Being Human (Series Four)

Contains SPOILERS for the whole series.

The end of series 3 of Being Human saw the series 4 cast looking like it would be Annie, Nina and George battling the Old One vampires led by Edgar Wyndam. Series 4 turned out… not quite that way. For one thing, Wyndam and Nina both were killed between the series, and George too would die by the end of episode one.

It has to be said, the show did a remarkable job in trying to keep everything together with the departure of so many of the actors in the main cast. But it was disappointing that Nina was killed off offscreen after she’d been a part of the series for so long. George’s exit, while a little rushed, was pretty good, and saw him forcing himself to transform into a werewolf when it wasn’t a full moon to save his baby daughter, the forced transformation ultimately killing him.

They had to get a replacement werewolf and vampire to the house, and I was pleased that they promoted werewolf Tom to the main cast. After Mitchell was killed off at the end of series 3 there were some fans, myself included, who wondered if popular detective Nancy could replace Mitchell as the vampire. While she wasn’t shown being turned into a vampire after Herrick attacked her, fans speculated she may have been. I was a little disappointed that they decided not to go down that road, but they did introduce a new vampire character in Hal, and I liked the way they did it.

I always think the best way to introduce a new character that is going to become one of the main cast is to slowly integrate them into the series rather than just shoving them straight in there. It can get audiences backs up if they have a character thrust upon them with all the main ones before they have got to know them. With Hal they gave him an introduction by the fact that he had lived as a vampire with a werewolf and a ghost for the almost 60 years, and was similar to Mitchell in that he was a vampire trying to deal with his condition and trying to atone for the terrible things he had done in his past. In his case it was living with his werewolf and ghost friends and having strict routines was the only thing that had kept him sane all that time, and gave a reason why he would feel the need to repeat this with people he barely knew so soon after his old friends left. I really liked his old friends as well, glamorous ghost Pearl and the by now elderly werewolf Leo. They were very interesting, and while it was probably necessary to get them out of the way so that Hal could be part of the main cast on his own, I would have liked to have seen more of them, and was pleased with their happy ending of finally acknowlodging they were in love with each other.

Hal and Tom, much like George and Mitchell, have turned out to be a sort of unlikely friendship odd couple, but slightly different. With George and Mitchell it was George the quirky, geeky guy and Mitchell cool, the leather jacket wearing bad boy. In Hal and Tom’s case, it’s more of an odd pairing because of social class, Hal being posh and snobbish, and Tom being down to earth and working class. There also more of a sort of vetran and rookie dynamic, in that Tom only turned 21 this series and is also naive, and Hal being an Old One among vampires.

As always, the series had plenty of great guest characters. My favourites included Mr. Snow, who was a great villain as a sort of king of the Old One vampires. What a shame he (seemingly) only lasted one episode. His attack werewolf Milo survived though, and he looks like he might interesting, especially as to where is loyalties lie, how much he’ll stay with the vampires and how much he’ll side with his fellow werewolves. I also liked that they expanded to less well known mythological creatures this series by including a succubus.

But while most of the characters at the final episode of series 3 were gone, the storylines suggested were continued. In fact the rising of the Old Ones and the birth George and Nina’s child ended up being united together as the arc plot for series 4, that their baby daughter, Eve, had been prophesised to save the world from the vampires. This led to an unravelling plot thread of a mysterious woman from the future travelling back in time as a ghost to try and kill the baby. While this character was credited as The Woman most of the series, most viewers quickly guessed that she was Future Eve. The real mystery was why she wanted to kill herself as a baby. It turned out that there was a terrifying dystopian future where the vampires had taken over and everyone else was fighting a losing battle against them, and Eve believed that somehow her death would stop the whole thing from happening.

This led to focus on the last member of the original trio, Annie. She’d always been my favourite character, I loved the humour she bought to the show and I rooted for her with her status as a ghost being linked to her confidence issues. She’d always kind of been the glue that held the friends together, and in this series she helped bridge the gap between the original crew and the new additions. Her main role though was the adoptive mother of baby Eve. Just how strong her love for Eve and her desire to protect her was became apparent when creepy ‘70s ghost Kirby was sent by Future Eve to get rid of Annie. He isolated her and making her feel worthless so she faded away, but just as he was about to kill Eve, Annie willed herself back into reality as a powerful spirit and destroyed Kirby. I loved that as a Crowning Moment Of Awesome for Annie, and it’s a shame those were few and far between in Being Human. Annie seemed to alternate between being a strong and helpless all too much. But she got a couple more in the final episode. It had basically become clear to Future Eve and later Annie herself that as Annie would do anything to protect Eve there was no chance of anyone other than Annie killing her. In her last episode Annie stormed into the lair of the Old Ones to rescue baby Eve, only to be told by Mr. Snow that he was all too happy to let Annie protect Eve as the prophecy suggested that Eve being alive would mean the vampires would win. Then the decision became less about killing Eve per se and more about that moment being the best time to kill the Old Ones even if it meant that Eve would also die.  This turned out to be Annie’s unfinished business all along. She had to save the world.

