Jeroen's Micro Blog

2023-09-01 00:00:00

• The one hundred and eighty-ninth TV show: #763 Two Days and One Night Although a preview of Two Days and One Night originally triggered our interest in Korean variety, we ended up watching Infinite Challenge first. We fell in love with it, watch a lot, but took a break to move on to other shows. We missed it, though, so it felt like time to bring Two Days and One Night in. We weren't sure - it'd be different, so would we like that - but the show quickly won us over. We started from about a year into the first season and it feels like the chemistry is different from the start. The show is looser and Kang Ho-Dong as MC makes for a less constrained feel compared to Jae-Suk's following of roles. Even the interaction with the crew, which feels more (friendly) antagonistic from both sides, works better, especially as it feels like the cast has bonded more over it. There are a lot of fun, unforced moments and having ended on two trips in a row where they clearly changed their plans partway through, it feels more genuine even if a bunch of it is still tightly plotted. We don't really get the equivalent shows here, but these variety shows really fill a niche that makes it fun viewing, both in its variety and its comfort as you get to know the cast and it did become one of those shows we look forward to watching every week.

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• The four hundred and sixty-sixth album: #466 Circle Jerks - Group Sex Group Sex's 15 minute 25 second long album is one of the shortest albums on the list, with a few songs on the song list running longer on their own than this entire album. It's quick, doing its best not to overstay its welcome. The tracks are simply hard and fast punk, with each song feeling reduced to its core. Not that bad an approach really.

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• The four hundred and sixty-fifth album: #465 Judas Priest - British Steel I'm surprised with how much the rise of heavy metal has been connecting with me on this run through the ages - I knew I enjoyed the general sound, but British Steel's at times sedated sound works to keep the high energy up without being overwhelming everywhere. It's surprisingly well balanced and I think I want to try to hear more.

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• The one hundred and sixty-seventh classical recording: #442 Antonin Dvorak - Symphony no. 7 Dvorak's seventh symphony starts big and jubilant, with a larger score that slowly reduces to something more delicate, moving through various movements for a well rounded piece that retains its passion and interest.

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• The one hundred and fourty-third book: #83 The Hunchback of Notre Dame - Victor Hugo There's a really good story lurking in this novel... if only it wasn't surrounded by slightly too much period detail and defense of the good old days. Victor Hugo's goal was partially to discuss gothic architecture and make the case for its preservation, but it makes for some long boring chapters where it goes into too much detail about the history of parts of Paris and describing its detail, which means that you get distracted from the story - and I struggled to pick up the thread several times after these diversions. The core story, of various people going through their lives around the Notre Dame as a love story unfolds, is quite interesting. It's a shame that the English title focuses on the hunchback as the French title, Notre-Dame de Paris, it's clearer that he's just a part of the story, and the other characters matter as much. It's what makes it interesting - these separate characters all having their lives intersect and relate to each other, and it creates its deeper plot more effectively that way.

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• The four hundred and sixty-fourth album: #464 Killing Joke - Killing Joke There's always going to be a debate about genres, and I would argue that after listening to Motorhead yesterday, Killing Joke reaches similar levels on some of its tracks. There's a loudness to these tracks that, again, doesn't overwhelm, but with such a heavy synthesizer band that the artificial angle really stands out. It's a good sound, different, still being aggressive while having a lot more variety than most.

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• The four hundred and sixty-third album: #463 Motorhead - Ace of Spades I found something reassuring in the heavy metal of Ace of Spades - yeah, there's a lot of aggressive energy, but there's a focus to the sound that helps set the tracks a bit more, an increased focus on the vocals in the mix with every member seemingly having a chance to do their bit. It's loud, but it stops before it becomes overwhelming, which really helps each of the tracks come in well. It's a chance from the new wave that dominates the era, and even the post punk sound, and it's a direction that works out well.

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• The one hundred and sixty-sixth classical recording: #964 Brian Ferneyhough - Funerailles There's a lack of structure to this piece that makes it disconcerting to listen to, that would feel incredibly weird if we hadn't already covered works from composers like Ravel. It still strains listenability, with the noise sometimes overtaking any semblance of a structure, but it also coalesces into something more coherent from time to time, with the undertones of the chaotic nature of the track still in play. It's a fascinating piece, hard to listen to, but where I feel I'm just about able to comprehend it.

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• The four hundred and sixty-second album: #462 Echo & the Bunnymen - Crocodiles It's a fine post punk album. Nothing really hit me, there wasn't anything that seemed that special, but it did the job well enough.

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• The four hundred and sixty-first album: #461 The Cure - Seventeen Seconds The Cure brings a dark sound to the table, with a deep, gothic feel to the sound aided by incidental and faint lyrics. They're there, but feels almost superfluous, small contributions to a larger growing piece that focuses on bass sound with minimal drums and few flourishes. It's the soundscapes the music creates that are compelling, far more interesting than any lyrics would bring to it. They become very immersive, more so than I thought I would get to.

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• The four hundred and sixty-fifth classical recording: #436 Emmanuel Chabrier - Espana This rhapsody is short but exciting - a real burst of energy with a lot of happy feelings. It gets in to lift your spirits and get your mood up, and not much more, without overstaying any sort of welcome - a perfect Monday morning piece.

