scaryblog

  Some final thoughts on Empire's  Top 50 TV Shows of 2021 . Well, this isn't going to take long because I only watched Loki and Midnight Mass - both of which were pretty enjoyable. I also have to mention Cobra Kai and Sex Education which weren't on The Guardian's list but I chose not to watch them - in the case of the former because I have absolutely no interest in doing so and for the latter because it was season three and I'm not convinced I care enough to invest all the time required. Of those, I was surprised that The Guardian didn't have Midnight Mass on their list, because it seemed up their street but they only gave it three stars. They weren't overly impressed with Loki either ( "tedious time-hopping" ), also giving it three stars - they liked season two more ( "the best Marvel TV show in years" ) so obviously they gave that three stars as well. The other two get three star reviews as well, so I guess they were being slightly c...

Continuing my trip back through the 1994 album charts. 15/05/94 : The Division Bell -  Pink Floyd Our sixth visit with the Floyd and it's been a mixed bag so far with nothing approaching TDSOTM for me yet - but you never know, this may be the one to convert me into a Floydian (which Google tells me is the most commonly used phrase, although apparently "fans of Pink Floyd" is also common). Sigh - it's fine. I'm sure there are plenty of people who will tell me I'm missing the point to it and it's actually a profound work of genius, but on first listen, I'm afraid it's just fine and, well, a bit boring. I'm not expecting to make myself popular here, but it's really not a million miles away from Chris de Burgh - yes, they jazz things up with noodly guitars and backing singers but they're basically decent enough songs that struggle to hold my interest. Next! We're at #4 in the charts this week on their seventh week of a 55 week run, wi...

Continuing my trip down Empire's  Top 50 TV Shows of 2021 #5 : Midnight Mass If The Haunting Of Hill House didn't make it clear enough, Mike Flanagan getting stuck into an entire Netflix limited series means you're in for something special. And his long-gestating Midnight Mass (of which he directed every instalment, and co-wrote them all too) was pure, unfiltered Flanagan – a bloody-but-beautiful, spine-tinglingly spiritual seven-episode series that plays both as a rip-roaring horror story and as theological allegory. With its explorations of familial trauma, faith, guilt, alcoholism, and the ghosts of the past that refuse to die, Flanagan mulls over his key obsessions afresh – spinning them into a Stephen King-esque tale of an isolated island community, and the charismatic young preacher (an astonishing Hamish Linklater) who inspires renewed religious fervour in his flock when performing apparent miracles before their very eyes. To state the exact subgenre Midnight Mass pl...

Continuing my trip back through the 1994 album charts. 22/05/94 : This Way Up -  Chris De Burgh I'm somewhat surprised to see this and I can assure you I'm not expecting to like it - and it's not a great sign that it's nineteenth on the list of Chris de Burgh albums in Amazon (which meant a lot of scrolling was required). You know what? It's not great, but it's certainly not dreadful - I have a suspicion that it sounds very similar to most of his other albums. It's not something I need in my life, but I certainly have better uses of my time than to be offended by it -   if you like some light rock/ballady stuff then it's going to tick the required boxes for you. And that's pretty much all I have to say on the matter. We're at #5 in the charts this week with a new entry on the start of a seven week run with this being as high as it got. The rest of the top five were  Erasure  (a new entry), Deacon Blue,  Eternal  and  The Cranberries  with the nex...

Continuing my trip back through the 1994 album charts. 29/05/94 : Lifeforms -  The  Future Sound Of London I'm surprised to see this but very happy to do so - it's another one I owned (ten for the year) but I've not listened to it in ages. And part of that is because, at 92 minutes, it's not a casual listen. But, whilst I realise for many this is just an odd collection of bleeps and random noises, I really like this album - I think it's possibly peak ambient (whilst accepting that ambient is a phrase that covers a multitude of sins). It starts off with "Cascade" which is just a great track and just gently burbles its way through with some great sounds and rhythms which do indeed suggest lifeforms, without really giving you any clue what's going on. I think it's not an album you have to actively listen to it, but it still creates a mood which I really dig and it's not, unlike plenty of its contemporaries, overly repetitive - it also has s ome gr...

Starting my trip down Empire's Top 50 TV Shows of 2021 #10 : Loki Tom Hiddleston's God of Mischief was always one of the Marvel Cinematic Universe's greatest assets: as cacklingly malevolent as he was fascinatingly insecure. So it seems only right that his first solo outing would prove to be among the MCU's best small screen offerings. With a Whovian sense of time — the story freewheelingly jumps between ancient history and the end of all things — director Kate Herron and head writer Michael Waldron found vast sci-fi ambition in some retro bureaucratic stylings, the addition of the seemingly all-powerful Time Variance Authority reshaping the universe beyond all recognition (they keep their Infinity Stones rattling around in a drawer!). The finale, meanwhile, was a boldly understated affair that left more questions than answers, set up a key character for the wider universe, and teased a second season, the first MCU show to get a sophomore hit. Loki, it seems, is burdene...

Continuing my trip back through the 1994 album charts. 05/06/94 : I Say I Say I Say -   Erasure We met this lot twice when we did '88 last time out - I wasn't expecting them to still be hanging around six years later, but here we are! Hmmm - Andy Bell has a nice voice on this and Vince Clarke is proper giving it some on the old synths and they make some decent sounds when you put them together. But, it's, for Erasure, surprisingly de-camped and de-funned - it just all seems very serious. So whilst there was nothing wrong with it, I didn't feel there was anything to draw me back to it - I've also got absolutely no idea who thought a 149 minute extended edition was what the world was crying out for (I didn't make it anywhere near the end of the random additional tracks). We're at #5 in the chart this week on their third week of a fifteen week run, with it having peaked at #1 in its debut week, which definitely surprised me. The rest of the top five were Seal ,...