scaryblog

Continuing my trip back through the 1965 album charts. 18/07/65 : The Rolling Stones -  The Rolling Stones Skipping over a live album and Buddy Holly's FIFTH posthumous collection, we come to our fifteenth visit with The Stones (moving them into second place on their own) - I'm expecting a collection of perfectly serviceable but completely inessential US R&B covers. And it certainly starts that way with two I know in "Route 66" and "I Just Wanna Make Love To You" - after that they get a little bit more obscure, but it's hardly earth-shattering, although it is at least competent. However, I do think we need some historical context here because I can imagine that things were different back in '64 when this came out and they were introducing these songs to an audience that hadn't heard the like before, so I can see it was a big thing. However, I struggle to imagine too many people revisit this nowadays except as a historical curiosity. We're...

Continuing my trip back through the 1965 album charts. 25/07/65 : Nina Simone -  I Put A Spell On You Our second visit with Nina - I quite enjoyed the last one, so here's hoping for more (and I know I like the title track). Oh yes, the title (and opening) track is a very fine track indeed - I didn't think it was originally hers, but had to check Wikipedia to see it was originally a '56 track by Screamin' Jay Hawkins (it's certainly an "original" version) and it's been covered by quite the selection of people including Alan Price (interestingly backed with an organ), Creedence Clearwater Revival (nicely spooky). Annie Lennox (pretty decent) and The Crazy World Of Arthur Brown (bonkers and one we've already met ). The album also features her version of "Feeling Good" which is another song I knew was a cover but couldn't have told you it was written by Anthony Newley and Leslie Bricusse for a musical - other versions out there include Mu...

Continuing my trip back through the 1965 album charts. 01/08/65 : Can't Get Used To Losing You And Other Requests -  Andy Williams Well - this took some tracking down! According to the internet, it doesn't exist but I found it on my streaming platform of choice as half of a double album reissue in '94, so - I hate to tell you this, but THE INTERNET LIED TO ME! It actually took me a surprising amount of time to track down that it was originally released in the US under the even snappier title of Days Of Wine And Roses And Other TV Requests in '63 but was renamed for the UK (I assume after the success of a certain single). Whatever, this is our fourth visit with Mr Williams - my overriding suspicion is that we've heard all we need to from him, but it will be bearable. Actually, I think it's almost better than bearable - not quite enjoyable, but certainly getting there. For the most part, he's going head to head with Mr Sinatra with either a big band sound or s...

Continuing my trip forward in time through the album charts 25/04/25 : 5ive - Davido  I first thought this was Five getting back together and I was TERRIFIED of what it would sound like. But the good news is that it's some guy called Davido that I've never heard of, so things have got to be better, right? Well, yes they really are, but I couldn't really tell you what we've got here. It's something of African origin, but whether it's Afrobeat, hiplife, jùjú music, highlife, azonto music or naija beats (I may referred to Wikipedia here) I couldn't begin to tell you. But what I can tell you is that it has a decent beat to it and is perfectly listenable and I was actually reminded of South American sounds - so maybe it's West African (he says, using his very limited global geography knowledge). I fully accept I'm not the man to judge such things (or, in fact, anything) but I can see this has some merit, without really understanding who would listen to it...

Continuing my trip back through the 1965 album charts. 08/08/65 : Hit Maker! -  Burt Bacharach This is the first week we'd have been in danger of running out of albums in a normal year - there are only three albums in the chart that we've not previously met and they are one live album and two best-ofs. However, the live album is a last resort and the other best-of is a Cliff Richard compilation (he was already up to his second!), so that only leaves us with this one - and it actually has the best argument for inclusion because they are at least new cover versions of Burt's songs, with him being involved in some unspecified manner, but at least enough to take the album credit. Hmmm - this is an interesting one because they're all Bacharach/David numbers with severely reduced or non-existent lyrical content. If I was feeling uncharitable, I'd say that Burt did this to show that his stuff stands alone without needing Hal, thank you very much - and it both does and does...

Continuing my trip back through the 1965 album charts. 15/08/65 : What's Bin Did And What's Bin Hid -  Donovan This is our second visit with Donovan and last time I was mostly unimpressed, but found some of it to be bearable - I'm already put off this by the album title here though. However, it's now also known also as Catch The Wind, which was it's US title and is a much better name - except for the fact that he's released FOUR compilation albums with the same name! It opens with "Colours" which I vaguely recognised and actually quite like, despite it sounding pretty Dylanesque. And it kinda continues in that vein, although it's more hippy-ish that Dylan - which isn't usually my sort of thing, but I actually really liked "Universal Soldier" which has a real "peace and love" feel to it. I was also surprised to get our second version of "Donna Donna" this year, with Joan Baez having given us the other one - and the...