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2023-08-01 00:00:00

• The four hundred and sixtieth album: #460 The Soft Boys - Underwater Moonlight There's something quite nicely accessible in Underwater Moonlight - a light pop punk album that is easy to listen to, feeling fluffier while having the punk undertones in its music. It's nothing overly rough or angry, but more smooth love story like lyrics that are just a really pleasant listen.

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• The four hundred and fifty-ninth album: #459 Peter Gabriel - Peter Gabriel (III) Is it possible I've had my fill of prog rock? Peter Gabriel's third self titled album feels, from a distance, like a good example of the genre, something quite nice to listen to. It does fail to connect with me, partially because it all settles into the same style - perhaps novel in places but not as distinct as I would hope for - but also because Peter Gabriel's vocals don't really work for me on this album. There's some slight slurring that I think comes from some applied filters, which leaves me with them fading into the background more than the lyrics seem to indicate he'd want. It feels like a bit of a mistake from when the album was put together, but means that I just never felt I got much out of listening to it.

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• The one hundred and eighty-eighth TV show: #28 The Phil Silvers Show It's clear that over the years, sitcoms have moved on in how they present themselves. Golden Girls was good, but a bit staid for now, and it's taken the likes of Seinfeld to take away the morale at the end that older shows often seem to rely on. The Phil Silvers show is at the very end, where Phil Silvers' Sergeant Bilko has to come out well enough at the end and the comedy moves slow in places. There are a few good bits, with Phil Silvers going off to do his thing working best, but just as often it gets stuck and it ends up shining for about five minutes in a twenty five minute episode. These days it'd be condensed, but here I do feel like I'm missing for a chunk of the run.

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• The four hundred and fifty-eighth album: #458 The Dead Kennedys - Fresh Fruit For Rotting Vegetables There's really just an undiluted wall of rock sound in this album, loud and aggressive, with a particular political bent that often almost gets lost in the loud music. The individual tracks don't stick around for long, but there's enough repetition that you don't miss a song - it does mostly get changed up with different vocal performances, as well as the occasional odd touch, but it's mostly just a lot of the punk music you'd really expect here - not bad, but its 33 minute runtime does feel like the right length

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• The four hundred and fifty-seventh album: #457 The Cramps - Songs the Lord Taught Us It's always welcome to get something different from an album. The Cramps' mix of punk and rockabilly - quite a modern sound in the day mixed with such a deliberate throwback - is still an interesting mix, even if both genres are quite old now - rockabilly just feels like that much more of a throwback going through this list. Lyrically, the album is fine, and the strength of its music mostly lies in the moments where it relies on the fusion of genres to create its throwback mood. There's a lot to find in here, but it feels as its best when they most try to do their own thing.

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• The one hundred and sixty-fourth classical recording: #459 Richard Strauss - Violin Sonata There is a delicate sound to this sonata, the lone violin really shining in the second improvisation movement. There isn't a constant variety on a theme that's as visible, nothing bombastic or in your face about it, but an engaging longer piece that's set up to keep your attention and sound pleasant to listen to.

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• The four hundred and fifty-sixth album: #456 AC/DC - Back In Black It feels like Back In Black is more of the same for AC/DC - loud heavy metal that doesn't stop for the ten tracks this album goes on for. It's not the most inventive, true, but it keeps hitting that sweet spot that drives you through this. There's nothing special, but this is so good at providing the heavy metal sound I crave that it simply works.

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• The one hundred and fourty-second book: #082 The Red and the Black - Stendhal After The Betrothed, it's been a welcome twist to get The Red and the Black's more cynical take on romance. Its lead a more deceptive character, his story of enlightenement mostly for fame and to court several women. His rise also proves his undoing, as much from his love as how he annoyed the aristocracy whose station he started to rise towards. It references the history of the day and a lot of the plot is somewhat informed by it, but it is only there in the background of the novel. It makes for an interesting, engaging read for the most parts, as long as you don't get too lost in the names. The one hundred and eighty-seventh TV show: #973 Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey It's always difficult to follow up on a classic and, for me, the original Cosmos was one of those, bringing us in the world of science, showing it and effectively connecting us to it, including a look at the future and the challenges our world faces that science warns us for. For most of its run, the Neil deGrasse Tyson headed run lives up to that. He is a fascinating presenter, summarizing and teaching the complicated matters in an accessible way, both telling us more about what we knew already and putting what we already knew in its wider context. It's incredibly fascinating when it does so. It lost us more at its more pessimistic looks, and we felt the climate change episode went too far beyond - not that we don't believ eit, but it's a topic that gets hard to listen to and deal with when the science of it just get ignored. Similarly, while the history of science sections are interesting, some episodes focus too much of them (and perhaps overemphasize individual scientists over the shared work that helps progress) when it would be more interesting to get the science behind the story. It sounds like the sequel series has more of what I look for, in part looking at distant worlds, and I look forward to hearing more stories and learn more about our universe.

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• The four hundred and fifty-fifth album: #455 Dexys Midnight Runners - Searching for the Young Soul Rebels There's a mix of influences at play in this album, with a heavy punk feel on what's notionally a (blue-eyed) soul album, with some hints of ska and other influences that I can't always make sense of. It's mostly a pleasant listen, if one that doesn't always have as much of an impact - it just feels difficult to connect to all of these, perhaps because I don't know where these match my tastes.

