scaryblog

Continuing my trip back through the 1961 album charts. 05/03/61 : Come Dance With Me! - Frank Sinatra Our fifth and final visit with Mr Sinatra this year (yes, I've checked it's not going to happen again) - for a change he hasn't used the word "swing" in the title, but I'll be amazed if this ain't got that swing. Yeah, it's pretty swing-y. I didn't mind it, but if I'm being honest I've just had enough of him this year, so I didn't pay too much attention to it. I did notice our third version of "I Could Have Danced All Night" this year though - it's certainly not as good as Julie's version though and I'm not sure it's as good as Ray's version. I'm really not sure what they were thinking with that album cover though. We're at #14 with a re-entry on the chart this week - it's popped back in for a week, ten months after it was previously seen! And it was first seen in May '59 for eighteen weeks,...

Continuing my trip back through the 1961 album charts. 12/03/61 : Shirley - Shirley Bassey Yet another woman - and finally we've an album where she's not sharing the spotlight with a random dude. I'm expecting this to sound dated, but in a good way - you can't fault our Shirley's voice, can you? Yeah, they're all perfectly acceptable cabaret style numbers elevated by her excellent voice - she's got a great tone and control. I particularly liked "For Every Man There's A Woman" which she's drawls out perfectly above some excellent brasswork - I thought she'd do a better job with "Ev'ry Time We Say Goodbye" though. We're at #13 in the charts this week on her fourth week of a five week run, with it having peaked at #9. A woman in the top ten - was that even allowed?!? It also came back for another five week in '62 - well done, Shirley! The top five this week was  Elvis ,  South Pacific ,  George ,  The Everly Brothers ...

Continuing my journey across the output of The Bard Of Barking... Workers Playtime (1988) This album is (along with TWTTAP ) half of the compilation album Victim Of Geography which is how I own it - I remember it's got some decent tracks on it, but very few of them come to mind without looking at the tracklist. So let's check it out, shall we? A Side 1. She's Got A New Spell Like the last album, we start with a lovely jangly opener with some great lyrics - " One minute she says s he's gone to get the cat in - t he next thing I know, s he's mumbling in Latin".  This is another of my all-time favourite Billy tracks - it's nicely quirky. 2. Must I Paint You A Picture Billy obviously likes this track because it's the title of his best-of - I like the lyrics, but I can't say it's one of my absolute favourites.  It's a bit sad as well. 3. Tender Comrade Another slower track with nice lyrics, but not one of my favourites.  It's another son...

Continuing my trip back through the 1961 album charts. 19/03/61 : Peter & Sophia - Peter Sellers & Sophia Loren I am aware of "Goodness Gracious Me" and have a slight suspicion that it might be viewed with a sense of horror by plenty these days - if you've not seen it, then you're in for a treat ! But I have absolutely no idea what they're going to do on the rest of the album. Hmmm - the rest of the album is approximately half songs (some with a comedy element, some played straight) and approximately half, well, I think you'd probably call them comedy sketches, but they're extraordinarily lacking in comedy. For instance, "Africa Today" features colonial and white saviour views which I suspect were verging towards unacceptable even back in 1961, so you're waiting for the comedy pay-off - but it never arrives. I was left thinking that Sophia seems like a nice enough person and has a surprisingly good voice, but I bet Mr Sellers was an a...

Continuing my trip back through the 1961 album charts. 26/03/61 : Swing Easy! - Frank Sinatra Well, it's been nearly four months since we last saw him so it's definitely time we caught up with him again - I have a sneaking suspicion this might be another of his swing albums... Yup - but this one hit home more than most have this year with his voice sounding good and the accompaniment being nice and bouncy.  I particularly like "Taking A Chance On Love" but it all swung past nicely - however, I still think there's a reasonable argument that you only need so much Frank in your life. We're at #18 in the charts this week on his last week of a seven week run, which was his fourth run of five separate visits with #5 being as high as it got in its sixth week out of a total of seventeen - lots of random numbers for you there! The top five this week were  South Pacific ,   Elvis ,  The Everly Brothers ,  George  and yet more Frank and we have three mostly instrument...

Continuing my trip up The Guardian's   top 50 films of 2023 #33 :    My Name Is Alfred Hitchcock In this critically agile film from Mark Cousins, Hitchcock supposedly narrates from beyond the grave, using movie clips to reveal techniques and meanings in his work. Who doesn't love a "critically agile" film, eh?  I am intrigued as to what this involves though - I'm also not as familiar with Mr Hitchcock's films as I should be, so I'll be interested to see what I learn. Hmmm - this is an odd one.  It's basically "Alfred" (Alastair MacGowan) talking us through some of his movie thinking and skill, accompanied by clips from his films - a LOT of clips. And many of the things that are pointed out are definitely very skilful and you definitely think "oh - that's clever" - I also suspect I'd miss most of them if I just watched the film.  The whole thing is incredibly well researched - the film is broken down into six separate section...

Continuing my trip forward in time through the album charts 14/06/24 :  Brat -  Charli XCX Our second visit with Charli (or our third if you include a fleeting visit at Reading) - my expectations are much higher for this than you might expect. I think it's fair to say I'm not your average Charli XCX fan but she's got a quite a few very decent tracks in her back catalogue. Well, it's an odd one. It's got l ots of interesting noises and it's all very well put together - can you guess there's a "but" coming?  I think if anyone else had handed this in as their homework, I’d be much nicer about it - but I just know that Charli can do much better and it feels like she could churn this out in her sleep.  Having said that, I did like " I Might Say Something Stupid" which has a definite Eilish feel to it and "Von Dutch" which  has some nice 90s dance vibes to it. So it's not bad, it's just not as good as I was hoping for - I bet ...