scaryblog

1965 was picked pretty much at random, but my expectations were pretty high - how did it do? Yeah, not bad at all. I'd struggle to say there were too many albums I loved but there were very few I hated and a lot that were interesting, even educational. There was also more variety than I was expecting - the Beatles/Stones kinda sound was certainly the most common but we had a fair few trips away from that core. We also have to bear in mind that a fair few of the classic albums of the year had already been claimed by Rolling Stone - if they hadn't we would have had a LOT of Bob Dylan this year. A couple had also been claimed by our visits to '61 and '65. And, to no-one's surprise, the ownership ratio was a big fat 0%. Looking at the best selling albums of the year, we're back to relying on the dubious information from bestsellingalbums.org and it tells us The Beatles were at the top with  Beatles For Sale , which was released in December '64, was #1 for nine w...

Finishing up my trip back through the 1965 album charts. 03/01/65 : Five Faces Of Manfred Mann -  Manfred Mann Thank you Manfred for ending the year on a relative high - I say this without even listening to it but knowing it has to be better than the last two albums I've had to endure. This is an interesting one because, for the most part, if you'd told me it was an early Rolling Stones album, I'd have totally believed you - it's got that US R&B cover vibe going on and Paul Jones even sounds quite a lot like Mick Jagger. Except for when they randomly decide to jazz things up, which is fine, but just somewhat jarring. All in all, I quite enjoyed it without feeling I needed it in my life. And don't they look like hep cats on the album cover? We're at #12 in the charts this week on their 17th week of a successful 22 week run, with it having peaked at #3 in its third and fourth weeks. The top five this week were  The Beatles  (of course - halfway through a seven...

Continuing my trip back through the 1965 album charts. 10/01/65 : Spotlight On The George Mitchell Minstrels -  The George Mitchell Minstrels Just when you think things can't get any worse after Cliff's panto nonsense - that's exactly what they go and do, giving us our third visit with this lot. I couldn't find this as an album, but five of the tracks are on YouTube and they're more than enough to give me a feel for the album because they're all dreadful music-hall style medleys - you can almost hear the jazz hands going on in the background. I did not like this. We're at #11 in the charts this week on their sixth week of a seven week run, with #6 being as high as it got in its third and fourth weeks - there's really no accounting for taste, is there? The top five this week were  The Beatles ,  The Bachelors ,  Val Doonican ,  The Beatles   and   The Rolling Stones  and there were three new entries in the chart for Keely Smith (#16),  Carous...

Continuing my trip back through the 1965 album charts. 17/01/65 : Aladdin And His Wonderful Lamp -  Cliff Richard And The Shadows Our sixth visit with Cliff and Wikipedia tells me this a pantomine cast album - WTAF?!? Well, this is a peculiar one - it's about three or four different albums rolled into one. There are the Cliff tracks where, having endured some of his earlier efforts where he didn't seem to know who he wanted to be, it's actually nice to hear that cheesy Cliff sound coming through and I actually liked "I Could Easily Fall". There are also the Shadows tracks, which aren't terrible but are generally better if they decide against singing. And then there are the Norrie Paramor tracks, which are either tracks with random singers and super cheesy lyrics or  utterly unnecessary instrumental numbers.  Additionally, across all these sub-albums there's an Aladdin theme which pops up randomly from time to time (depending upon whether they remembered to...

Continuing my trip back through the 1965 album charts. 24/01/65 : Roustabout -  Elvis Presley There really is no escape from the lad - this being his eighteenth appearance (I'll soon have to start using numbers) and it's another movie soundtrack, so it's unlikely to be great. It's not great, but it bounces along nicely and probably works perfectly well as a movie soundtrack with a paper-thin plot linking them together somehow. And with eleven tracks in twenty minutes it doesn't stay around long enough to get tiresome - some might view it as a bit of a rip-off, but I'm sure the fans were happy enough being ripped off. I have to admit I quite liked "One Track Heart" but I struggle to imagine the album gets too many listens these days. We're at #12 in the charts this week on his last of a four week run, with three weeks at this position being as high as it got. The top five this week were  The Beatles ,  The Rolling Stones ,  Val Doonican ,  The Kinks...

Continuing my trip back through the 1965 album charts. 31/01/65 : Moonlight And Roses -  Jim Reeves I've never listened to a Jim Reeves album - I'm not expected to like it, but at the same time, I'm not entirely sure what it's going to sound like. So maybe I should just be a bit more open-minded, eh? You know what? It's awfully dated, but he's got a nice voice and the songs are all well done so I can much more easily understandable the appeal of this than something like Val Doonican - for all those who wanted to hark back to the good old days and avoid the racket them Beatles and Stones were making, I imagine this hit the spot nicely.  I have to admit I liked "Moon River" (we've had a few versions of that over the years) and "It's Only A Paper Moon" - they just glided past nicely. None of this is essential, but it's certainly not offensive. We're at #12 in the charts this week on his 23rd week of a 25 week run, with it having ...