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• The one hundred and sixty-third classical recording: #129 Joseph Haydn - Symphony no. 45, "Farewell" You don't always hear gentler pieces come from symphonies, but in Farewell it happens - like a drawn out goodbye, it's slow, sad in places and while it has some moments of excitement in it, there are also many others where it stays restrained. It's clearest at the end, where the musicians gradually leave the stage, leaving just the violins to play the end - it's a theatrical move that fits the themes well, with an appropriate downbeat ending that follows through on all those themes. As abstract as the music can be, it feels amazing how much more on point it is now.

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• The four hundred and fifty-fourth album: #454 Adam and the Ants - Kings of the Wild Frontier Adam and the Ants bring new wave with a punk attitude to the music - loose, rocky and fairly open, the repetitive guitars overlaid on more interesting tunes. It's a bit distracting, but it works most of the time - I just don't think it makes for the most compelling album, with even something like Jolly Roger feeling a bit too loose to work in their style.

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• The four hundred and fifty-third album: #453 The Specials - The Specials Although still heavily influenced by ska, The Specials brings a bit more to the table than that. They are angrier, full of energy, with the usual laid back ska style replaced with the anger we've gotten with rock music. Punk is a clear influence, although the fusion with ska really puts it in a different place. It goes between ska filtered through punk and punk filtered through ska, depending on the mood the track is going for, and it's an explosive mix because of those contrasts. Rather than staying on a single emotional level, which can get quite wearing in both of these genres, they combine here to create a flow that becomes more engaging rather than being exhausting.

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• The one hundred and sixty-second classical recording: #175 Luigi Cherubini - Medee As always, it's difficult to get the full breadth of an opera when you're listening without a translation of the lyrics. I know the rough story, but the opera's music doesn't give me enough to hold on to to really follow it. What really stands out though is Medea's role, which feels like a real tour de force for the performer and, in this version, is Maria Callas' role for a reason. Her voice is strong, emotional and keeps its depth. It's an amazing story to listen to, even without as much of the context.

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• The four hundred and fifty-second album: #452 Gary Numan - The Pleasure Principle We've got an album here that's both predictable in what it covers - Numan's style is one I've covered in the reviews of his songs before - but also gives it variety while staying recognisable. The new wave melodies differ between the songs, but the underlying drum beat is always there and always feels the same, while there isn't much variety in his vocals. That works to create the atmosphere and feeling though, creating a strong throughline that's assuring in its own way.

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• The four hundred and fifty-first album: #451 The Damned - Machine Gun Etiquette I'm always surprised at how good it feels to get a good, old fashioned punk rock album in, rather than the more experimental post punk offerings. Machine Gun Etiquette has its anger, its loose sound, but also the harmonies that show there's more going on here. The album is short, but it's an explosion of energy and anger that thrives so well here.

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2023-07-01 00:00:00

• The one hundred and sixty-first classical recording: #677 Joaquin Turina - Danzas Fantasticas Turina's dances are full of energy, with even the more lamentful parts bursting with energy even if the middle section isn't as excited as the other two. It's a welcome burst of energy in the morning.

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• The four hundred and fiftieth album: #450 Michael Jackson - Off the Wall Off the Wall is a good disco album, with some good funk songs and some great ballads in there, with Michael Jackson's voice as impeccable as you'd expect. All that's missing, compared to what I expect I'll hear in Jackson's later albums on the list, is the production and breadth of sounds - at this point, it still sticks to the disco sound he became famous with, but the real progress that I believe created his legacy is still on the way - lurking, but I know it's going to step up. As an album, it really works best to show off his early work.

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• The four hundred and fourty-ninth album: Public Image Ltd - Metal Box Metal Box becomes a post-punk mess at times, a collection of sounds that feels thrown together without much of a thought. The album was improvised, and that's clear from the different directions the tracks take, but it's done with a level of skill that keeps it listenable - as much as it may seem like a cacophony, it's one that draws you in with its ideas rather than becoming off putting. There's not much of an identity to the album, but the different parts are interesting to listen to with each song its own new turn.

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• The one hundred and sixtieth classical recording: #591 Arnold Schoenberg - Five Orchestral Pieces, op. 16 There's something threatening about these five pieces. Wikipedia describes it as partially referencing madness, but there's more menace in the pieces, with the dark tones really creeping up through the works, sometimes overtaking an otherwise pleasant and friendly piece until it's warped by it. Haunting but lovely.

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• The four hundred and fourty-eighth album: #484 Pink Floyd - The Wall As I said yesterday, this is a double album with a plan. There's a story to the songs, with tracks being brought back in different interpretations and parts going back and forth. As a listener, this becomes very satisfying - you pick up on the flow of the track and can follow along with everything that's going on, picking up on a story that's not too complicated and adds a bit of flavour to the various tracks. It's all fairly effective and I quite liked the rock album.

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• The four hundred and fourty-seventh album: #447 Fleetwood Mac - Tusk There are two options, it seems, for the contents of a double album. One, which we'll see tomorrow, is a coherent set of tracks that really seeks to tell a story. The other is today's Tusk, which is a mix of styles (almost divided based on the different band members writing them), where it feels more like the band is doing their best to get their different ideas out. While staying on the calmer side, with some of the rock tracks getting into pop ballad territory, it's hard to pin that down as the definite evolution. It's not as folksy, not even as upbeat, but there's a really reassuring flow to the album that makes it lovely to get immersed in.