It was quite a satisfying end for the character, but definitely bittersweet. Her scenes with Future Eve, who considered Annie to be her mum, were very sad, especially the final one where Future Eve began fading away, though she was happy that her goal was achieved it meant that she would now never have existed other than as a baby, and she would be a baby forever. Annie then was sent to a door with a white glow cradling baby Eve, presumably going to be reunited with George, Nina and possibly Mitchell, and she looked happy. My feelings about Annie’s exit were that it was a fitting end for her, but I will miss her. Future Eve said to Annie that she can never return to the land of the living, but that Annie has never followed the rules, which implies that she may appear again as a guest character. I hope so.

We already have the replacement ghost girl in the cast sorted with Alex, who again had been slowly introduced by appearing a couple of episodes before becoming a ghost. She’s very fun and spirited (if you excuse the pun), and I really liked her bonding with Annie, who she taught her some of the tricks of the ghost trade. We have a “next generation” of the werewolf, vampire and ghost team now with Hal, Tom and Alex. Actually, how many combinations have we had now? We have the original team of Mitchell, George and Annie, then Nina being added, then Annie with Hal and Tom, now the current one. Then there’s the Becoming Human teens and the different Mitchell and Annie in the pilot episode. But I am intrigued by this new cast, and I hope they’re all still here by the time series 5 comes along. I’m less enthralled with what look like the big bads of next series, the secret organisation which ‘clean up’ evidence of supernatural creatures, but at the end of series 4, as with the end of every series of this show I am interested in where they will take it next.

Shameless Series 9 (Part One)

The latest series of Shameless has recently finished on Channel 4 (well, the first half of the latest anyway, we are apparently getting the second half later in the year).

The conservation status of the Gallaghers on the Chatsworth estate has to move to ‘nearly extinct’ now, as this series saw the departure of Carl. The only Gallaghers left now are Frank and Stella. Frank isn’t in as often as he used to be, and Stella is an infant so she can’t really do much (but please don’t have her ‘talking’ to people telepathically again). In fact, while the Gallagher household has always had people coming in and out of it and randomly staying, it’s become more of a hostel than a family’s house nowadays. Who’s living there now? Frank, Stella, Patty (who only moved in because Libby did, and she’s gone), Aiden (who only moved in because Patty was there), and now it seems Kelly and Marty also live there.

Speaking of those two, I’m still not buying them as a couple. It’s weird for long term fans to see that Kev’s sister and Veronica’s brother have hooked up, especially as they never really acknowledged each other’s existence before. But they’re a very odd pairing, it comes off like a result of a random couple generator. I suppose they have been suggesting that Kelly desperately wants to escape her old life, and maybe sees some common ground with Marty, who also wants to start again. I wonder where they are heading with Kelly. Her miscarriage at the beginning of this series couldn’t have been any more clearly signposted (knowing the gender of the baby, Shane saying he wishes Kelly and Marty the best, them both saying how happy they are going to be when the baby is born and it will change their lives for the better), but I’m not sure where they are going on with her. If anything, it seems like they may be building up to her making an exit. I don’t want her to leave, but I’m not sure where they want to take the character.

We have already seen two high profile departures from the cast this series, those being Carl Gallagher and Mickey Maguire. I actually haven’t missed Mickey as much as I thought I would. He is one of the best characters the show has ever had, but there has been a feeling that he had run his course at this point. I really liked his final scene with Mimi, it was nicely understated. He was going to come out to her, but she gently implied that she already knows he’s gay and wanted him to go out into the world and live a life out of the shadow of his family. Carl’s exit with Frank was similarly understated, but had more of a feeling of he and Frank don’t like each other much but they are still family. I actually miss Carl more than Mickey, because with Carl there was a lot more that they could still do with the character. I like that he has evolved to become so responsible from when he was kind of “the stupid one” when he was growing up. There is also his friendship with Chesney, who is one character that is getting better as the series goes on. Aiden is very similar to how Carl was when he was a kid, and as Carl is, sort of, an older brother for Aiden that could have been quite interesting to explore, especially as Aiden himself has been given some strong storylines this time round.