Continuing my trip back through the 1965 album charts. 07/02/65 : Lucky 13 Shades Of Val Doonican -  Val Doonican OK - it's been in the top five for so long now that I felt I should really make another effort to find it. And, weirdly enough, searching for it on YouTube (which I'd done before) came straight back with it - so I guess I get to listen to Val doing a load of shite Irish songs after all. Or maybe it will be a pleasant surprise. To no-one's surprise, it's not a pleasant surprise - but I guess it could be a lot worse (and it's not all Irish either!). It's got some most peculiar track titles - "Quit Kickin' My Dog Around" (complete with some terrible barking), "The Agricultural Irish Girl" (this is pretty bad too), "Carlos Dominguez" and the farmyard animal pairing of "Delaney's Donkey" (which is enjoyably terrible) and "Paddy McGinty's Goat" (which could be the same song just with different l...

Continuing my trip back through the 1965 album charts. 14/02/65 : Wayne Fontana And The Mindbenders -  Wayne Fontana And The Mindbenders Before we get to Wayne, we have to discuss an album that I wasn't sure I should ignore or not - Keely Smith Sings The John Lennon/Paul McCartney Songbook. A lot of the female solo singer albums this year have been all or mostly cover versions, so it nearly got included on that front - but because they were all Beatles numbers, I just didn't feel it quite deserved it. She's got a nice voice though and the songs are all done in a jazz cabaret style, which certainly makes them a bit different - and  it may yet get a write-up  if we run out of albums in the next couple of weeks. So we move on to Wayne and his Mindbenders who  I don't believe I've ever heard of  - it's possible I'll recognise a single off the (obviously debut) album, but currently I have no idea what to expect from this and I can't say their name is exactly ...

Continuing my trip back through the 1965 album charts. 21/02/65 : A Girl Called Dusty -  Dusty Springfield Our third visit with Dusty, but the second this year and it's another debut album - I have high hopes for this one. Oh yes, she had a lovely voice. As is often the case for debut albums, it's all cover versions but she's picked a good selection with "Mockingbird", "Only 24 Hours From Tulsa", "Anyone Who Had A Heart", "Will You Love Me Tomorrow" and "Wishin' And Hopin'" all done particularly well - but there's really no duds on there. I think there's a good argument that her version of "Anyone Who Had A Heart" is the definitive version because of the emotion she conveys - and it's been covered by an awful lot of people since the original version by Dionne Warwick. And her version of " Will You Love Me Tomorrow" is also great, but doesn't quite pip the original version by  The S...

Continuing my trip back through the 1965 album charts. 28/02/65 : The Animals -  The Animals Our second visit with them Animals this year - last time , it was fine if not exactly essential. Wikipedia makes it clear I have to be careful which album called The Animals by The Animals we want to listen to because the US and UK versions are very different - whilst they were both released in '64 and have twelve tracks, only four tracks appear on both albums. "The House Of The Rising Sun" doesn't appear on the UK version (apparently hit singles often didn't appear on albums in the UK around this time), so ironically we miss out on a fourth version of it this year (after  Joan Baez ,  Marianne Faithfull  and Bob Dylan ). It opens with a very odd track, "The Story Of Bo Diddley", which is a trip through the history of rock and roll which ends with Bo himself coming to see The Animals play and announcing "that's the biggest load of rubbish I've heard ...

Continuing my trip back through the 1965 album charts. 07/03/65 : I Am P. J. Proby -  P. J. Proby P. J. Proby is an odd one - I know his name but I'm not sure I'm aware of any of his stuff, so let's see what we've got here... This is another one that's not Amazon (it's struggled somewhat with the less popular albums this year) but YouTube came to my rescue. Wow, thanks very much for that YouTube - what did I ever do to you? The album opens with an absolutely dreadful version of "Que Sera Sera" - I wouldn't have thought it was possible to murder that song, but he certainly manages it. He also manages to mangle "The Glory Of Love" (originally by Benny Goodman in '36, but I suspect I know the Otis Redding version) and The Beach Boys' "Don't Worry Baby" (which is particularly bad). The other songs aren't quite so bad, but all are probably best avoided - "Rockin' Pneumonia And The Boogie Woogie Flu" is q...

Continuing my trip back through the 1965 album charts. 14/03/65 : Oh, Pretty Woman -  Roy Orbison Our second visit with Roy this year - last time it was very brief and mostly unexceptional, but he had a lovely voice and I've no reason to expect this isn't going to be the same. Well, he starts off with the title track, which I'd argue probably counts as pretty exceptional, so we're already off to a good start - interestingly, the only place in the song he actually sings "oh, pretty woman" is right at the end. I actually also really liked "Evergreen" and "It's Over" - the rest of it didn't stand out for me but it was perfectly listenable. And at 34 minutes long, it certainly can't be accused of being a lengthy album. We're at #16 in the chart this week on his last week of a decent sixteen week run, with it having peaked at #5 in its sixth week. The top five this week were  The Rolling Stones ,   The Beatles ,  The Kinks , Val...

Continuing my trip back through the 1965 album charts. 21/03/65 : Kinks -  The Kinks Our fourth visit with The Kinks and it's been a very mixed bag so far, with none of them really hitting the spot for me, although our last visit (earlier this year) wasn't too bad - so there's at least some hope for this one. Hmmm - it's an interesting one because they're definitely trying to find their style, which works better in some places than others. A lot of the time, they're just playing sub-Beatles or Stones stuff ("Bald Headed Woman" is particularly bad) but in other places there's a really edge to it ("Beautiful Delilah", "You Really Got Me") or some surprisingly tenderness ("Stop Your Sobbing", later covered by The Pretenders). It's an interesting listen, but feels like it would have benefited from a bit more "finding themselves" before being released. It's a pretty stylish album cover though - even if the...