scaryblog

Continuing my trip back through the 2003 album charts. 18/05/03 : The Golden Age Of Grotesque -  Marilyn Manson Well, I wasn't expecting to bump into this! I can't say I was ever a fan, but didn't mind some of his/their stuff - I always thought he was a bit of a pantomime villain (and his contribution to Bowling For Columbine was remarkably level-headed), but later allegations suggest that maybe he was just a plain old villain all along. I'll try to separate the art from the artist here, but I do have a suspicion that 63 minutes is going to prove too much for my sensitive ears. Hmmm - I'm not a huge fan of his vocal style on most of this, but taken one track at a time then I guess it's bearable enough. But a whole album is just too much for me, I'm afraid and some of the tracks are tiresomely juvenile - particularly "Para-noir" . It also has some very silly track titles -  "Doll-Dagga Buzz-Buzz Ziggety-Zag",  "Ka-Boom Ka-Boom", ...

Continuing my trip back through the 2003 album charts. 25/05/03 : Stripped -  Christina Aguilera Just two weeks after we met Justin and mentioned he toured his album with Xtina, we bump into the lady herself - I've never heard this, but I'm expecting to quite enjoy it. It's not a million miles away from a female JT album in that it's been super-produced to push the buttons it feels it needs to, but I think this benefits from the greater variety across the album with "Dirrty", "Beautiful" and "Fighter" all being very decent tracks. However, I do have a suspicion there's actually too much variety because it all feels a bit scattergun and  I really didn't need 20 tracks lasting 77 minutes - her voice does begin to grate somewhat after the hour mark. We're at #5 in the charts this week on her 30th week of an impressive 84 week run and it's had subsequent runs of nine, five, three and eleven weeks - but it never made #1, peaking ...

Continuing my trip forward in time through the album charts 07/02/25 : Hurry Up Tomorrow - The Weeknd Our fifth visit with Mr Tesfaye ( አቤል መኮንን ተስፋዬ in Amharic apparently)  and I've generally found his stuff to be pretty decent, with one or two stand-out tracks on each album - so I've no reason to expect anything different here. And yeah, "pretty decent" is where we are here, with a very expansive and varied sound, although I did find myself thinking the lyrics were a bit lame at several points. I'd also say that, at first listen, only one of the tracks stood out from the pack for me - "OK - which track was that then?" seems to be the obvious response here. Honestly, I'd love to tell you but I was running at the time so didn't note its name and I just don't have the patience to search through the 22 tracks and 85 minutes again to find out. Sorry, but I suspect if you're going to listen to this you'll already have done so and don'...

Continuing my trip back through the 2003 album charts. 01/06/03 : Sound Of The Underground -  Girls Aloud I've never heard this, but I know and like the title track and have a lot of time for GA, so I'm looking forward to it a lot more than you might imagine. Unsurprisingly it opens up with the title track, but I also remembered "No Good Advice" and their surprisingly decent cover of The Pointer Sisters' "Jump" (which apparently wasn't on the iniital version of the album, but it was on the only version available to me). The rest of the album is also surprisingly decent - there's not really a dud on there, although I did feel the beats were a bit relentless by the end of the album and a bit more variety across the album wouldn't have hurt matters for me. However, I do realise the album's not really aimed at me and you're looking for something to put on and throw yourself around to, then it feels like this would hit the spot. We're ...

Continuing my trip up Empire's   top 20 films of 2024 #15 :     Hundreds Of Beavers As in many other great silent comedies, the hero of Hundreds Of Beavers has a simple goal. Laurel and Hardy had to lug a piano up some steps. Harold Lloyd had to scale a clock tower. Jean Kayak (Ryland Brickson Cole Tews) has to take down, well, hundreds of beavers (plus a load of other bothersome critters) in order to survive and get the girl of his frostbitten dreams. Aptly for a film about a trapper, Mike Cheslik’s DIY, furry-infested film, made for a budget of under $7,000, absolutely pelts you with jokes: even the timing of the title card, arriving 75 minutes into the chaos, is funny. Hyper-inventive, contagiously silly — think The Revenant meets Super Mario Bros — it is like nothing else you will see this year. (If you do see something else like it this year, please seek medical help immediately.) I've heard of this one and it sounds utterly nuts - it's got several decent write-ups t...

Continuing my trip back through the 2003 album charts. 08/06/03 : Justified -  Justin Timberlake My second visit with JT and last time I said I didn't mind a bit of the lad, but a whole album was too much. This is peak-JT though, isn't it? So it can't be too bad, can it? I recognised "Like I Love You", "Rock Your Body" (the Superbowl "wardrobe malfunction" song) and obviously "Cry Me A River" which is a fine track indeed. As for the rest of it,  I did enjoy it but I couldn't help but have a sneaking suspicion it had just worked out what buttons it needed to press and then it all it did was jab at them repeatedly. I also wasn't getting the impression that Justin was massively into it - he was just doing whatever someone thought he needed to, so maybe it was all a bit soulless? We're at #5 in the charts this week on his 31st week of a massive 70 week run, with it having spent seven weeks at #1, including four of the past fi...