There have been some newcomers to the cast. Brassy hairdresser Gloria has been a very good addition. While her integration into the show was a bit Remember The New Guy Girl at times, she’s definitely made her mark and has been central to a few of the big storylines. Her brother Dominic is… fine. Mimi’s niece Ruby is… fine.  I still don’t see why they chose to make Billy a regular character though. He’s been around for a few series now and he still jars a bit. I get that he’s supposed to be a bit stupid and irritating, but why try and give him such importance? I just don’t think there’s enough there in the character to justify it.

As has been said countless times by many people, the heyday of Shameless is far behind it, but it is still an entertaining show and better than a lot of TV is. This series has been an improvement from the last so far. The plot which had X Factor style auditions for Lillian’s brothel was admittedly ridiculous, but the previous series had far more daft stuff like that in it, and I think for the first half of this series they have delivered quite well.

UK Number One Singles: The 2000s

If the 1990s number ones can be seen as every genre sticking to their own group, then the 2000s saw genres mixing together, borrowing and swapping from each other and a blurring of the edges as to where one genre ended and another one began.

The start of the decade saw bubblegum pop acts trying to add other flavours to their sound. For their final album the Spice Girls tried to go down a more R&B route, which was similar to the path Blue and Liberty X tried from their start. The phase of nu metal saw rock music incorporating elements of hip hop. Linkin Park were probably the ones who had the most hits with that, though it was Limp Bizkit – ‘Rollin’ ‘ which got a number one. In the mid-2000s boybands started to pick up guitars, with Busted and McFly both gaining a few number ones, and in the last few of the decades rappers were releasing electro dance tracks, two notable ones being ‘Stronger’ by Kanye West and ‘Bonkers’ by Dizzee Rascal. You had indie guitar guys covering girlbands and vice versa.

There were also mash-ups and bootlegs, which were when DJs and producers mixed the backing of track of one song with the vocals of another, creating some interesting results. ‘Toca’s Miracle’ by Fragma was one which made it to number one in this form, though perhaps the most notable was ‘Freak Like Me’. Richard X took the music of Gary Numan/Tubeway Army’s ‘Are Friends Electric?’ and mixed it with the vocals of  Adina Howard’s ‘Freak Like Me’, and it was eventually released commercially as a very successful comeback single for the Sugababes.

There were some unusual pairings on number one tracks. Eminem sampling a love song by singer-songwriter Dido and reworking it into a dark tale of an obsessive fan with ‘Stan’ was one, and there was also a song created by piecing together recordings by 2Pac and Elton John – ‘Ghetto Gospel’. A more straightforward but still unlikely number one duet was rapper Nelly and country star Tim McGraw with ‘Over And Over’. In fact, pop music in general seemed to have a fluid style and a grab bag of influences. Animated act Gorrilaz and girlbands like Sugababes and Girls Aloud both incorporated lots of different styles to their sound, there were lots of reinventions, like Pink going from R&B to a rockier sound, and Nelly Furtado going from a quirky pop girl to an R&B princess. Christina Aguilera in general seemed to be trying her hands at being a pop chameleon.

The 2000s was also the decade of the reality TV winner, with many disappearing even quicker than they arrived, although a few such as Will Young made a decent career out of it. Some of the number ones of the 2000s had a flash in the pan publicity stunt feel. Despite some stiff competition from many kareoke-type cover versions, some dreary, bland forgettable ballads, some chavtacular ones like ‘Babycakes’ by 3 of A Kind, the worst has to be Crazy Frog, a infuritating, annoying overhyped ringtone that unfortunately became a big hit single as well.

The first decade of the new Millenium saw pop stars using music genres as a cocktail they wanted to mix everything into. I am interested to see how the trends of number one singles will develop from here. Here’s to the next 50 years of number one hits.

My pick of the bunch from the 2000s.

