scaryblog

1979 was picked to give us a big contrast from 1965, but I didn't really have much of a clue what I'd be getting - so how did it go? Overall, I'd say it did pretty well - there was a decent amount of variety and quality across the year. There were quite a few highly regarded albums that I'd somehow avoided, so it was great to catch up on them - some of them I came to with low expectations which were comfortably exceeded. I'd actually only previously listened to a handful of the albums and can only claim to have owned two - Meat Loaf's Bat Out Of Hell and a home-taped version of The Police's Reggatta de Blanc . Where the year wasn't great was in terms of gender equality, with only seven of the albums featuring a significant female presence - but I guess you can't have everything and it's very much par for the course for this era when compared with what we've seen so far. Having said that, looking at the best selling albums of the year, we hav...

Completing my trip back through the 1979 album charts. 07/01/79 : Jazz -  Queen It's so hard to say how many visits we've had with Queen so far - this is our third proper album, but we've also had one live album (without Freddie), one greatest hits (which is totally deserved) and three singles! I'm gonna say it's out fifth visit, but I've also heard it's not their best, so I'm not exactly looking forward to it. Meh - it's fine. It's got "Don't Stop Me Now" which is a great track and "Bicycle Race" and "Fat Bottomed Girls" which are fun enough I guess, but they're also a bit of a mess - and the rest of the album is more "bit of a mess" than "fun enough". None of it's dreadful, but it doesn't really stick in there - just a bit of a nothing end to the year We're at #19 in the charts this week on their eighth week of a 27 week run, with it having peaked at #2 in its second week - ...

Continuing my trip back through the 1979 album charts. 14/01/79 : A Tonic For The Troops -  The Boomtown Rats Our second visit with The Boomtown Rats in the year - due to Bob's somewhat increased profile in later years, I forget they were quite as popular as they were. I'm expecting this to be pretty similar to our last visit, but who knows with them crazy Irish fellas? Yeah, it's not far off - last time I mentioned The Cars and Talking Heads as touchpoints, but you've definitely got more than a sprinkling of Elvis Costello in here as well this time. I recognised "Rat Trap" and "Like Clockwork" but the songs rattle on by so quickly there's no danger of boredom and the musicianship is tighter than I was expecting. I feel I'm unlikely to revisit it, but I quite enjoyed it on first listen. We're at #13 in the charts this week on its 15th week of a 23 week run - which sounds pretty decent, but that was actually its second run, with it having ...

The latest in an occasional series of theatre reviews... Giant : The Harold Pinter Theatre This was first on last year at the Royal Court Theatre (which I have yet to visit) and did very well, winning three Olivier awards including best new play and best actor (for John Lithgow). So when it transferred here for a limited run, I thought I'd pop along and see what all the fuss was about. The play relates to a period in Roald Dahl's life where he had caused controversy by a book review which was certainly anti-Israel and many considered to be anti-Semitic - and so a few people come together to decide on how, if at all, things should be addressed. The main characters are Roald himself (John Lithgow), Felicity Crosland (Rachael Stirling) who is his fiance but they've been involved for many years including during Roald's first marriage, Tom Maschler (Elliott Levey) who is his UK publisher and Jessie Stone (Aya Cash) who is (I believe) a fictional representative from the US pu...

Continuing my trip back through the 1979 album charts. 21/01/79 : You Don't Bring Me Flowers -  Neil Diamond Our second visit with Neil and the last one was a "take songs you know and see if you can ruin them with an orchestra" effort - not the worst we've seen, but also not great. The big question is "Who's gonna win the cheese-off - Neil or Barry ?"... Somewhat to my surprise, it's an easy win for Barry because there's some decent tunes and variety on this. Obviously the title track is a classic but this album also has "Together In Blue Jeans" on it, which makes it worth the money alone. The rest of it isn't quite such obviously quality fare, but it feels like the fans would still love it and I really didn't mind it at all.  We're all the way down at #19 in the charts this week on his fourth week of a 22 week run, with #15 being as high as it got in his third week .The top five this week were Don't Walk - Boogie,  Elv...

Continuing my trip back through the 1979 album charts. 28/01/79 : Nightflight To Venus -  Boney M Our third, and thankfully final, visit with Boney M - it's fair to say I've not been a fan, but this looks like it has the best potential for me to at least tolerate it. Bizarrely, it's not available on Amazon, but I suspect that's because the various factions of the group aren't able to agree on anything any more - YouTube to the rescue! Well, it starts with the title track which I don't think I've ever heard before - it goes on forever and is a completely bonkers combination of vocoder and percussion, but quite amusingly so. And that's then followed by "Rasputin", which even I have to admit is well done - I particularly like the bizarre "Rasputin, eh? What a naughty boy!" vibe it takes. I can also tolerate "Rivers Of Babylon", "Brown Girl In The Ring" and "Painter Man", which are the other singles on the al...

