scaryblog

Continuing  my trip back through the 1958 album charts. 23/03/58 : Where Are You? - Frank Sinatra A couple of weeks skipped over, both of which had Pal Joey at #1 - I've absolutely no idea what people saw in that album back then! So what better to escape some pointless Frank tracks than with this - oh, hang on... This is one of his slow, sultry, stringy albums - I think they're well done and his voice sounds good on them, but I just never feel the need for them in my life. By the end I was totally "oh, do a get a move on!" - a whole album was just too much. We're at #4 in the charts this week on his fifth and final week of the only run it had, peaking at #3 in its third week on the chart. The rest of the top five were   Pal Joey ,  The King And I ,  Oklahoma!  and yet more  Frank  (of course!). Wikipedia tells us this is his thirteenth album and the first he did on Capital without Nelson Riddle and I do think the arrangements aren't quite as good as some we

Continuing my journey across the output of The Bard Of Barking... William Bloke (1996) He took a bit of a break after DTTAH , but I continued to listen to it so I was pleased to see the follow-up finally come out and bought it - I think I listened to it a couple of times and never tried again. Which is a bit odd, because it's got one of my favourite songs of his on it... A Side 1. From Red To Blue This is quite a mournful song - it sounds like a lament and I assume that it is really, for some of his friends who have "faded from red to blue". I mean - imagining being mates with Billy and telling him you voted Conservative! 2. Upfield I knew this one and I like it - it's nicely jaunty, but listening back to it, it's maybe not the best produced, being a bit of a mess really. 3. Everyone Loves You Babe I vaguely recognised this one - I think I might have heard him play it live a couple of times. It's a most peculiar song lyrically and not his best vocal performanc

Continuing  my trip back through the 1958 album charts. 13/04/58 : The "Chirping" Crickets - The Crickets No weeks skipped over this time and this is one I'm actually, for a change, quite looking forward to - I believe this is the only Crickets album with Buddy Holly. So it's got to be good, right? Well, it starts with "Oh Boy", which is certainly a good start for any album - and it actually continues in a pretty high quality vein. It's interesting because it's closest to Elvis around this time, but the harmonies are just in a different league and so it's much more obviously a path into a lot of what came later in the 60s. "That'll Be The Day" is the other stand-out track (but quite possibly only because of familiarity) but I also liked "Last Night" - I can imagine Elvis doing a good version of this. All in all, this is a fine album which was an absolute pleasure to visit, particularly within the context of the other stuff

Continuing  my trip back through the 1958 album charts. 20/04/58 : The Pajama Game OST - Various Artists Another six weeks skipped over, of which  My Fair  Lady  was #1 for five of them and we saw no non-soundtrack albums at all, brings us to another soundtrack album about which I have absolutely no expectations. I had to take a punt on which version of this album to listen to because I could have gone for the musical version with John Raitt and Janis Paige or the film version with John Raitt and Doris Day - can you guess which one I went for? Yeah, you've got to love a bit of Doris, dontcha? I think few would describe this is as her finest work - it's fine and I imagine a load more fun if you're watching the visuals, but it felt very dated. John and Doris make a nice romantic couple though - even if I didn't really have the faintest idea what was going on. I was quite surprised to recognise "Hernando's Hideaway" - I never knew it came from this musical. W

Continuing  my trip back through the 1958 album charts. 08/06/58 : Pal Joey OST - Various Artists I've absolutely no expectations here for a bunch of songs from a film I've never heard of - what's the worst that can happen? Hmm, it's a few Sinatra songs, most notably "The Lady Is A Tramp" (which is a fine track), a couple of Jo Ann Greer numbers. of which I liked "Zip" and a LOAD of orchestral filler. There's nothing terrible about it, but it all feels very inessential - I think you'd really have to love the film to bother with this. We're at #4 in the charts this week on the last week of an eighteen week run, which seems amazingly successful. The rest of the top five were  My Fair  Lady ,  South Pacific , The Duke Wore Jeans and  The King And I  - a full house for soundtrack albums! Wikipedia doesn't have an entry for the soundtrack - there is a section in the film entry which gives the most ridiculous level of detail about which tr