1) Arctic Monkeys – I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor

2) Coldplay – Viva La Vida

3) Spiller featuring Sophie Ellis-Bextor  – Groovejet (If This Ain’t Love)

4) Beyonce feat. Jay-Z – Crazy In Love

5) Eminem featuring Dido – Stan

6) Kings Of Leon – Sex On Fire

7) Lady Gaga featuring Colby O’Donis – Just Dance

8) Sugababes    About You Now

9) Evanescence – Bring Me To Life

10) Rihanna feat. Jay-Z – Umbrella

UK Number One Singles: The 1990s

The 1990s is a little harder to pigeonhole than most decades. It’s a little more fragmented. It’s not that the 1990s didn’t have identity, and it’s not that previous decades didn’t have diversity, it’s more that  popular music began to seperate into seperate niches rather than be part of one whole.

Part of this is because genres which had been bubbling under had crossed over to the mainstream. Dance/club culture had a big impact on the early half of the decade, with Snap!, ‘Killer’ by Adamski & Seal, ‘Mr. Vain’ by Culture Beat, ‘Dreamer’ by Livin’ Joy and ‘Let Me Be Your Fantasy’ by Baby D being among the strongest. In the late 1990s dance music had a slightly harder edge with Fatboy Slim, The Chemical Brothers and The Prodigy topping the charts. Hip hop and rap had very much crossed over to the mainstream, to the extent that there were several million selling number one singles by rappers. These included ‘Gangsta’s Paradise’ by Coolio feat. L.V, ‘I’ll Be Missing You’ by Puff Daddy & Faith Evans featuring 112, ‘Killing Me Softly’ by The Fugees, and ‘It’s Like That’ by Run DMC Vs Jason Nevins.

Indie rock saw the phenomenon of Britpop, with the often mentioned chart battle between Oasis – ‘Roll With It’ and Blur – ‘Country House’ ending with Blur beating Oasis to the top, though Oasis would go on to have more number ones overall.  The Manic Street Preachers famously got to number one with ‘If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next’, a song about the Spanish cival war. The Verve are mostly remembered for ‘Bitter Sweet Symphony’, but their number one was ‘The Drugs Don’t Work’. There was also the idea of ‘pop’ as a genre of its own, that is bouncy, sugary pop, with Take That and the Spice Girls jointly having the most number ones of the decade, not to mention Britney Spears crashing straight in at number one with the often covered ‘…Baby One More Time’.

But if there’s something that does unify the whole decade, it’s that there are a LOT of songs from films, adverts and TV shows. This is why you get the likes of Mr. Blobby, the Teletubbies and Flat Eric (he was that yellow furry thing in a jeans advert. No? Well it was ridiculously overhyped at the time).  That’s not even getting to the film soundtracks. Cher’s version of ‘The Shoop Shoop Song’ was from Mermaids. Maria McKee’s ‘Show Me Heaven’ was from Days Of Thunder. ‘Unchained Melody’ was from Ghost. Bryan Adams – ‘Everything I Do I Do It For You’ from Robin Hood Prince Of Theives. Wet Wet Wet’s version of ‘Love Is All Around Me’ from Four Weddings And A Funeral, Whitney Houstons version of ‘I Will Always Love You’ from The Bodyguard, R Kelly’s ‘I Believe I Can Fly’ from Space Jam, and Celine Dion’s ‘My Heart Will Go On’ from Titanic. While you did get some uptempo ones, like Will Smith- ‘Men In Black’ from, er, Men In Black, and Jamiroquai getting their only number one with ‘Deeper Underground’ from Godzilla, a lot of the film themes were big bombastic ballads with a serious tone. In general, pop singers pouring their hearts out was a popular trend, a lot of them reaching number one and staying there for months. This saw the 1990s setting chart records that have at the time of writing yet to be broken. The aforementioned Bryan Adams track stayed there for 16 weeks, and the decade saw the biggest selling single ever, that is Elton John’s Candle In The Wind, released in tribute to Princess Diana after her sudden, tragic death.

The 1990s number ones were a bit of a pic’n’mix, so he’s my pick from the mixed bag.

1) Oasis – Don’t Look Back In Anger

2) No Doubt – Don’t Speak

3) Madonna – Frozen

4) Shakespear’s Sister – Stay

5) The Beautiful South – A Little Time

6) The Manic Street Preachers – If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next

7) Olive – You’re Not Alone

8) Sinead O’Connor – Nothing Compares 2 U

9) The Prodigy – Firestarter

10) Spice Girls – 2 Become 1

UK Number One Singles: The 1980s

The 1980s has a bit of an advantage on other decades, in that generally the things people like about it are the same as the things people don’t like about it. I don’t much like terms such as  “guilty pleasure” and “so bad it’s good”, but the 1980s did cheesy and overblown so damn well and was proud of it. While it’s often said to have had a feeling that “greed is good”, there is a bit of a “go out and GET IT!” feel to some of these tracks, with Survivor’s ‘Eye Of The Tiger’ and Irene Cara’s ‘Fame’ being good examples of this, and the shamelessness of it goes in its favour. The bright, multicoloured style of much of the 1980s is still appealing today, although the gaudy clothes, heavy make-up and sprayed hair and perms – and that’s just the blokes – look peculiar at times.