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• The one hundred and fifty-ninth classical recording: #962 George Benjamin - Ringed by the Flat Horizon There's something that leans more towards music and storytelling through music in more modern pieces. Composed in 1980, Ringed by the Flat Horizon has an at times cacophonous sound, with a chaotic mix of sounds punctuated by heavy percussion that makes it difficult to follow. It's content to feel that way rather than striving for a pure beauty of older pieces, invoking stronger emotions that aren't always just pleasing. It invokes that feeling of dread and anticipation of an oncoming storm really well and I quite liked how sinister it got.

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• The one hundred and fourty-first book: #081 The Betrothed - Alessandro Manzoni I've noticed that I've been struggling to focus on these historical life stories - this one a love story of a couple kept apart by a nobleman who wants to marry Lucia, half of the couple. They run away from the village and get caught up in the military movements in Milan in the 1600s as well as the plague that struck the area at that time, and there are several chapters dedicated to the historic descriptions of the events of the time, rather than the central love story that takes a while to connect. It didn't read as well, and I think I need to go for a more contemporary novel soon to clear my palate.

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• The four hundred and forty-sixth album: #446 Cheap Trick - At Budokan Crowd noises and echo aside, At Budokan's hard rock shows off Cheap Trick's music quite well - the driving guitars and hard music that doesn't veer into a shoutier metal track, but keeps it musically contained with some nice moments of composition between the on going pushes. Despite the style, the tracks are quite distinctive even when they stay within that ball park, without a ballad in sight, and even the live version of I Want You To Want Me is that much rockier even as it stays very poppy. While drowned out by the glut of rock bands in this era, Cheap Trick still stays very listenable.

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• The four hundred and forty-fifth album: Gang of Four - Entertainment! There's a lot of punk in Entertainment!, which leads to a problem I've had with similar albums before - lulled into a bit of complacency, I'm on the fourth track before I know it as the songs blend together - and as accessible as Damaged Goods is, in my head the sixth song Guns or Butter is the first that sounds distinctive. The second side brings some more musical variety, but it shows some of the limits on their vocals and the main interest continues to come from the lyrics, which have the more interesting counter culture bend, as well as talk of (failures of) sex that feel subtle enough to past censors but still quite a push for the most part. It's not the best punk I've heard, but it's fine to fill that gap for now.

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• The one hundred and fifty-eighth classical recording: #873 Dmitri Shostakovich - From Jewish Folk Poetry With so many of the classical tracks being instrumental, it feels special to get one that puts the vocals as central as this one - yes, that's partially the point of the work, but the score is minimal and even absent sometimes, with the performers really taking centre stage. The works themselves are mostly quite sad songs, with the Song of Misery being one of the happiest tunes in there. I didn't find a translation for the Russian lyrics, but you get the dark, sombre feeling just listening to them, which seems even more appropriate considering when these were written. All in all it stays an impressive vocal performance that shows off the bleakness really well.

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• The four hundred and forty-fourth album: #444 Neil Young with Crazy Horse - Rust Never Sleeps Neil Young's folk rock is fine - there are some interesting lyrics and the tracks are composed to feel fairly distinctive. They're fine tracks. The subdued fok sound though removes some of the power of the harder rock sections, while somehow drowning the lyrics out a bit - it's all very listenable and good, I can hear the elements I like, but it never quite hits the sweet spot that makes me sit up and pay attention.

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• The four hundred and forty-third album: #443 Elvis Costello & The Attractions - Armed Forces As we've seen the rise of new wave lead to poppy tracks with less deep tracks, it's been nice to get the more political messages Elvis Costello brings - wrapped in more personal songs, the intention of a bunch of these tracks are more clear in their meaning, with a pacifist and anti-capitalist message that carries the album well. The venom of the message is mostly wrapped in pleasant, accessible pop music, with it taking until Goon Squad on the second side for the rock to come back in and underline the message, its aggression not jarring as much as it's reminding you of what has come before. It even ties the personal and political threads together to some extent at the end, for an album that keeps really good to listen to for the entire runtime.

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• The one hundred and fifty-seventh classical recording: #847 Erich Wolfgang Korngold - Violin Concerto While as a film composer, Korngold is said to have brought more classical music influences to film, this work also shows the reverse. The Romance second movement especially feels like it supports a movie, the action moving through several scenes in a way that feels more like an opera or other narrative piece, just without the singers or performers. It's open ended enough there isn't a full story here, but it shows how even the influence of movies is carrying through in this piece in a way that's more rousing and fascinating than the methodical build that feels more prevalent in earlier works.

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2023-06-01 00:00:00

• The four hundred and forty-second album: #442 The Slits - Cut While billed as a punk band, when listening to Cut the reggae sound stands out most often. It has the reggae-style percussion and vocals that dominate the album, a slight slurring to the latter and a looseness to the whole album. It's not bad, but it does start to wear thin about four tracks in. The album tries to mix it up a bit in places, but it doesn't mix it enough for that to really work, and often it's just the slightly different lyrics that feel like the only difference between the tracks.

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• The four hundred and forty-first album: #441 Marianne Faithfull - Broken English Marianne Faithfull's raspier voice is a bit at odds with the smooth vocals that I associate more with new wave, but it creates an edge that suits all of these songs quite well. Working Class Hero, for example, gains a lot more of an edge in her interpretation, and they get a lot more raw when she really goes for it - Why D'Ya Do It has such an angry edge that it gets quite shocking.

