scaryblog

Continuing my trip back through the 1986 album charts 30/03/86 :  Dirty Work - The Rolling Stones  Our TWELFTH visit with the old geezers, bringing them level with Frank as the second most visited artists (still some way behind Elvis on fifteen). The 80s was probably the time I was most perplexed about The Stones - who were these old guys producing very average music that everyone seemed to love? It will be interesting to see whether my increased exposure to their back catalogue improves my view. Overall, I'd say it does. This mostly harks back to their earlier stuff with some nice bluesy/rocky stuff in there, without sounding too dated or like they've being trying to hard to make it contemporary (unlike the album cover). I liked "Harlem Shuffle" more than I remembered doing so and "Winning Ugly" and "Sleep Tonight" also jumped out at me as fine tracks. "Too Rude" also jumped out at me for sounding like UB40 - it's not completely drea...

Continuing my trip back through the 1986 album charts 06/04/86 :  Welcome To The Real World - Mr. Mister I know I know one Mr. Mister track and it's fine, but a bit bland - so bland I can't remember what it's called. I bet it's on here though, because I struggle to imagine they've had too many charting albums over here (and I bet they've had a load more in the US). Well, well - I take it all back! I actually knew two tracks which are "Broken Wings" and "Kyrie" - both of which are very much better than fine and somewhat surprisingly appear towards the back end of the album. I also have to take back the bland comment because that's too harsh - it's more like it's all just a bit too try-hard in a US soft rawk kinda way. You can imagine any of the tracks being used in a cheesy slo-mo montage - which in some ways is a compliment because that's obviously the sound they've gone for and I have to admit they've hit the spot. So...

Continuing my trip up The Guardian's   top 50 films of 2023 #25 :     Creature Asif Kapadia and Akram Khan join up for intriguing dance film, which has an ambiguous intensity that should interest audiences beyond dance fans. Hmmm - an intriguing dance film, eh? I can't say I'm massively on board for it, but let's see shall we? Well - when they said it was a dance film, they really weren't lying. I imagined it would be a film that featured some dance - but no, it's a film of a dance. 87 minutes of it - with no dialogue. I feel The Guardian were being very optimistic when they said it " should interest audiences beyond dance fans"  because, unless I'm very much mistaken, it won't. There is some plot - a creature (Jeffrey Cirio) is being held in a remote location which is overseen by the Major (Fabian Reimair) and the Doctor (Stina Quagebeur) but there's also a cleaner Marie (Erina Takahashi) who befriends him. And other stuff happens - just d...

Continuing my trip back through the 1986 album charts 13/04/86 :  Parade - Prince And The Revolution This is our fifth visit with His Royal Purpliness, although we've not met him in over 3.5 years - how the time flies! I know this has "Kiss" on it, so I'll be happy to hear that but I'm not sure what we're going to get from the rest of it. And having listened to it, I'm not entirely sure what we were given - it's quite percussive and funky, but there's a whole load of other stuff thrown in there. I wouldn't say it's terrible but I'd suggest it's pretty hard to love, although I did like "Girls & Boys" and "Sometimes It Snows In April". However, none of the album approaches "Kiss" for sheer perfection - it was also very enjoyable listening to that track over headphones for a change because there's an awful of left-right-left stereo nonsense going on. We're at #6 in the charts this week on his s...

Continuing my trip up The Guardian's   top 50 films of 2023 #26 :     Fremont There are hints of early Jim Jarmusch in Babak Jalali’s dreamy fourth feature about a fortune cookie writer looking for love, with fine supporting turns from The Bear’s Jeremy Allen White and Gregg Turkington. "Early Jim Jarmusch" and "a fortune cookie writer" are not phrases that get me excited about a film, I'm afraid. I also have no idea who Gregg Turkington is... Hmmm. The first thing we have to talk about here is the overall style because we have a w eird aspect ratio (4:3), mix of languages, unusual camera angles, use of black and white (with high contrast) and static cameras - it's safe to say it's pretty damn arty. The static camera thing is interesting because I found myself hypnotised watching the film waiting for some camera movement - I only noticed it in a couple of shots, one of which I think was supposed to be a dream (but I wasn't entirely sure!). As wel...

Continuing my trip back through the 1986 album charts 20/04/86 :  Victorialand - Cocteau Twins Well, this is a very pleasant surprise! Although, having said that, I usually find a whole album of their stuff to be a little too much - this is our second visit with them and last time I didn't give them a decent listen, so let's do better this time. Yeah, there are some gorgeous sounds on there and I'd say that overall it's not quite as same-y as I feared - it's also only 31 minutes long so there's little danger of it outstaying its welcome. And, well, that's all I've got to say about it really - if you're not aware of the Cocteau sound then check it out because it's certainly not your average bear, but I'm not the person to attempt to explain how this is better or worse than any of their other albums. We're at #10 in the charts this week with a new entry on the start of a seven week run - this is their second most successful album (after He...

Oooh - out on a Monday night! I don't know if I've previously mentioned it, but in '20-'21 I spent six months working my way through Rolling Stone's list of the 500 Greatest Albums Of All Time. Now, my main take away from this was that Rolling Stone have a very strange definition of "greatest" with an awful lot of the albums I endured being immediately assigned to my mental dustbin, but there were a few artists that I'd never previously heard of that emerged with some credit. One of these was Jason Isbell, whose 2013 album Southeastern features some very finely crafted songs performed with expert skill and restraint, with "Elephant" being (for me) an instantly recognisable masterpiece of songwriting. So when work gave me the opportunity to pop along to the Eventim Apollo to check him out live accompanied by The 400 Unit, I felt it would be rude not to attend. First up though we had SG Goodman, who had attracted a very decent size crowd for a...