The 1980s was a great decade for electronic music, from synthpop to the beginnings of dance/club music, and in terms of great pop songs being number one hits, it was very strong. The artist who had the most was Madonna. She would become known as the Queen of Pop, and it’s fair to say her star was born here. She has some of her very best work here, with ‘Like A Prayer’, ‘Into The Groove’ and ‘Papa Don’t Preach’. Even the ones that aren’t as well remembered these days ‘True Blue’ and ‘Who’s That Girl?’ are quite good. While he had been around for some time, this was the decade the self-proclaimed King Of Pop Michael Jackson became a superstar, with ‘Billie Jean’ arguably being the song that cemented it.If the 1970s had a large number of comedy records, the 1980s… had a few too, but what it stands out for is having a lot of charity records, with the Band Aid – ‘Do They Know It’s Christmas?’ setting a standard that, to be honest, the others didn’t live up to.

There are some memorable one hit wonders. Some are remembered very fondly, such as ’99 Red Balloons’ by Nena and ‘Japanese Boy’ by Aneka. Then there are those which crop up regularly on those 100 Worse Hit Number Ones Of All Time list,  such as Joe Dolce Musical Theatre, St. Winifred’s School Choir and Renee & Renato. There are also a handful of tracks which you probably couldn’t get away with in any other decade, like Phil Collins covering The Supremes, Kajagoogoo and songs that were an odd combination of being schmaltzy in a rather smug way, Jim Diamond and Chris De Burgh tracks being the worst offenders.

My pick of the bunch:

1) Madonna – Like A Prayer

2) The Jam – Going Underground

3)  Bonnie Tyler – Total Eclipse Of The Heart

4)  The Bangles – Eternal Flame

5) Black Box – Ride On Time

6) Madonna – Into The Groove

7) Blondie – Atomic

8) The Human League – Don’t You Want Me

9)  John Lennon – Imagine

10) David Bowie – Ashes To Ashes

UK Number One Singles: The 1970s

The 1970s is often characterised as being all about punk and disco, but punk songs never quite made it to number one (although The Sex Pistols came close).  There is a fair amount of rock, but it’s the fun shiny glam rock by T-Rex, Sweet, Wizzard and Slade.  While there are a lot of disco tracks and ones which incorporated elements of disco, it doesn’t appear in the list of number ones as much as you might expect, although there are classics of the genre like ‘I Will Survive’ by Gloria Gaynor and ‘I Feel Love’ by Donna Summer.

What you do get a lot of is pop music that at times gets a bit too cheesy, chirpy, twee and middle of the road. My parents teenage years were the 1970s, and whether distaste for some of these tracks is me unconciously rebelling against that or maybe it’s disappointing after the decade being built up as a golden age, or perhaps some of this stuff  is simply not my cup of tea. But the 1970s number ones don’t have the timeless quality of the 1960s ones. That’s not to say that they are bad, but they are unmistakeably 1970s. Some of it has dated badly because it is uncomfortable to listen to nowadays, the Gary Glitter ones for obvious reasons. Others are because they have a couple of lines that are very un-PC nowadays, the Johnny Mathis Christmas number one being an example.

There is a lot of hair and teeth. Big afros, long hair, moustaches, beards, and the teeth come courtesy of The Osmonds. What is surprising is the sheer amount of novelty comedy records. ‘Grandad’ by Clive Dunn, ‘Amazing Grace’ on bagpipes, The Wurzels ‘Combine Harvester’, Windsor Davies & Don Estelle, Typically Tropical. ‘Kung Fu Fighting’ by Carl Douglas is pretty good, and Benny Hill’s ‘Ernie (The Fastest Milkman In The West)’ is funny, which is all it was intended to be.