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• The one hundred and eighty-sixth TV show: #487 Star Trek: Deep Space Nine After the other Star Trek installments, this was the one I was looking forward to covering most. It takes the large, optimistic Star Trek future and explores and challenges it. The crew don't all get along, but have conflicts built in that they still solve civilly, there are other outsiders with different points of view they take on, but there's still a lot of places where it's resolved from that same philosophy - so far at least, challenging it but not breaking it. Its focus on serialization and its large recurring cast helps to create a world that stays grounded on the station, avoiding the reset the other shows in the series take as the ship travels on. It starts off strong, and builds to a story that presages the storytelling of later dramas. So far, it really has been the best Star Trek show.

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• The one hundred and fifty-sixth classical recording: #121 Leopold Mozart - Trumpet Concerto This is a fairly short trumpet-based piece. It moves quite swiftly, with a bold and optimistic tone. It's still imposing, but with a lighter touch than other pieces, the trumpets' clarity really aiding that sound. It's quick, full and enjoyable to listen to.

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• The four hundred and fourtieth album: #440 Japan - Quiet Life Quiet Life, almost as its title implies, is a calm new wave album, the music at times almost ambient as it tends to sink away a bit. It's fine, but it feels like there's not a lot of impact in any of the songs that stuck with me.

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• The four hundred and thirty-ninth album: #439 The Clash - London Calling It's been over fourty years now, but the worries at the core of London Calling's title track still exist - there's an apt comparison to that time and the current state of the world and the UK in particular as it seems to be spinning out of control, it feels like nothing changes. The following tracks don't all keep the undiluted punk energy and anger, but while there is more ska and pure rock in the following tracks, the attitude, anger and counter culture lyrics remain in a lot of the tracks regardless - rather than a standalone punk album, it flows into the different genres that will start to dominate the scene, ska, new wave and hard rock, and it's clear the band is able to pull them off without losing who they are.

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• The one hundred and fifty-fifth classical recording: #185 Ludwig van Beethoven - Piano Sonata in C sharp minor, op. 27, no. 2, "Moonlight" Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata is one of those famous names, an evocative name given in retrospect to a sonata with three distinct parts. The first movement is sombre and delicate, uncomplicated to listen to and a gentle prelude to the happier second movement. It goes into what sounds to me like a more complex third movement, a stormy piece that's harder to keep up with. The middle movement suffers in comparison to the other two, the simplicity of the first really shining to just bring that out while the third riles you up that much more.

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• The five hundred fourty-ninth song: It Must Be Love - Madness Although I don't believe I've covered Madness yet at this point, they were an established band at this point. The reggae-inspired cover of the song then would have probably felt like their sound, although to me it feels differently produced, not entirely fitting in with their ska sound but having a lot of their poppy sounds still in place - not pushing it as much as I thought it could, but still quite well done as a song. The five hundred fiftieth song: Tom Sawyer - Rush There's a bit held back in Tom Sawyer, lyrically interesting and musically quite complex, with a far more futuristic sound in especially its solos than later acts did - the use of electronics feels stronger in plces in a way that the eighties really embrace. It's a flavour that's supported by the simpler sound of the vocals, avoiding the hard rock shouting but instead giving an earlier rock feel even as the rest of the music feels more ahead of its time. The five hundred fifty-first song: Girls on Film - Duran Duran As a new wave entry, I find Girls on Film a bit overwhelming - I know the music video would have been more tittilating and new wave leads off from here - Duran Duran is a big name after all - but it musically odens't give me that much more of interest. It feels like Duran Duran would work better in an album context, but here it feels like it lacks something. The five hundred fifty-second song: I Love Rock ‘n Roll - Joan Jett & The Blackhearts Following the demise of punk and the start of the longer lasting post punk era, it feels like hard rock takes on even more of it. Joan Jett feels like it leans into it heavily, in the presentation - more colourful but with the punk edge, the repetitive chorus underlined with the simpler melody. It's good, though, it's catchy, happy and gives that throwback feel that feels quite contemporary with other songs of the era. The five hundred fifty-third song: Mickey - Toni Basil The other side is that we can see where pop really goes. Mickey's cheerleader-like chant was obviously made to suit Toni Basil, but it also creates a pop sound that not only feels catchy, but feels a fairly early new wave evolution that leads to the bubblegum pop music we see being on the rise as well. Even as it lacks depth - it really is a cheesy love song - it also creates a really good atmosphere. The five hundred fifty-fourth song: Computer Love - Kraftwerk We're already done with all of Kraftwerk's work for the album's list, while this is the last of their songs on this list. It's softer and gentler, the unrelenting beat replaced by a gentle synthesizer sound. It still sounds electric, but there's something that has softened even though the lyrics still focus on the progress of the earlier work - perhaps reflecting a move to softness needed in the harsh 80s The five hundred fifty-fifth song: O Superman - Laurie Anderson I'm not sure whether I can reliably say anything about O Superman. It's an art piece as much as a song, an experiment with music and sound whose beat is a looped 'Ha', the singing is all through a heavy vocorder and is as often spoken word as it's singing, and the remainder of the music comes in and out, often just an ethereal sound that feels like it comes in and then slowly fades away. It's art, it's an experience, but it's surprising it became as big a hit as it did, especially as I'm not sure it holds up for the full eight minutes - but again, I'm not sure if this is something that's purely to be liked.