Continuing my trip back through the 1979 album charts. 04/02/79 : A Single Man -  Elton John Our fifth visit with Elton, stretching from '72 to '25 so you can't fault the lad for longevity - thankfully this isn't Victim Of Love, his disco album which was released later in the year and is apparently dreadful. Yeah, this is much more the classic Elton John sound - but, with the exception of "Part-Time Love" and "Song For Guy" (which my dad also plays very nicely), it doesn't throw up any classic Elton John tracks. It's all perfectly fine and rolls on through without scaring anyone off (although I definitely didn't need the 8:27 of "It Ain't Gonna Be Easy" and "Madness" also outstayed its welcome at 5:55), but I struggle to imagine too many people revisit it often (or at all). It's certainly quite the album cover though. We're at #10 in the charts this week on his fifteenth week of a 25 week run, with it peaki...

Continuing my trip back through the 1979 album charts. 11/02/79 : Even Now -  Barry Manilow Barry's been mentioned quite a few times over the years, but this is our first proper visit with the lad - I suspect we all know what I'm going to get here. Yeah, for the most part it's extremely cheesy ballads - I have to admit they're well done cheesy ballads but they're not something I need in my life. However, we have to make an exception for "Copacabana (At The Copa)" because everyone needs that in their life - and while it's still super-cheesy, it does at least have a bit of life to it. The only other track I recognised was "Can't Smile Without You" which is decent enough but not as good as The Carpenters' version - I also learned that it was originally recorded by David Martin, who was one of the song's writers along with Christian Arnold and Geoff Morrow. I can't say I loved this album but I also didn't hate it and it really...

Continuing my trip forward in time through the album charts 25/07/25 : DON'T TAP THE GLASS - Tyler, The Creator  It feels like no time since our last visit with Tyler (it was only nine months after all) - he's not someone I love, but I don't hate him nearly as much as you might expect me to. Hmmm. I guess there's some skill involved, but I've s till no idea what I’m supposed to do with it. It's got quite a retro feel - I was reminded of the various OutKast albums that Rolling Stone made me listen to. It's also very n-word heavy - I suspect John Torode should probably steer clear of it for the time being (oooh - so topical!). It's fine I guess and it's only 28 minutes long, but it's certainly not aimed at me - and it has a most peculiar album cover.  We're at #2 with a new entry in the chart this week and the rest of the top five are Alex Warren (spending a first week at the top, after a previous high point of #9 and having been #25 last wee...

Continuing my trip back through the 1979 album charts. 18/02/79 : Grease OST -  Various Artists Yes, it's a film soundtrack which would normally be excluded but a) it's definitely culturally significant for anyone who was around back then and b) it's mostly original numbers, plenty of which are absolute bangers - so it get's included. Although it will be interesting to see how many of the tracks I don't remember in the slightest. Well, remembering the tracks isn't a problem at the front end of the album starting as it does with "Grease", "Summer Nights", "Hopelessly Devoted To You", "You're The One That I Want", "Sandy", "Beauty School Dropout", "Look At Me I'm Sandra Dee" and "Greased Lightnin'" - you can't fault that as a run of tracks. I like them all, but "Summer Nights" and "You're The One That I Want" are my favourites at least partially ...

Continuing my trip back through the 1979 album charts. 25/02/79 : Equinoxe -  Jean-Michel Jarre Our third visit with JMJ and he's gone up in my opinion with every visit so far - here's hoping that continues. Hmmm - no. Except for some bits of "Equinoxe, Pt 4" this was all rather dull - he was relying too much on synthesisers being, as Giorgio Moroder put it "zee sound of zee future". Maybe everyone back in '79 just went "wow man - this is so froody" (that's how they spoke, right?), but today it just sounds a very repetitive load of nothing. And I've absolutely no idea why "Equinoxe, Pt 8" has some oom-pah music in the middle of it. All in all, very disappointing. We're at #11 in the charts this week on his twelfth week of a 21 week run and this was as high as it got, also in its ninth and tenth weeks. The top five this week were  Blondie ,  Bee Gees ,   Elvis Costello , a compilation called Action Replay and the Cliff Ric...

Continuing my trip back through the 1979 album charts. 04/03/79 : New Boots And Panties!! -  Ian Dury Our second visit with Ian this year and this is the one he's best known for - but I've never listened to it. I reckon I know what it's going to sound like though.. Yeah, it sounds (unsurprisingly) like Ian Dury. It's fair to say his singing voice isn't exactly what you'd consider to be classically beautiful, but it fits in well with the general "everyman" vibe. The lyrics are quite amusing and clever whilst still being very relatable and the musicianship has more variety and is a lot tighter than I was expecting - just because the finished product isn't to be taking too seriously doesn't mean the creative process shouldn't be taken seriously. I enjoyed this, particularly liking "Billericay Dickie" and "Blockheads" - I'm glad I finally caught up with it, but I'm intrigued by the two exclamation marks in the title!...