But this decade shouldn’t be mocked. The act with most number ones in was ABBA, who showed everyone just how classy pure pop music can be. There were some seriously subversive songs reach the top spot which broke new grounds in terms of number one singles, such as ‘Wuthering Heights’ by Kate Bush, ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ by Queen, ‘Space Oddity’ by David Bowie, ‘Are Friends Electric’ and ‘Cars’ by Gary Numan, and ‘Another Brick In The Wall Part II’ by Pink Floyd.

My pick of the bunch:

1) Kate Bush – Wuthering Heights

2) Pink Floyd – Another Brick In The Wall Part II

3) Blondie – Heart Of Glass

4) David Bowie – Space Oddity

5) ABBA – Dancing Queen

6) Queen – Bohemian Rhapsody

7) Jimmi Hendrix Experience – Voodoo Child

8) Gloria Gaynor – I Will Survive

9) Barry White – You’re The First, The Last, My Everything

10) The Buggles – Video Killed The Radio Star

UK Number One Singles: The 1960s

The 1960s was a fantastic decade for pop music. Listening to tracks from this time you can hear the influence that they had on decades to come.  A lot of the songs from the 1960s have stood the test of time so well and are still played today. Motown acts like The Supremes and Marvin Gaye, bands like The Beatles, the Rolling Stones and the Kinks, and singers like Dusty Springfield have clearly inspired later artists.   Future decades have actually dated worse than the 1960s. It’s an exaggeration to say that every song that made it to the top of the charts was a classic, but it comes very close. Even the novelty hits, like Lonnie Donegan’s ‘My Old Man’s A Dustman’ aren’t that bad.

The big stars of the 1960s UK chart were of course The Beatles, who the topped the charts 17 times, more than anyone else in the decade. Not only that, but a couple of artists like Joe Cocker and Marmalade got to number one with Beatles cover versions.

Towards the end, as there was more experimentation going on in ’60s music, there are some interesting, if a little bizarre songs making it to the top. 1969 has a cartoon band (The Archies),  a song about a dystopian future (‘In The Year 2525 (Exordium & Termninus)’ by Zager and Evans), a sexual French language duet (‘Je t’aime… moi non plus’) a song that would come to be associated with werewolves (‘Bad Moon Rising’) and Rolf Harris singing a song written in 1902 about the American civil war. Edit 5th of July 2014 – But after what has since come to light about Harris, that last fact is disturbing now, especially as the song is also about childhood.

I knew about Cilla Black’s ’60s popstar beginnings and that Ken Dodd has a million selling single (‘Tears’), but I was surprised that Des O’Connor had a big number one hit, and that Wendy Richard of Are You Being Served? and Eastenders fame appeared on a number one single before either of those existed (‘Come Outside’).

One of the worst songs is actually an Elvis Presley one. A lot of songs from his back catelogue that are considered classics didn’t make it to number one in the UK, and like any artist that becomes a massive star he recorded his fair share of stinkers, the dreadful ‘Wooden Heart’ definitely counting as one of them.

My favourite track is, strangely enough, the other track that is apparently a contender for Margaret Thatcher’s favourite song of all time, ‘Telstar’ by the Tornados. A gorgeous intrumental track named after the satellite, it also has the honour of being the first US number one by a British group.

My pick of the bunch:

1) The Tornados – Telstar

2) Dusty Springfield – You Don’t Have To Say You Love Me

3) The Beatles – Help!

4) The Beatles – A Hard Day’s Night

5) Rolling Stones – I Can’t Get No Satisfaction

6) Marvin Gaye – I Heard It Through The Grapevine

7) Nancy Sinatra – These Boots Are Made For Walkin’

8) The Animals – The House Of The Rising Sun

9) The Supremes – Baby Love

10) Louis Armstrong – What A Wonderful World

UK Number One Singles: The 1950s

I think I can understand what older people mean when they say that music was better in “their day”. For one thing, it’s human nature. Everyone tends to believe that the culture they grew up with was THE best. But listening to the number one singles of the 1950s I can see what they mean on another level. However, it’s more because I can empathise with them rather than because I agree with them. It’s a completely different world to what I’m used to, I’m not sure how much I can relate to it and the only songs I recognise are ones that were used in adverts or from films.

