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Continuing my trip back through the 1963 album charts. 03/02/63 : Let's Face The Music - Shirley Bassey What? A woman who's not Brenda?!? I do like a bit of Shirley, but I'm looking forward to this one even more than usual because it also features Nelson Riddle and his orchestra, who've done a good job on several Sinatra albums we've met. Yeah, this is pretty much what I'd expect - Shirley belting it out over a decent lush orchestral backing. What more do you want?!? The only ones I recognised were "Let's Face The Music And Dance" and "I Get A Kick Out Of You" (our second version of the year, after Frank's) but it was all very listenable. We're at #14 in the charts this week on the last week of a five week run, with it having peaked at #12 in its debut week. The top five this week were  Cliff Richard ,  Elvis Presley ,  West Side Story ,  The Shadows  and  Elvis Presley (sigh - a '57 release back for no obvious reason) and th...

Continuing my trip back through the 1963 album charts. 10/02/63 : 32 Minutes And 17 Seconds - Cliff Richard Skipping over a week brings us to the joy of Cliff again for our third visit with him this year - taking us up to nine visits in total for him, bringing him level with U2 and Taylor Swift. And, of course, the bloody Shadows are on it too which means we've seen them to varying degrees on FIVE albums this year.  We're back to the "who do I want to be?" Cliff with him trying out a few things on here, but there are definite signs he's working his way towards the "Summer Holiday" kinda thang. It's fair to say big band jazz Cliff was never going to be a starter though because he absolutely murders "Blueberry Hill" on this (but if you want to see it properly murdered, check this out) - and his version of "Spanish Harlem" isn't a lot better. But, for the most part, it's pretty harmless - I think I'm just losing the abil...

Continuing my trip back through the 1963 album charts. 24/02/63 : Sinatra And Swingin' Brass - Frank Sinatra Our seventeenth visit with Frank (taking him into second place on his own) - his swing albums are generally fine, but there's just too many of them! Actually, I'd say this is pretty decent - but it's quite annoying because Wikipedia tells me he'd recorded most of these back in the 50s on a different label, so I guess he was just being the Taylor Swift of his day. I obviously knew "I Get A Kick Out Of You" and "They Can't Take That Away From Me" but was pleased to be introduced to "At Long Last Love" and "I'm Beginning To See The Light" which I really liked.  We're at #18 in the charts this week on his tenth week of an eleven week run, with it having peaked at #14 in three separate weeks - it does seem like the public's enthusiasm for "more of the same" was finally waning. The top five this week...

Continuing my trip back through the 1963 album charts. 03/03/63 : The First Family - Vaughn Meader This is an album I've never heard of by someone I've never heard of - and that cover is certainly quite something! But Wikipedia will explain to us that this was a big deal, so buckle in for this. It's a comedy album based around JFK and his family, with them struggling with "normal" household issues - and somewhat unsurprisingly, it's dated. However, surprisingly, quite a bit of it was still relevant - and some of it was also actually funny (which was something TW3 didn't manage). I imagine quite a few people greatly objected to the whole thing, but it all feels to be good-natured to me (although I imagine sensitivities were very different back then). It's also of note for featuring a woman in a major role - wonders will never cease. We're at #16 in the charts this week with a re-entry for this one week, but it had previously had a seven week run wi...

Continuing my trip back through the 1963 album charts. 10/03/63 : Caribbean Guitar - Chet Atkins Skipping over a week where Cliff was #1, we also have to skip over our second Joe Brown album of the year - it just doesn't seem to be available anywhere. And that brings us to Chet's first proper visit - he's previously had a couple of mentions for new entries in the lower reaches of the chart but, as far as I'm aware, this will be the first time I've ever heard anything by him. I'm assuming he's a guitar player and he adopts a Caribbean style here, but the title might just be to throw me off the scent. Well, he's certainly a guitar player - I'm not sure I quite the Caribbean influence on all the tracks, but there's certainly a sense of palm trees and dancing girls from time to time. It's a bit more of a classical style than I was expecting, but it's interesting enough to avoid being musical wallpaper and he's obviously a skilful player -...

Continuing my trip back through the 1963 album charts. 24/03/63 : Dance With The Guitar Man - Duane Eddy Our third visit with Duane and I've been generally pretty impressed so far, although I'm not convinced I'm going to exactly need another album of it. Well, I guess it is another album from Duane, but the guitar is surprisingly low in the mix on a load of the tracks which means you'd be hard pushed to tell it's him. The tracks aren't terrible but he has also used some awful backing singers to make some very distracting noises throughout - a ll of which makes the whole thing seem less bearable than it probably should be.  We're at #14 in the charts this week on his third week of a four week run, with this being as high as it ever got. The top five this week were  Cliff Richard , Frank Sinatra & Count Basie , Elvis Presley , Frank Ifield and West Side Story  - it's funny how not having The Beatles in there just makes it feel more old-fashioned. And ...

Continuing my trip forward in time through the album charts 19/06/26 : you seem pretty sad for a girl so in love - Olivia Rodrigo  This is our third visit with Olivia and I've liked her previous two, so I imagine I'll like this as well. Yeah, nothing wrong with this, although it's a bit of style departure from the previous two, feeling more grown up (she's getting old, I guess). It's maybe lacking the instant bangers of the previous two on first listen, but I suspect it wouldn't take more than another visit or two for me to change my opinion there. It's quite a good album title because a lot of the tracks are about being in love and also not being entirely happy about it or the aftermath, but she avoids the Taylor Swift-esque general moaniness - there's a general "it's complicated" vibe to it (which for me is a much better starting point than "it's all his fault"). I think there's a decent amount of variety on there with s...

