scaryblog

And 2023 bites the dust! I REALLY wasn't expecting the year to start with ABBA Gold , an album that was 30 years old - but I was pleased to see it and it was definitely a best of that I wasn't going to miss out on (unlike Busted which I totally swerved later in the year).  The rest of the year was very much a mixed bag - say what you like about "modern music" but if you don't like something then there's going to be something else very different coming along very soon. The ownership ratio was 2% (ABBA - which we bought a LONG time ago) but it's interesting to consider what it might have been back in the day when people bought stuff - I reckon there were three or four I'd have bought, with a similar number for the lovely Mrs Reed and a similar number again for the lovely Misses Reed.  And, funnily enough, absolutely no overlap (but I suspect I'd listen to my daughters' albums a lot more than I'd listen to my wife's albums). Looking at the...

Continuing my trip forward in time through the album charts 29/12/23 :  Lover - Taylor Swift I really wasn't expecting THIS to end the year - I considered skipping over it to give the place to someone more in need of the attention, but that just takes us to another Taylor album!  And if I skip over that as well, we go all the way down to #24 for Lana del Rey's break-out album from '12, which doesn't really feel like it needs the publicity given it's been on the chart for longer than Taylor has (230 vs 210 weeks).  So let's just get our seventh visit with the lass over with, shall we? As expected, I find this to be "absolutely fine" - it's a set of decent enough tracks performed competently, but I really don't see what makes the Swifties go absolutely nuts for it.  It's got more of an 80s sound to it than I was expecting and she does get a bit whine-y at times, but apart from that I've really got nothing to say about it.  And let's f...

Continuing my trip forward in time through the album charts 22/12/23 :  Stick Season - Noah Kahan Well, this week surprises us on a couple of fronts.  Firstly, and probably the least expected, this is possibly the album I've heard most this year - because obviously I'm a massive Noah fan. Well, it might not surprise you to hear it's not me but my delightful daughter - but you might be surprised to hear just how much my youngest absolutely LOVES Noah, particularly given his folkiness.  She's got tickets to see him next year and (excluding festivals) they're the most expensive gig tickets I've ever bought.  But despite having heard the album loads, I've never actually listened to it, so I'm interested to see what I make of it on a one-on-one basis. You know what - the headline is that, having actually listened to it I can report that, at least in places, I liked this way more than I previously did.  I listened to it over headphones for the first time and t...

My last trip out for the year to a new venue to see a band I've never seen live. Suede burst on to the music scene in '92 with massive amounts of hype, at least some of which was deserved - their debut eponymous album delivered enough strong tunes to keep a lot of people happy.  Their follow-up Dog Man Star didn't deliver quite what most people were looking for, but I think it's actually their best work - well, that I'm aware of anyway, because I kinda lost track of their output this century.  Until I stumbled across Autofiction in '22 and it's a strong piece of work, so when I saw they were touring I booked to see them in the Brixton Academy in March of this year - tragic circumstances saw that show initially postponed and then cancelled, but anyone with tickets had priority for the replacement shows at Brixton Electric, which is a smaller venue so I certainly wasn't going to pass up that opportunity... And so, on a surprisingly balmy Friday evening in...

Continuing my trip forward in time through the album charts 15/12/23 :  Pink Friday 2 - Nicki Minaj This isn't one I'd have visited by choice, but I'm expecting it to be bearable if maybe a bit too much at times. Actually, I think it counts as better than bearable - I didn't mind it at all.  The only thing that makes it a bit too much is the 70 minute running time, but she just about gets away with it because there's actually a fair amount of variety and no little amount of skill across the album.  I particularly like "Super Freaky Girl" which is lucky because my girls have played it approximately a million times to me.  She also has a good ear for tracks to sample as well, with "Move Your Feet", "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" and "Heart Of Glass" all jumping out for me.  This album won't be for everyone, but if you like those lady rappers with attitude then Nicki has, in my unknowledgeable opinion, come up with a pretty good...