Overall, they are a little… dull. I feel churlish dismissing it in such a way, especially as we’re talking about a time when my parents weren’t even born until the last few years of it, but just as a personal opinion the 1950s is the decade that I’ve always found the least appealing as far as pop music is concerned. But it would be very wrong to dimiss it outright. After all this was the birth of the pop singles chart as we in the UK would come to know it. It has some Early Installment Weirdness. For one thing, at the start it was normal for different to artists to record the same song and release it at around the same time, competing for who would have the bigger hit with it. There are also a few occasions where there was a joint number one, meaning two songs were tied for the top spot some weeks. In one case these two things overlapped, when Frankie Laine and David Whitfield’s versions of ‘Answer Me’ were at the top at the same time. It was also kind of a primordial soup stage for pop music, with rock’n’roll being the evolutionary shift that ended up setting the standard for most of what was to come.

The rock ‘n’ roll songs here are among the ones I like best from this decade, and surely everyone has room in their heart for Doris Day singing ‘Secret Love’ and ‘Que Sera Sera’. As for my least favourite, I have to go with the horribly cutesy ‘How Much Is That Doggie In The Window’ by Lita Roza.  Liza Roza herself hated it and only sang it once to record it and never again.  It’s apparently a contender for Margaret Thatcher’s favourite song of all time though.

My pick of the bunch:

1) Bill Haley & The Comets – Rock Around The Clock

2) Elvis Presley – Jailhouse Rock

3)  Jerry Lee Lewis – Great Balls Of Fire

4) Connie Francis – Stupid Cupid

5) Perry Como – Magic Moments

6) Doris Day – Que Sera Sera (Whatever Will Be Will Be)

7) Doris Day – Secret Love

8) Vic Damone – On The Street Where You Live

9) Kitty Kallen – Little Things Mean A Lot

10) Perez Prado – Cherry Pink (And Apple Blossom White)

My Top 6 Underrated Doctor Who Episodes

These episodes aren’t my top 6 favourite episodes, in fact they’re not even in my top ten. But they are episodes of the series that I enjoyed and was always surprised when I saw that other fans had such a negative reaction to them. Now there are some episodes where I agreed with the low opinions others had of it (Fear Her) and  some which I thought were OK but could see why they wouldn’t be everybody’s cup of tea (The Lodger). But with these episodes, while they weren’t exactly classics, I genuinely liked them. So with that in mind I put my top 6 underrated Doctor Who episodes.(Note. These contain spoilers for all the episodes).

6) Victory Of The Daleks (Series 5)

I know why this one is unpopular actually. The Dalek redesign. For me, while I didn’t think the Dalek redesign was particularly great, I thought the backlash against it was way over the top,  and is just the sort of bandwagon jumping that is typical of the British public, yeah I’ll stop on this tangent before it turns into a rant. But while we’re the on the subject of Dalek repaint jobs, I loved the look of the Ironside Daleks. The twist with them being the ones who created the scientist took me by surprise. But even then, I think I could forgive this episode almost anything just for the fact that it gave us DALEKS SERVING TEA and THE DOCTOR ARMED WITH A JAMMIE DODGER. That is the kind of humour I love about Doctor Who.

5) The Unicorn And The Wasp (Series 4)

I confess I haven’t actually read any of Agatha Christie’s books, but like most people I have seen countless adapatations of them on TV. The feel they seemed to be going for in this episode was of a light hearted take on Christie’s style, and I think that was achieved. Some have said they couldn’t take the giant wasp seriously, and I can see where they are coming from, but the idea of a wasp-like creature as a villain was appealing to me. This is probably because when I was a kid I got stung on the throat by one, and so ever since I’ve had a kind of mixed fascination and wariness of wasps. So while it isn’t an all-time great, I thought it wasn’t bad at all.

4) Boom Town (Series 1)

This was the budget saving filler episode of series 1. Set in 21st Century Cardiff, featuring recurring cast members, the return of one of the villains from a previous story and with very little action happening. But it is much better than it could have been. Annette Badland had to carry a lot in this episode, and she was brilliant. I think it’s a shame she has rarely been given a chance to shine.  I remember at the time a few fans thinking that Margaret/Blon could have been a good villain to use again had she not been turned into an egg in the end. This is how to make a filler episode that is still a decent one.

3) The Idiot’s Lantern (Series 2)

Maybe I’m just a sucker for a lot of the things used in this episode. I really like Mark Gatiss’ style, shown in The League Of Gentlemen and Crooked House, things with old fashioned technology like the TVs, and reference jokes like the fact the street was called Florizel Street, the original name for Coronation Street. I also enjoy hammy villains, and Maureen Lipman as The Wire certainly delivers that. I also really liked Rory Jennings’ performance as Tommy. I’ve never quite got why it seems to come up as a bad episode so often.