Continuing my trip back through the 1965 album charts. 22/08/65 : Girl Happy -  Elvis Presley Our seventeenth visit with Elvis and there's no sign of him slowing down yet - he was churning out two films a year around this time. I'm expecting this to be mostly bearable, but also mostly forgettable. Well, I have a sneaking suspicion that Girl Happy might possibly not be a film you need too many braincells to engage with - and the same is definitely true for this album. It's somewhat lacking in variety b ut to be fair it bounces along nicely enough - I actually qui te liked "Spring Fever" although I was bemused that anyone decided they should write a song called  "Fort Lauderdale Chamber of Commerce". It's all completely inessential, but it could be far worse - the photo on the album cover doesn't exactly ooze personality though, does it? We're at #15 in the charts this week on his last week of a fifteen week run, with #7 being as high as it got...

The journey continues... Blind Man's Zoo (1987) This was purchased pretty soon after In My Tribe and is pretty much along similar lines in terms of lyrical and musical content, but takes a somewhat more less optimistic view of matters (and In My Tribe was hardly happy). Side One 1. Eat For Two This is a song about pregnancy and it's certainly not a "oooh - I'm so happy to be having a baby" song ( "dream child in my head is a nightmare born in a borrowed bed" ) but it's not as downbeat as it could be either. I quite like it. 2. Please Forgive Us This is a song about US foreign policy - it's pretty powerful but not exactly nuanced. I quite like the song, but don't feel it would hurt for it to be slightly more subtle. 3. The Big Parade This is another not so subtle political song - ostensibly about the Vietnamese war, but it has a nice twist at the end about how these things can look when viewed through the lens of history " Abraham had his...

Continuing my trip back through the 1965 album charts. 29/08/65 : A World Of Our Own -  The Seekers I thought we'd met The New Seekers but were yet to meet their antecedents - but it turns out I got it the wrong way round and so had completely forgotten about three previous visits! It turns out I didn't hate them, but I didn't see why so many people liked it. And yeah, that's pretty much where we are here - it's interesting to compare this with Joan's previous offering because they both fall very much under the banner of "60s folk" but this has dated far worse (and is five years younger). It's just all very twee with far too much faffing about going on - one track or two is fine for a sing-along, but I'm afraid a whole album is just too much for me. The cover is amusingly of its time though. We're at #15 in the charts this week on their tenth week of a fourteen week run, with it having peaked at #5 in its fifth week. All of which feels incr...

Continuing my trip back through the 1965 album charts. 05/09/65 : Joan Baez -  Joan Baez This is an interesting week because we skip over a live album by one Joan Baez and, in doing so, we come to our third visit with the very same Joan Baez for the year - I imagine it's not going to sound massively different from out previous visits, but let's see. Yeah, it's pretty similar - her voice is a bit warble-y in places for my liking, but there's no doubt it has a lovely tone to it and her guitar playing is nicely folk-y, with the sound quality also being pretty decent. I particularly liked "El Preso Número Nueve" - her voice suits the Spanish language well - I like this kind of thing anyway, but even if I didn't, it's just a breath of fresh air compared to all the other stuff around at the time. We're at #16 in the charts this week on the last week of a thirteen week run, with #9 being as high as it got in her third week. The top five this week were   T...

The first one I properly know... In My Tribe (1987) This was the first 10,000 Maniacs album I listened to - I'd seen it many times in the Our Price bargain bin but was never quite sure about it because their name scared me off. But in the end I went for it and it was the start of a beautiful friendship, so I should warn you that's it's possible I might go on about some of these tracks! Side One 1. What's The Matter Here? And finally we've got to the "intelligent lyrics that you can actually understand" phase! And it's such a cheery start, being about a woman witnessing a neighbouring family abusing their child, but not knowing what to do about it.  "I'm tired the excuses everybody uses - he's your kid, I stay out of it. But who gave you the right to do this?". It's got a nice jaunty tune though, so everything's good, right? 2. Hey Jack Kerouac Most of the songs on this album are pretty clear about their subject matter, but I...