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• The four hundred and thirty-eighth album: #438 The Undertones - The Undertones The Undertones' debut album comes in, brings half an hour of punk and goes again. It leaves you with a strong impression, mixing a still strong message with the upbeat party punk that I've appreciated more but doesn't always get as political. It's poppy, but with that punk background lurking along underneath the whole time.

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• The four hundred and thirty-seventh album: #437 Chic - Risque I have to admit that I find Risque to be a lot more accessible than I thought it would be - while the disco tracks are still a bit too long sometimes, they have enough variety in them that they stay enjoyable throughout. There's a build and a progression in the tracks, perhaps without as much of a story, but it feels much better constructed than the endless repetition of most funk albums. Disco is improving.

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• The one hundred and fifty-fourth classical recording: #722 George Enescu - Violin Sonata no. 3 There's a real sadness to this sonata. Scored for violin and piano, it feels like it has these two instruments both do their own thing, harmoniously but not meeting, creating a distance by design. The violin's slow music sounds torturous at times, with the piano providing more comfort in this piece. It's not that disconcerting - certainly no Ravel - but it's a piece that keeps you on your toes a lot more.

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• The one hundred and eighty-fifth TV show: #605 Bob & Rose We gave up on this show after less than two episodes... It was off putting in so many places. While Russell T. Davies' previous Queer As Folk worked as a way of representation and to show the follies of the gay clubbing lifestyle of the late nineties, his attempt to write a straight romance fails on several levels. The characters are unlikeable - the women, from Rose to her mother to his best friend Holly - manipulative and looking to get their way (in the end Rose is a stalker), the men pushovers and all gay men promiscuous. Add to that a lot of rants about Bob not being gay the right way and it all started to feel a bit much. While I'm sure the story of a gay man ending up in a straight relationship and still feeling gay might be true, it feels like it skips over a lot of nuance and considering the timeframe it was written in, potentially dangerous because it's just about meeting the right woman. I might get why this may have been a safe option at the time, but it feels like a very clumsy attempt at writing a love story that I couldn't bear to continue, simply as a bizarre misstep.

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• The one hundred and fourth book: #080 The Last of the Mohicans - James Fenimore Cooper I started feeling a bit apprehensive when I started reading The Last of the Mohicans - a white American writer writing about a native American who's the last of his tribe is awkward enough without knowing too much of what's coming. The titular last of the Mohicans (a situation were there were no pureblood women left) feels like he remains a cypher, a noble savage without much insight that I felt I could get. Instead, it becomes about how much the British colonists and the tribes they're allied with have to go up against the French and their allies, and in particular how their Mohican helper gets them through. As an adventure novel, the political elements are ignored and having read more about this (especially on a recent trip to Canada) it's clear it skips over a lot without enough introspection. It stays surface level, and where it doesn't it's on the characters I don't care about, in particular the white frontiersman who... yeah, it's as old fashioned as you'd expect. I never really got to a point where I found much to enjoy in the entirety of the book, unfortunately, and I'm happy to leave it where it is.

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• The four hundred and thirty-sixth album: #436 Joy Division - Unknown Pleasure I don't think the dark, depressed sound is a surprise to anyone hearing about Joy Division anymore, but Unknown Pleasure, their first album on the list, heavily leans into it. It's dark and droning, with lyrics that feed into that, down to referencing seizures. It's not pretty and it really hits you when listening to a full album, the effects of all of it becoming draining after a while. It's good, well done, but it's also an exhausting album.

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• The four hundred and thirty-fifth album: #435 Talking Heads - Fear of Music I don't think there was a track on Fear of Music that I connected with as I think I did before. There is a variety of experiments here that relies on a core Talking Heads sound, but it wasn't until Animal's closing that I felt there was anything really notable about them, but even so it didn't have much impact - other than a few tracks feeling a bit too uncomfortable to listen to.

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2023-05-01 00:00:00

• The four hundred and thirty-fourth album: #434 The Fall - Live at the Witch Trials After talking about music genres evolving last time, this time we get a return to classic punk with its shouted almost incoherent lyrics and simple riffs. The Fall's sound is never too complex but it tends to move its way through a larger variety than most, with the biggest issue being its vocals - the spoken/shouty sound feels overdone and gets tedious to listen to after a while, in my mind giving the lyrics less weight than they could have.

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• The four hundred and thirty-third album: #433 The Police - Reggatta de Blanc It feels like the end of the seventies has another explosion in music styles as happened a decade earlier after the Beatles split. Post-punk, the rise of new wave has just started and The Police goes for a reggae rock fusion that works for the most part - it creates a unique sound that identifies the band for me and the known tracks like Message in a Bottle is really good, but I don't think I enjoy a full album of the same as there are diminishing returns to the sound for me - No Time This Time makes for a good closer by avoiding it in favour of a more punk-focused end of the album.

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• The four hundred and thirty-second album: #431 The B-52s - The B-52s With The B-52s, the band delivers a fun, danceable new wave album. Though focused on the over the top Rock Lobster, a lot of others are a lot simpler and lacking some of that power, dragging the energy down a bit. It's where the differences in the vocals stand out - they vary a bit much to fully work, with Schneider's unusual vocals throwing me off. It still lends the album its own sound and works with them, even if it feels uneven.