2) The End Of The World (Series 1)

This was one of my favourites from the first series. The solemness of the occasion of the end of the world is contrasted so well with it being presented in a fun way, and it’s illustrated no better than it being soundtracked to ‘Toxic’ by Britney Spears. Again, it is just this sort of humour that I love about Doctor Who. There is also Cassandra, who in my opinion was one of Russel T. Davies’ best creations for the show, and Zoe Wannamaker did a great job playing her.

1)The Vampires Of Venice (Series 5)

I like this episode a lot! Obviously as this is at number one it’s the episode I am the most baffled about when fans mention it as one of their least favourites. One thing I love about it is that it’s Rory’s first proper adventure with the Doctor, and Rory is my favourite companion. He gets a lot of funny moments in this, and most of them are because he makes quips and is naturally funny, not just as someone to laugh at like he seemed to be shown in The Eleventh Hour. Plus it featured Gilbert the ’80s ghost from Being Human. But I think what stuck with me from this episode was Helen McCrory as Rosanna. She had some great flirty scenes with the Doctor, and while I’m not condoning Rosanna’s actions the fact she was doing it in an attempt to save her species and her final scene jumping into the canal meant I couldn’t help feeling a bit sorry for her. I certainly think she was an interesting villain.

So there we have it. Six episodes of Doctor Who which I think are better than they are given credit for.

BRIT Awards (extremely late review)

I wrote a review of the BRIT Awards the week it happened, but didn’t publish anywhere, and now obviously it’s outrageously out of date to be discussing it. But I’m going to post it here anyway, simply because writing reviews like this was what inspired me to start a blog in the first place. So here’s me starting the blog with an archive post.

Brit Awards 2012

Well, it was a ratings success, the highest in 5 years, but the general feeling is that it was underwhelming. Maybe we’re just so used to the idea that the BRITs are a bit of a shambles. After all, the infamous 1989 ceremony is the one that gets mentioned every time people think of the BRITs. Maybe the British public just love to complain, maybe it’s our tabloid fuelled culture, but I wonder if we just wanted some controversy.

This year everything mostly ran as expected. The award winners were unsurprising. After Adele’s megasuccess last year it was no surprise she won her awards. Ed Sheeran has also had a great year. Managing to get contemplative acoustic guitar ballads in between all the club anthems on Capital FM is an achievement in itself. Even One Direction getting Best Single wasn’t a shocker, mainly because squeeing tween fangirls voting multiple times is a well documented phenomenon.  James Corden was on presenting duties again, and whatever people may think of him and his bad jokes he kept things ticking reasonably enough. But we did get a controversy eventually, and it came right at the very end of the show when Adele’s acceptance speech was cut off to make way for Blur’s closing performance and News At Ten.

Adele made her feelings clear on the matter by giving “the suits” the middle finger. As always, the whole ended up being blown out of all proportion, but it did show spectacularly bad planning on the part of the organisers. The BRITs hype the Best British Album award to be the most important of the evening. Adele was the biggest music star of last year, her album being a critical and commercial hit, and she’s a British artist who has had massive international success. That is the sort of thing the BRITs like to claim they are all about, so it should have come off like a coronation. Instead, this was the one award that got cut off. But maybe messing up is really what the BRIT Awards are all about.

Of course there were a handful of “live TV never goes perfectly” moments. Some bloke walking in front of James Corden. Plan B looking a bit, er, worse for wear when he was presenting an award. The weirdest has to be the announcement that Emeli Sande had won the Critic’s Choice Award being followed by an interview with… last year’s winner Jessie J. Emeli Sande didn’t even get to go up and collect her award, she only got James Corden casually offering her congratulations from afar. After she’d done those daft adverts for them too. What was with the set design as well? It was like Lucky Charms cereal with all the pink hearts, yellow stars and rainbows.

As for the performances, well Olly Murs had previously claimed he should have been nominated for more awards, but his rather ropey performance didn’t help his case much. But most of them were quite good. Coldplay’s ‘Charlie Brown’ accompanied by pretty lights is always nice. Florence + The Machine surrounded by lots of people in white robes, a laser cage singing a big long note and Rihanna’s enjoyable paint splattered dance show for ‘We Found Love’ were probably my favourites. While it might have been the nostalgia, I liked Blur performing some of their biggest hits at the end.

So the Brits 2012. Reasonably good business as usual that could have been planned better. See you next year.