  The Bard of Avon in the afternoon, The Bard Of Barking in the evening... Can you believe Billy Bragg has been around for 40 years?!?  It all started with Life's A Riot With Spy vs Spy ("pay no more than £2.99 for this seven track album") in May '83 and the boy hasn't stopped since.  Excluding Glastonbury (where I've seen him most years), I've seen him live in St Albans and two years ago in The Roundhouse (which is where we are again) - I wasn't expecting this to be massively different! And massively different it most definitely wasn't, but it was a fun evening that left everyone feeling better about themselves.  Rather than a support act, he showed a film entitled " 40 years in 40 minutes" which took us from his very first TV appearance to the present day, featuring some charming footage with some very dodgy haircuts.  At one point, we got to see some  lovely footage of him on stage with Michael Stipe and Natalie Merchant - the lad...

Continuing my trip forward in time through the album charts 08/12/23 :  i/o - Peter Gabriel This is an interesting one because I've kinda heard the album when I saw him live earlier in the year but, at the same time, seeing someone play the tracks live isn't anything like listening to the album so I'll be interested to see how it compares (and how much I remember what I heard). Actually, I was surprised how much I did remember - particularly "Panoptican" and "i/o" which I specifically mentioned last time as stand-out tracks from the new album.  But even the stuff I didn't remember, I enjoyed - I think this is a very decent album indeed.  It's not So, but it's not trying to be So - the man is 37 years older and definitely more world-weary (aren't we all, dahling?!?).  But he's used those years wisely and he's thought about all that's happened - both to him and to others.  I do think it wouldn't have hurt for him to try to ...

The latest in an occasional series of theatre reviews... King Lear  : Wyndham's Theatre I picked this totally because of Ken - I missed the original round of tickets but some matinee tickets went on sale towards the end of the run and I was lucky enough to pick one up.  Right in the back row! I'd have to say I'm not a massive fan of Shakespeare.  I've got a soft spot for Twelfth Night because I did the lighting for it in sixth form and I've seen Much Ado About Nothing live, but that's my entire live experience - and none of the films I've seen have converted me.  But I've heard King Lear is one of the better ones and I'm not going to pass up the opportunity to see Ken.  So - is it one of the better ones and is Ken worth the trip?!? Hmmm - I feel I probably need more experience of the worse ones to totally answer the first half of the question, but I do have to say the plot is ABSOLUTELY ridiculous.  With soooo many deaths - often for no obvious reaso...

Continuing my trip forward in time through the album charts 01/12/23 :  This Life - Take That For a band that I've mentioned a lot, I'm somewhat surprised this is only my third visit with the lads - and one of them was a greatest hits.  But, obviously, I'm massively looking forward to listening to this, aren't I?  Well... To be fair to the lads (and it pains me to be so) none of this is horrible, but I do find it all a bit puzzling because, for some completely unclear reason, it seems like they've decided they want to be the Bee Gees on this album.  It's got a very 70s middle-of-the-road feel to it, but with added high tremolo - although, to be fair, they could have been doing this for years and I wouldn't have known.  But, assuming they haven't been, I'm sure the fans will accept it (because they LOVE Take That in whatever guise they exist) but I struggle to see too many new fans being attracted to this sort of thing.   We're (of course) at #1 w...

Continuing my trip forward in time through the album charts 24/11/23 :  Theatre Of The Absurd Presents C'est La Vie - Madness Well, I wasn't expecting this lot to knock Taylor off the top!  I've no real idea what to expect from it - I'm kinda expecting it to be like the Madness I know from back in the day, but just less so. Yeah, it is "less so" in terms of being less frenetic and less amusing (at first listen anyway) but it's also a lot stranger than I was expecting - it's presented along the lines of a cabaret evening with spoken word sections introducing some of the tracks.  It's quite ambitious (much more so than I was expecting) - I'm not sure it entirely works, but I'm also not sure it doesn't.  I didn't particularly like it, but a big part of that was the uncertainty as to what exactly I was supposed to do with it - all in all, I think we can safely say I'm not sure about any of it.  Does that help?  I think Ian Dury is p...