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• The four hundred and thirty-first album: #432 Holger Czukay - Movies While Can's music was psychedelic enough, Holger Czukay seems to take it one step further with Movies. At the start, it felt like a jazz rock album, with its almost improvisational nature, but it slowly evolves into its own psychedelic experience, a man's strange vision to tell a story in its songs that feels impenetrable a lot of the time. It's bizarre and unique in a way I struggle to fully describe - an album you truly need to just go into and experience. You may not love it, but it's something I'm glad I've at least heard.

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• The one hundred and fifty-third classical recording: #43 Giacomo Carissimi - Jephte As a lovely oratorio, Jephte is nice to listen to. As we're listening out of order, we don't really hear the progression, but as the first oratorio on the list there's something quite attractive in the abandonment of the choral songs, instead giving us more soloists who get to shine in a number of tender songs while the music stays small. It's not the most memorable - in part because the Latin text just doesn't linger as much - but it's still beautifully put together.

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• The four hundred and thirtieth album: #430 The Germs - GI As a specifically hardcore punk album (GI) is a bit less accessible than most, although from a hard rock perspective, it feels like a natural development for punk to lean into its harder side. It's something that started coming up as a specific stream in punk earlier, with something like the Sex Pistols feeling harder than other punk bands that followed, and rejecting the pop approach makes sense even from a political perspective. It's fine for that, but I think it veers too far away from what I enjoy, the shouting nature overpowering the lyrics so they become meaningless and the music becoming too much after a while. I'm probably not the audience - although a few decades ago I might have been - but it does feel like drunkenness will help you enjoy this more than it does listening on an average workday.

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• The four hundred and twenty-ninth album: #429 Crusaders - Street Life A jazz fusion album only works as well for me as the fusion part gets its chance to shine. The tracks on Street Life show this off well - while the title track is the longest on the album, its funkier structure with vocals kept me more engaged than the more pure jazz tracks that followed. Night Faces, the final track, probably grabbed me more than the others, bookending the album nicely, but this brought me no closer to appreciating jazz.

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• The one hundred and eighty-fourth TV show: #815 Party Down My first watch of Party Down was about a decade ago, encouraged by the presence of Adam Scott, Ken Marino and Jane Lynch among others. The adventures of the employees of an LA catering company - the presence of failed dreams is there - are darkly humorous, in a way that you wouldn't have seen on a regular network comedy. And although the characters are a bit heightened, it clearly draws on so many real experiences (I suspect often by the actors on the show). The writing is great, with the bizarre situations playing out well and unexpected enough, which is elevated by the amazing cast (I suspect in part put together based on how much they enjoy working together, especially for the guest cast) who play their role to perfection. They all play well off each other, with Adam Scott as the stable center around which everyone else revolves. It works out so well together that I feel I could rewatch this constantly (or at least more often than I have so far)

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• The one hundred and fifty-second classical recording: #222 Franz Schubert - Piano Quintet in A major, "Trout" Aside from being well performed in this recording, there's something engaging in its simplicity with this piece. It flows well, the various movements not building as much as they give calmer sections between ones that are more energetic, but the whole stays quite attractive to listen to.

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• The four hundred and twenty-eighth album: #428 Sister Sledge - We Are Family Between Lost in Music and We Are Family, it's quite clear what to expect from Sister Sledge - lots of disco music, something to dance to, and an album that instantly brings back the 70s disco scene. The album features some more soulful tracks as well, but the focus for me stays on the disco tracks, which really stand out that well.

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• The four hundred and twenty-seventh album: #427 AC/DC - Highway to Hell With the bank holiday giving us a chance to do some extra traveling, I ended up starting the week more tired than usual - and AC/DC's Highway to Hell (together with a good amount of coffee) helped shock me out of that. You've got good and proper hard rock, no fancy tricks or big compositions, but a whole lot of volume on top of well constructed songs. I understand this is the first album of backing vocals (this album convinced me to dive into their back catalogue when this project is over) and it really helps add to the tracks by giving it the extra power it needs. The tracks aren't high art, the lyrics not incredibly insightful, but the simple subjects of the lyrics, wrapped in more vivid imagery, and the straight forward music that builds on that simplicity as well, makes for a really compelling album.

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• The four hundred and twenty-sixth album: #426 Siouxsie and the Banshees - The Scream It took me a track or two to realize I was actually listening to an album - the music really ended up fading into the background a bit more than you'd expect from a post punk work. While angry and loud, there's also something dark and subdued about some of the tracks that make it sit in a different place. It's not bad - the vocals are screamed, but work against the raging guitars and instruments, and there are times where it really revs up through the track. Even so, the album never quite managed to reach a point where it satisfied me.

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• The one hundred and third book: #718 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams I'll be honest, I'm not sure if the list expected me to read the first entry of the trilogy in five parts, or if it expected the full work, but it just seemed right to do the latter. I have, of course, encountered it before - having read the books in both English and in the Dutch translation (which at least had a decent translation of Ford Prefect's name, even if not all of the other choices are as good), listened to the full radio series and I've watched the less stellar movie. Add to that that I've already reviewed both the TV series here and the game on the proper Pong and Beyond, and it feels like writing about the book just makes it full circle. The books are still great to read. There's a bit of a downhill trend near the end, where the focus on more of an ongoing plot conflicts with the rush to get them out, meaning bits of plot just fizzle out or don't marry up, but the individual scenes often still work. The earlier books are more like vignettes, pulling together only loosely enough to move from one set piece to the next, and those in particular are a delight to read and immerse yourself in as the world gets weirder. It's, at its core, a highly serialized work, and that serialization comes with changes as you can feel it being pulled in all directions, with the Guide interludes especially showing that with their various interruptions, diversions and other notes. The book stands at its peak in the comedy sci fi genre, and it will be there for a long time still.

