You hurt me like a bee! A bumble bee!! An evil bumble bee!!!

Continuing my trip back through the 1965 album charts.

18/04/65 : Sounds Like Searchers - The Searchers


Bizarrely, we skip over two Jim Reeves compilation albums before we get to this. I assumed that he must have died around then, but he actually died in July '64 - maybe the news just took a long time to get here? The Searchers are one of those groups that I'm sure I'd recognise a single or two, but I've no idea what a whole album is going to be like.

It's OK I guess - this is that "nice boy" sound that I was comparing The Pretty Things with. It's nice enough (although the singing sometimes slips a bit) but very much looking backwards to Buddy Holly and The Everly Brothers rather than attempting to forge its own path - a single or two is more than enough though because a whole album feels very inessential (nowadays, anyway). It's a fantastically '60s album cover though!

We're at #18 in the charts this week on their last week of a five week run with #8 being as high as it got in its third week. The top five this week were The Rolling Stones, The Beatles, The Kinks, Mary Poppins and Bob Dylan and there were no new entries in the chart this week.

Wikipedia tells us this is their fourth album and there's a reasonable volume of text there, but very little content, other than telling us it was produced by Tony Hatch, who is now best known for writing the theme tune to Neighbours. Their entry tells us they were formed in '59 and only retired in '19 - but they've done two reunion tours since, so don't write them off just yet. And, at the ripe old age of 83, John McInally has been with them since the beginning - and I bet he never lets Frank Allen forget he's the longest serving member, because Frank only joined the band in '64.

"Customers also listened to" Cliff Richard, The Tremeloes, Billy J Kramer and Gerry & The Pacemakers - a similar set of "nice boys" from my understanding. I'm sure this was perfectly fine, if not exactly ground-breaking, at the time but it all sounds a bit samey these days.

11/04/65 - Really not good
25/04/65 - A fun enough trip

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

I'm not wishing I was back in the USA, coz I come from Morecambe and the skies are grey

Image
Continuing my trip forward in time through the album charts 15/11/24 : Earth To Grace - Massive Wagons I will listen to the new entry at #1, but there's absolutely NO WAY I'm writing a whole entry on it - so instead we have this which I know absolutely nothing about. But it has to be better than the abomination at #1. Well, it's something you don't hear too much of these days - I guess "hard rock" is probably as good a description as any. It’s not going to win any awards for musical complexity but it’s quite catchy - I was r eminded of Gary Moore in his heavier days that teenage me used to like. It also certainly doesn't take itself too seriously - "Free And Easy" tells us "I don't shoot guns, it's not healthy - I drive a Ford C-Max I got off my dad and it's filthy" and "Rabbit Hole" offers up an amusingly sceptical take on conspiracy theories and then abruptly ends "Auf wiedersehen, adios - this song fucking ...
Read more

And she'll tease you, she'll unease you

Image
  A first for me! Cheap tickets often pop up to various All Points East events through work, but it often coincides with holiday time - and the one time I did make an effort to go a train strike prevented me from making out into the wilds of East London. Until now when, for no obvious reason, I went to a day when I had no great interest in the headlining act. It's based in Victoria Park in Hackney and it's a BIG site. The set-up is similar to Reading Festival with two main stages which alternate between acts, involving a lot of audience migration across the site. The distance between the stages might even be bigger than at Reading, but there's also a sizeable tented stage about halfway between so you can always stop off if you're feeling tired - and I did, on several occasions! Also, unlike both Reading and BST Hyde Park, there is a lot of shaded area on site which was also much used throughout the day whilst a LOT of music was being enjoyed, because I saw... Liana Flor...
Read more

Who are ya?!?

Image
A point each for the name, the song and the artist. 1. Her boyfriend’s a dick – he brings a gun to school 2. He took me to the future in the flux thing and I saw everything 3. He lives on the second floor 4. She told my baby we'd danced 'til three, then she looked at me 5. He tempted her with his treacle tart and his tasty wholemeal bread (2 names) 6. He’s stepping through the door 7. His girlfriend's pregnant too - he’s about to be a father 8. She’s gotta be strong to fight them, so she’s taken lots of vitamins 9. She came from Miami, F.L.A - hitch-hiked her way across the U.S.A. 10. Her smile is like a breath of spring, her voice is soft like summer rain 11. He’s darning his socks in the night when there's nobody there 12. He was jamming good with Weird and Gilly 13. Two American kids doin' the best they can (2 names) 14. I just act like I don’t remember and she just acts like she don’t care 15. She got a double wide and she rode a plane 16. You could have heard a...
Read more