scaryblog

Continuing my trip down The Guardian's  Top 50 TV Shows of 2024 #14 : Lost Boys And Fairies  There wasn’t a dry eye in the house while watching this wondrous drama about a gay couple’s journey to adopting a child. It was a total pleasure to spend time with Gabriel (Sion Daniel Young) and Andy (Fra Fee) and their friends in the Cardiff drag community, and you rooted for them the whole time they navigated the turbulent adoption process. Then <spoiler alert>. It was beautiful, with the added bonus of fabulous drag performances in every episode. I'd never even heard of this, so I was surprised it was so high.  And - know what? This was really good. If you've not seen it, then I've massively improved things for you by removing text from the The Guardian's review because this goes places you wouldn't expect from the basic concept. Nominally it's about " a gay couple’s journey to adopting a child"  and,  I believe, does a good job of conveying what ...

Continuing my trip forward in time through the album charts 28/11/25 : One More Time - Aerosmith/Yungblud I wasn't aware Aerosmith were still going (they've got to be pretty old now, surely?) but Yungblud doesn't seem like the worst fit with the boys - even if it's not exactly something I feel I've been waiting for. Well, the good news is that if I didn't like it (go on, guess...) then there's only five tracks and nineteen minutes of it to endure. Wtf's going on here - call that an album?!? (it transpires they don't - apparently it's an EP). And actually, I wouldn't say I don't like it but, from my general position of not giving a single fuck about Aerosmith, I really can't begin to state how fewer fucks I give about this. And whilst it has Yungblud's name on it, I'd be hard pushed to say where he fitted in to the mix - the whole thing seems utterly, utterly pointless. And so, obviously, we're at #1 with a new entry in the...

Continuing my trip back through the 1994 album charts. 03/04/94 : Give Out But Don't Give Up -  Primal Scream Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. I really liked Screamadelica so I bought this when it came out (twelve for the year) - and it's fair to say I was somewhat disappointed. I think I listened to it the once and then never again - maybe it will have matured like a fine wine, but somewhat I doubt it. Actually, to be fair, it was way better than I remembered. For an album I remember as being "fuzzy", it's got a pretty clear sound to it and I wouldn't go as far as saying any of the tracks are dreadful (although the 8:29 of "Struttin'" is certainly excessive - and I still quite like "Rocks". However, what it isn't, in any way, is essential - being mostly a poor Rolling Stones knock-off. And so, after the special thing that is Screamadelica, it's a massive, massive disappointment which I STILL can't forgive them for. We're at ...

Continuing my trip back through the 1994 album charts. 10/04/94 : Brother Sister -  The Brand New Heavies Only our fourth mention ever for The Brand New Heavies - and two of them have come in the "people also listened to" section for Jamiroquai albums, so I'm expecting this to be perfectly fine but not really my sort of thing. And I've just been informed that we owned this one, taking us to eleven for the year. Ah - that good old acid jazz sound! I remembered "Dream On Dreamer" (but had forgotten how decent it was) and "Midnight At The Oasis" (which I always thought was a pretty silly song, but didn't know at the time it was a cover - obviously I now know it was originally done by Maria Maldaur in '73). And the rest of the album isn't a million miles away from that - yes, some of the tracks went on a bit too long, as did the album as a whole, but I actually found this way more enjoyable than Jamiroquai because of a) the female vocalist ...

Continuing my trip down The Guardian's  Top 50 TV Shows of 2024 #13 : Mr Bates Vs The Post Office  This year, the head of ITV said that Mr Bates vs the Post Office had such limited international appeal that it left the channel with a million pound loss. But finances be damned, because you’re unlikely to ever find a show able to leave such a large footprint. Despite diligent reporting, the Post Office scandal never managed to catch fire in the public eye. Mr Bates vs the Post Office changed that, taking an unmanageably complex issue and turning it into the David and Goliath story it always was. Nothing less than a testament to the power of television drama. Skipping over Ripley (#12 here, #11 in Empire's list) brings us to this which you might possibly have heard of. I was actually previously aware of the scandal (Private Eye did a good job of reporting it and I used to read it quite often back in the day) and it seemed like nothing was going to shift the needle on it - until ...

Continuing my trip back through the 1994 album charts. 17/04/94 : Crash! Boom! Bang! -  Roxette Our second visit with Roxette and last time I thought it was OK, but this is four years later and I kinda thought everyone would have had enough Roxette by now - but I guess not. Also, somewhat bizarrely, when I loaded this album up in Amazon, I was met with a fan poll asking me "What do you think about Roxette's increasing popularity?" - are they coming back? Did they ever even go away?!? Considering this album for the time being - it's an interesting one. Fundamentally, it's really not a very good album - it's got some very average tracks on it with the production being somewhat random, with the percussion often being ridiculously high in the mix (and also not particularly worth accentuating). But, every so often, particularly when  Marie Fredriksson is singing, you get the odd sprinkle of the old Roxette sound and, although I can't claim it's something I...