Continuing my trip back through the 1963 album charts. 31/03/63 : Bobby Vee Meets The Crickets - Bobby Vee & The Crickets Bobby was so Buddy-like that I cannot consider myself surprised that he got together with The Crickets - giving us our third visit with Bobby in the year. I'm guessing it will be perfectly enjoyable - but possibly a bit more Bobby than anyone needs in swift succession. Somewhat to my surprise, I actually don't think it is too much Bobby - and he's also not trying too hard to be Buddy either. There are a few Buddy tracks on there, with the opener "Peggy Sue" being a somewhat concerning statement of intent, but they don't go overboard with it. Most of the album is covers of 50's rock and roll numbers and they do a good job - I particularly liked their versions of Chuck Berry's "Sweet Little Sixteen" and Little Richard's "Lucille". There's certainly an argument that it's a bit dated for '63 but I...

Continuing my trip back through the 1963 album charts. 07/04/63 : Jazz Samba - Stan Getz & Charlie Byrd Rolling Stone gave us a few jazz albums, but we've met remarkably few of them in the charts so it will be interesting to see what this is like. But I'm not expecting to actually like it though... I guess it's jazzy samba - or maybe samba-y jazz. It's not as challenging as I feared, so I can't say I hated it - but it all felt very musical wallpaper-ish and drifted by without really making the slightest impression on me. I guess "why?" would be my lasting impression of the whole thing - which can't really be considered a recommendation. We're at #16 in the charts this week on their last week of a three week run - it managed four runs across the year given them seven weeks on the chart in total, with it having peaked at #15 in its very first week. The top five this week were  Cliff Richard , Buddy Holly, The Beatles ,   All Star Festival (which...

Continuing my trip up Empire's  top 20 TV shows of 2025 #18 :     The Bear After the extended table-setting of Season 3, people started to wonder if The Bear had gone off the boil (insert other tortured food metaphors here). Thankfully in Season 4, the unwavering quality of writing, performance and filmmaker was bolstered by slightly more propulsive storytelling, and some more upbeat moments this time around; Carmy, at long last, is no longer trapped in the fridge (literally or metaphorically). There are some masterful episodes here – the Ayo Edebiri-penned ‘Worms’, in which her Sydney leaves the kitchen to look after a friend’s daughter, is a beautiful little slice of life; and ‘Bears’, the near-feature-length wedding episode, threatens to be another piece of near-unbearably tense familial arguing, until it blossoms into a great big warm hug. Hopefully this return to form continues into Season 5, with Carmy seemingly <spoiler alert>. After The Bear took the top spo...

Continuing my trip back through the 1963 album charts. 14/04/63 : A Bobby Vee Recording Session - Bobby Vee Our second visit with young Bobby this year (and he's not finished with us yet) - last time I liked it, but that was a best-of so, it will be interesting to see what we have here. Yeah, it's pretty similar to last time except that I don't know any of the tracks. It's all very Buddy Holly-ish, so was already sounding a bit dated compared to some of the stuff we've heard from the year but it's done well enough. And at twelve songs in 25 minutes, he's really not hanging about - he looks super young on the album cover though! We're at #15 in the charts this week with a re-entry on a single week's visit, but he managed a nine week run earlier in the year, peaking at #10. The top five this week were  Cliff Richard ,  Buddy Holly,  The Beatles ,  West Side Story  and  Elvis Presley  with the highest new entry being one Bobby Vee (#20). Wikipedia tel...

Continuing my trip back through the 1963 album charts. 21/04/63 : That Was The Week That Was - Various Artists Some comedy for a change - it will be interesting to see how dated this has become. Well, a lot of it is political and quite a bit of it is class based, so those aspects have certainly dated - but my overall feeling was one of confusion because there was so much of it I just didn't understand how it was supposed to be funny. The general vibe is one of clever wittyness, but there was almost a complete absence of laughs on my part - it wasn't so much that the jokes weren't landing, but that I just didn't recognise where the jokes were supposed to be. So, all in all, this was a most peculiar experience - it was nice to recognise Roy Kinnear and Willie Rushton's voices though.  We're at #17 in the chart this week on the last week of a nine week run, with it having peaked at #11 in its third week. The top five this week were  Cliff Richard ,  The Beatles , B...

Continuing my trip back through the 1963 album charts. 28/04/63 : Richard Chamberlain Sings -  Richard Chamberlain I can't say I was expecting to see him - this is going to be super cheesy, isn't it? Yeah, this was definitely one bought by the grannies - it's very much looking backwards in time rather than attempting to do anything radical. He's got a decent voice though so it's all perfectly listenable, even if a whole album of it is a bit too much. We are also served up yet another Everly Brothers cover - I really should have been counting them because we've seen quite a few this year. We're at #16 in the charts this week on the last week of an eight week run, with it having peaked at #8 in its third week. The top five this week were  Cliff  (just finishing a mere fourteen week run at the top),  The Beatles ,  Buddy Holly,  Frank Ifield  and the All Star Festival album (how refreshing to see something different in the top five for a change!) and the...