minute classical piano concerto, which obviously features a high level of skill, but also a high level of bemusement on my part.  We then move on to some fairly standard songs (not even that proggy), most of which have absolutely dreadful lyrics.  And then we head into progland - this was what I was expecting... ...but what I wasn't expecting is to like this stuff WAY more than anything we'd seen beforehand - some of it is a bit far out, but it's at least an interesting kinda far out and I actually almost liked "Two Part Invention in D Minor" and ...

Continuing my trip back through the 1977 album charts. 14/08/77 : The Muppet Show - The Muppets This nearly got rejected, but it doesn't quite fail any of the obvious benchmarks (it's not strictly a soundtrack album and there are original songs on it) and it certainly has enough cultural significance to be included - I'm expecting a curious fish though... Well, it's not quite as curious as I was expecting, but if I didn't have any knowledge of The Muppets then this review would simply read "WTF?".  Most of the "tracks" rely on you having some knowledge of the characters involved and I had to drag some of that knowledge from the furthest recesses of my mind - the lack of visuals really didn't help here.  With that knowledge though, I found the whole thing mildly amusing at times (The Muppets were never really my thing so they can take that as a win) but some of it was particularly bizarre - given that one of the tracks is  "The Great Gonz...

Continuing my trip up Empire's   top 20 films of 2022 #10 :     Turning Red Crank up the 4*TOWN, because Domee Shi’s debut directorial feature Turning Red proved a Pixar knockout. Rosalie Chiang voices Mei, a Chinese-Canadian tween who, upon hitting puberty, begins to harness a power passed down to her through generations – the ability to transform into a giant red panda when overcome with emotion. Infused with influences from Shi’s own childhood (Anime! Boybands! Tamagotchis!) this is not Pixar as you know it – there’s no adventure, no fetch-quest, no traditional structure. Instead, it’s a coming-of-age movie through and through, where the real mission for Mei is accepting herself, her heritage, and the inevitable changes in her relationship with her mother Ming (Sandra Oh) as she gets older – oh, and getting to the biggest pop concert in town.  This is an odd one because I've seen it and pretty much all I can tell you about it is that it's absolutely charming....

Continuing my trip back through the 1977 album charts. 21/08/77 : Love For Sale - Boney M I've never understood the appeal of Boney M - I'm sure this will be well done for that sort of thing, but I've no clue why so many people went for such Euro-cheese.  Particularly given that album cover - surely that must have scared plenty off? I guess "Ma Baker", the opening track, is fine (if somewhat cheesy) provided you ignore that it's really all chorus which is repeated a LOT of times.  Cheese and repetition are a strong theme throughout the album - there's just  enough variety between the tracks to make it bearable and the general sense of amazement at what you're being served up certainly helps as well.   Apparently "Belfast" was a single (it got to #8) and, quite frankly, I'm amazed the Good Friday Agreement was needed at all - man, people should have just listened to the lyrics and it all would have been over.  The cover of "Have You E...

Continuing my trip forward in time through the album charts 19/01/24 :  Rolling Stone - D-Block Europe D-Block Europe have been mentioned FIVE times over the past three years as having the highest new entry in a given week, but so far my only musical experience of them is when I saw them at Reading , which got me very bored very quickly - so my expectations aren't massively high for this. And whatever expectations I had were comfortably failed to be met - this is an exceptionally dull album.  It reminded me of Drake's efforts to convince me of his musical genius and, like him, they're obsessed with pussy and dollars - but they love the vocoder even more than he does.  And a whole album of it is very, very tiresome.   We're at (of course), #1 with a new entry this week on the chart and the rest of the top five are 21 Savage (another new entry), The Vaccines (ditto),  Noah Kahan  and The Weeknd best-of and the next highest new entry is Bill Ryder-Jones (...

Some final thoughts on Empire's  Top 50 TV Shows of 2022 . Firstly, we have to finish off the list with the top three (all of which we've already or are going to meet).  #3 is Better Call Saul (#7 on The Guardian's list) - it's on my list of things to watch but I've got three seasons of Breaking Bad to finish before I tackle the six seasons of it, so it's not going to happen soon (but I am looking forward to it!).  #2 is Severance (#3 elsewhere) - I absolutely loved this and am looking forward to the next season sometime this year.  And #1 on Empire's list is... ...oh, it's Andor (a much more realistic #29 in The Guardian).  Really?  Yes, it was waaaay better than anyone was expecting it to be, but it was quite clearly NOT the best thing on telly in 2022.  All of which is a somewhat unfortunate way to end what was actually a pretty good list.  I was pretty happy with all the things that Empire had that The Guardian omitted - Slow Horses and The...