Continuing my trip forward in time through the album charts 22/11/24 : From Zero - Linkin Park Hmmm - this isn't one I'd have chosen to seek out, but I've not minded some of the noises they've made in the past, so it might be OK I guess. Well, I didn't mind some of the noises on it - but most of it was just too noisy and screamy for me. I do think it's a classy move for them to have a hired a female vocalist after losing Chester Bennington to suicide and in some places her voice works really well with their overall sound. But mostly, for me, it's a "no", I'm afraid - although I did like "Good Things Go". We're at #1 with a new entry in the chart this week and the rest of the top five are  Sabrina Carpenter , Flo (a new entry), Ateez (another new entry) and  Chappell Roan  - the ladies and the new entries are owning it this week. But are the new entries any good? Flo (#3) This is very much in a Destiny's Child kinda vein - and,...

Continuing my trip back through the 1986 album charts 27/04/86 :  On The Beach - Chris Rea I know the title track and I see no reason not to expect the rest of it to be similar - perfectly pleasant but not something I actually need in my life. Actually, t hat's a bit harsh - it's certainly not essential or  the most memorable album I've ever experienced,  but it's nicely toe-tappy with a lovely clean sound to it. Chris also sounds pretty happy, which isn't necessary the first emotion that springs to mind when you think of the man. I'm not sure I needed nearly an hour of it though. We're at #13 in the charts this week on his second week of a surprisingly decent 24 week run with it peaking at #11 in its debut week. It then went away for eight months and came back for a surprisingly decent thirteen week run - and it then went away for eleven months before coming back for a surprisingly decent ten week run. And it also popped back for a single week in '94 - ...

Continuing my trip up Empire's   top 20 films of 2023 #5 :     Spider-man : Across The Spider-Verse Into The Spider-Verse should have been an impossible bar to cross – but the minds behind Miles Morales’ animated adventures somehow pushed it to even greater heights with the sequel. Across The Spider-Verse is a bold, brilliant blockbuster that feels lightyears ahead of the competition — boasting mind-boggling animated action, whip-smart gags, and touching character beats.  There’s spine-tingling spectacle (Miles’ escape from Spider Society), achingly emotional moments (Rio’s speech about watching her son grow up), and art styles to literally take your breath away – most notably, the blossoming watercolour splashes of Gwen’s world. An audacious work of art, and a top-tier superhero story to boot. This is one I watched early in the year because my eldest requested it - I really enjoyed the previous one (which didn't make Empire's Best of 2018 list, but that was probably...

Continuing my trip back through the 1986 album charts 04/05/86 :  Rendez-Vous - Jean-Michel Jarre I always thought I had no time for the French bleep merchant, but last time we met I was forced to eat my words and admit I didn't mind that album at all - so let's see if he can keep that going. How strange - this album isn't available on Amazon Prime. They've got loads of his other stuff, but not this one for no obvious reason. I couldn't remember my Spotify password, so we were relegated to YouTube but, for once, the sound quality was actually pretty good on there - which is probably best for something like this. And I thought it was OK - not as enjoyable as Popcorn and a bit repetitive in places, but perfectly listenable and it certainly doesn't hang around at only 35:01 long. I also recognised  "Quatrième Rendez-Vous" from somewhere but can't for the life of me remember where - I'm sure Wikipedia will let me know when we get there. We're ...

Continuing my trip up the list of the most streamed songs for each year.   2018 : Someone You Loved  - Lewis Capaldi This is probably the best track we've had since the previous "someone" track - Adele's "Someone Like You" and they're quite similar in terms of the heartbreak on display. I like this track because I think it's well put together and his voice is gorgeous on it - it puts some of Ed's shabby thrown-together efforts to shame. The track actually has two videos - one is exactly the kind of mopey, twilit nonsense you'd expect (and features Lewis doing some quite poor lip-syncing, but we just love him all the more for it) but the other one is actually a lot more interesting, featuring Peter Capaldi (a distant relative apparently) as a bereaved husband visiting the woman who received his wife's heart as an organ donation - I'm not in the slightest ashamed to say it had me in bits. Wikipedia doesn't have an awful lot on the ...

Continuing my trip back through the 1986 album charts 11/05/86 :  Sands Of Time - The S.O.S. Band Well, I wasn't expecting to see this lot! I think I know a couple of their singles but I've certainly never heard a whole album of theirs - I think it's safe to say expectations aren't high. Well, this is a peculiar one - it's all very smooth R&B/soul and not at all my sort of thing, but I have to admit it's all very well done. It's like a slightly more relaxed version of Five Star and infinitely better produced - it's got a very clean sound to it. I've no idea what I'm supposed to do with it and will not be making any attempt to search it out again, but that doesn't mean I can't appreciate it. This week we're at #15 in the charts with a new entry on the start of a surprisingly long eight week run, with this being as high as it got. The top five this week were Bryan Ferry/Roxy Music,  Billy Ocean  (a new entry),  Whitney Houston ,  Di...