Continuing my trip back through the 1994 album charts. 24/04/94 : Toni Braxton -  Toni Braxton I remember the lass having a decent enough voice but that's all I've got on this one - I'm expecting it to be perfectly bearable but not for me. I remembered "Another Sad Love Song" and "Breathe Again" - they were the opening tracks and probably the best ones for me, but the rest of them were all pretty decent and she does indeed have a nice voice. However, I generally find a whole album of R&B to be a bit too much and my interest was definitely flagging towards the end - but if you like this kind of thing then there's certainly far worse examples out there and it's also not something we've seen too much of this year. The album cover is amusingly of its time though We're at #4 in the charts this week on her fourteenth week of an impressive 33 week run with this being as high as it got - this and the following week were the only weeks it spen...

Continuing my trip down The Guardian's  Top 50 TV Shows of 2024 #11 : The Traitors  Try to recall 2024’s genuine nation-uniting moments of water cooler television, and chances are that at least one of them was down to this glee-inducing reality series. The nigh-on Shakespearean drama of Diane’s son reveal! Jazatha Christie! The poisoned chalice of rosé! The ludicrously gothic funeral! Given that we’re now at the point where all the contestants are wise to the show’s shtick, the attempts to stop traitors from ousting faithfuls from the cash prize really shouldn’t have been anywhere near as fun a piece of television as its first series. Somehow, against all odds, it was far more fun. Roll on season three! This is one that we watched as a family - and there weren't all that many things that was true for throughout the year. And I kinda think I don't really need to write anything about it, because if you've not seen either the OG Traitors or the new-kid-on-the-block Celebri...

Continuing my trip back through the 1994 album charts. 01/05/94 : Stacked Up -  Senser Our second band starting with S that I don't remember in the slightest - from the name I'm assuming it will be similar rock nonsense to that provided by Skin . Well, it's rocky but it's not at all similar. It features indie-ish backing tracks which include all sorts of most peculiar noises with a rappy vocal over them - I was reminded of The Levellers, early Jesus Jones and House Of Pain. I'm actually not sure whether I enjoyed it or not - I think I liked the idea more than the execution (which is very repetitive in places) but it's certainly different though. It's also interesting that, although this is much more up my street musically than our previous visit with Skin, whereas I said that they would have been fun live, I imagine that I would not have enjoyed a Senser gig in the slightest. We're at a surprisingly high #4 in the charts with a new entry in the charts th...

Continuing my trip down The Guardian's  Top 50 TV Shows of 2024 #10 : Nobody Wants This  More than 20 years after he captured hearts as Seth Cohen in The OC, Adam Brody made his big TV comeback for millennials in this very modern romcom. Based on creator Erin Foster’s real experiences, it followed “Hot Rabbi” Noah (Brody) who falls in love with sex podcaster Joanne (Kristen Bell) – but they faced the problem of her not being Jewish. Could it work? Over the course of very funny episodes, scarily relatable dating scenarios (The Ick was a standout) and a top supporting cast including Succession’s Justine Lupe, we learned that, yes, love wins. And that is exactly what a great romcom should remind us. This has got such good write-ups (and for the second season as well) that I've been tempted to check it out - but it's never quite happened. Until now... Yes. Hmmm. It certainly has a lot going for it - it's well written (and, in places, relatively relatable), well acted (with ...

Continuing my trip back through the 1994 album charts. 08/05/94 : Skin -  Skin I assumed this was an album by Skin, the fearless black lead singer from Skunk Anansie, but it turns out it's a bit early for that, so instead we have an album by Skin, the slightly less intimidating pasty white British rock group instead. Who I'd never heard of, so who knows what this is going to be like... OK - it's a very American rock sound in a Def Leppard/Bon Jovi kinda vein. And, if you're in the market for such a thing, I'd say this is well done with decent enough songs on it featuring some very decent guitar work. I, however, am rarely in the market for such things and I really didn't need 75 minutes of it - after half an hour, I was very ready for it to end. I can see they were filling a need for plenty of people though and I imagine they would have been fun live. We're at #9 in the charts with a new entry this week at the start of a three week run and I don't think ...

Continuing my trip forward in time through the album charts 21/11/25 : Everyone's A Star! - 5 Seconds Of Summer Somewhat surprisingly, this is our fourth visit with 5SOS and their albums have been getting progressively worse, so I can't say my expectations are massively high. Nah, this is fine actually - but certainly no better than fine. When reviewing their second album I noted that they didn't know if they wanted to be One Direction, Busted or Green Day and that's still very much the case here (with some added hints of Robbie Williams's particular brand of uncertainty). They're trying to be both popular and edgy, but pointing out you drink, smoke and have sex really isn't all that edgy when you're in your late twenties/early thirties. I can only assume their fans just follow them by default because there's nothing here to warrant a #1 album - but it's certainly an improvement on their fourth album . As previously stated, we're at #1 with ...