The latest in an occasional series of theatre reviews... Elektra : The Duke Of York's  In which, following on from last time , I continue my somewhat niche theme of "Oscar winners in Greek tragedies"... I enjoy experiencing the classic plays (even if just the one visit often turns out to be one visit too many) but this one was picked purely on the star casting alone - Brie Larson (in her West End debut) is a fine, emotionally engaging actress who really holds your attention on screen. Not that you'd guess this from watching any of her appearances as Captain Marvel, but check her out in Room if you've not seen it (I'd also forgotten she's Envy Adams in Scott Pilgrim Vs The World, which is also well worth a watch). Entering the theatre, we're greeted by the obvious setting for a Greek tragedy - a revolving stage featuring a couple of amps, a microphone stand and a really bright light, which is incredibly annoying when it revolves round to blind you. So t...

Continuing my trip back through the 2003 album charts. 15/06/03 : St. Anger -  Metallica  Our fifth visit with Metallica - I can't say I remember too many of them, but reading my comments they've not been as bad as I feared, so maybe there's hope for this. I'm not sure I'm going to need 75 minutes of it though. Well - I definitely didn't need 75 minutes of it, but taken on a track by track basis it was all remarkably bearable if you can tolerate that sort of thing. It's all, to no-one's surprise, very drum and guitar heavy but there's a reasonable amount of variety in there and I might even go as far as saying I liked the first three tracks - "Frantic", "St. Anger" and "Some Kind Of Monster. I do think all songs could have done with some pruning - the shortest is 5:13 and there are six tracks over seven minutes long and three over eight minutes long on there. But we don't come to Metallica albums for understatement now, d...

Continuing my trip up Empire's   top 20 films of 2024 #16 :     Conclave Having drawn broad comparisons to Gossip Girl set within the Vatican’s secluded interiors, Conclave is a delectable power-grab drama carried by some seriously thespy performances. A heated election to determine who will replace the recently-deceased Pope is endearing enough, but filmmaker Edward Berger – following up on his multi-Oscar-winning All Quiet On The Western Front – also plunges us into the ornate, disciplined and melodramatic world of the College Of Cardinals. There is simple pleasure to be found in watching one religious loiterer vaping between meetings, or his fellow cardinal scrolling on his smartphone while taking a break from official business, all within the sombre, serious tone of the movie. Steering us through the morally murky politics of his conclave is Ralph Fiennes as Cardinal Lawrence, a rapidly unravelling hot mess with a habit of switching into seamless Latin while bouncing ...

Continuing my trip back through the 2003 album charts. 22/06/03 : Bare -  Annie Lennox  You know what? I don't think I've ever listened to an Annie solo album - which feels like an omission on my part. I'm expecting it to be perfectly decent, but somewhat unnecessary - I'm struggling to remember any of her solo singles. Hmmm - an interesting one. On first listen, I'd say it's actually pretty good - but as each track finished I almost immediately forgot it. It didn't feel like musical wallpaper because I was activelly listening to it and I was enjoyting it, she's got a lovely voice and it's all well produced - it's just that it didn't stick in there. Maybe multiple listens would make me a fan, but I'm afraid that's just not going to happen - all in all, a bit curious. We're at #5 in the charts this week on her second week of a twelve week run, which actually feels rather short in comparison with some others we've seen. The rest...

Continuing my trip up Empire's   top 20 films of 2024 #17 :     A Different Man Part sci-fi, part body-horror, part darkly comedic satire, part identity drama, Aaron Schimberg’s A Different Man refuses to be put in a box. It follows Edward (Sebastian Stan, in just one of his excellent performances this year, the other in Donald Trump biopic The Apprentice), an aspiring actor with neurofibromatosis. Isolated, stared at by those around him living in a shitty apartment and struggling to find meaningful roles, he undergoes a procedure to cure him, revealing a brand new face underneath. But despite his newfound, conventionally-beautiful looks, his unhappiness persists – compounded by the introduction of the charming Oswald (Adam Pearson, never better) into his life. A strange, funny, twisted, thought-provoking delight, it’s a miracle a film this undefinable exists – but we’re incredibly glad it does. I'd not heard of this until I read various end-of-year lists where it was oft...

Continuing my trip back through the 2003 album charts. 29/06/03 : You Gotta Go There To Come Back -  Stereophonics  Our fourth visit with Stereophonics and I really enjoyed their 2005 offering (but, of course, have never revisited it), so I have hope for this one, which I never heard at the time. Hmmm, it's a bit more rough and ready than Language Sex Violence Other? - I didn't mind it, but I can't say I loved it either. It just didn't feel very crafted - maybe that's the feel they were going for, but it misses the spot for me. I also really didn't need a full hour of it. And I think that's all I've got to say on the matter really - it's just all a bit "meh", really. We're at #3 in the charts this week on their fourth week of an incredibly undeserved 41 week run, with it spending a further twelve weeks in the chart in '04. The rest of the top five were  Beyoncé  (a new entry), Evanescence and two best-ofs from the incredibly simil...

Continuing my journey across the output of The Bard Of Barking... Tooth & Nail (2013) After the uptick in quality for the last album, we come to one I don't think I've ever heard, although I must heard some of the tracks live at some point, mustn't I? 1. January Song This is a bit close to that old Mermaid Avenue sound for me - I've no idea why he tries to sing high on some songs because it just doesn't end well for anyone. 2 .No One Knows Nothing Anymore This one's OK, but not a classic - he's sounds tired on it and close to giving up, which isn't the Billy we know! It does have some nice pedal steel guitar on it though. 3. Handyman Blues This is almost Bill being funny! 4. I Ain't Got No Home This is another slow one, but I actually quite like this one - he's still sounding beaten, but there's an argument it works for the song. Wikipedia tells me this is (yet another) Woody Guthrie song. 5. Swallow My Pride Another slow one - fine, but ...