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• The four hundred and twenty-fifth album: #425 Brian Eno - Ambient 1: Music for Airports Sure, there's a lot of value in ambient music, and there are times where I enjoy having something to break the silence (although even then it tends to be something that is a bit more active). As a piece of music to focus on, however, an album like this falls flat as you can't get the feeling of falling into the middle of it, wandering in as it's playing. The start and end point become deliberate, removing the easier flow into the music. Even then, the slightly discordant sound, created often with musicians somewhat separated from each other, becomes off putting and difficult to manage. It never quite becomes comfortable, which makes the music off putting in its own right. It might occasionally work, but there's never a point where the music really connects.

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2023-04-01 00:00:00

• The one hundred and eighty-third TV show: #497 Tous les Garcons et les Filles de Leur Age Out of the shows we've covered, it feels like this one is one that had the longest journey for how much we watched of it. More a collection of short films with a single subject, it features the stories of different teens in different decades. Having watched three, it feels like the movies ahve some themes in common beyond the intentional - the way your own problems feel so much bigger at that age, dominating the world for you, and hwo life can feel more superficial. There's those elements of selfishness and lack of perspective, trying to be deep and failing beyond that superficial level. It's interesitng as a way of looking at it, but it has that new wave touch (even if it goes against it) that makes it harder to connect with watching now. They're interesting pieces that I'm glad I have seen, but I don't feel the need to dive deep trying to hunt down subtitled versions of others.

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• The four hundred and twenty-fourth album: #424 X-Ray Spex - Germfree Adolescents X-Ray Spex's only album in its original form produces a number of memorable riffs with some decent songs built on top of that. Lyrically not the most engaging - they're often drowned out by the guitars - but enough comes through that you can shout/sing along with an approximation of the lyrics. It's aggressive and enjoyable, the fun parts of punk without feeling as political, going hard but not filled with anger. It feels like just listening to the album is cathartic in its own right.

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• The four hundred and twenty-third album: #423 Chic - C'est Chic With the transformation from funk to disco, my tolerance for the music styles is increasing. I still don't get much out of the long dance breaks, but the songs are good to listen to, songs like Freak Out are classics for a reason and I enjoyed most of the album - or got in a comfortable groove when it wasn't trying to engage me as much lyrically. There are stand outs for a reason, but it's all put together well.

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• The one hundred and fifty-first classical recording: #353 Franz Liszt - A Faust Symphony Putting interpretations of the meaning of the different movements aside - Wikipedia has you covered on that - Liszt's Faust Symphony is a work of contrasts and combatting music. The first movement is a bombastic piece, fitting in with what you expect of the bigger orchestras and fitting with Faust's general persona. It's followed by a slightly shorter, more gentle movement that represents Gretchen, the love interest. It jumps to Mephistopheles' chaotic third movement, an aggressive piece occasionally interrupted by Gretchen's unwavering, gentle theme. It's a story that doesn't come through until the symphony's final movement, but it tells its basic story so well that it becomes a pay off even without fully looking at the story behind the work.

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• The four hundred and twenty-second album: #422 Willie Nelson - Stardust As the concept of this album - adapting American classics - is different enough from the earlier album, it's hard to draw a comparison between the albums I've covered. What we get here are familiar songs, leading off with the title track Stardust but moving to a more maudlin, impressive rendition of Blue Skies that changes just enough to be different without entirely losing the job. It's a balancing act that becomes quite interesting to follow, with the focus mostly on a slower, somewhat sadder interpretation of the existing songs. It's just so well done, the music sounds good, the new arrangements work incredibly well and it feels easy to just breeze through the album, taking it in in one go.

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• The four hundred and twenty-first album: #421 Marvin Gaye - Here, My Dear It feels a bit invasive to listen to Here, My Dear. The album is about Marvin Gaye's first divorce, an acrimonious event that clearly left a negative impact on him at the time. The soulful album, adding in funk and jazz tracks but generally feeling that bit lower, doesn't entirely work if it's meant to invoke sympathy, but as an insight into the man's mind at the time it does lay it all bare. I'm not sure whether the 70 minute runtime is all warranted - the lengthy funk runtimes of some of the tracks are more than what I need in places - but the core message is more effective. It's probably what couches the intrusive nature most - there is the fluff around it that separates you that bit more from the core message.

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• The one hundred and fiftieth classical recording: #637 Bela Bartok - Romanian Folk Dances This short piece adapts six Romanian folk dances to classical music, adding instrumentation where appropriate, but keeping the focus on the one instrument that would normally be leading the dance - a flute that's mostly on its own, a violin slowly supported by other string instruments and so on. It feels like it keeps the origin of the songs as a folk dance, something anyone could play, but adds atmosphere around it to help create a feeling that puts you in that time and place. It's over all too quickly, but helps keep you engaged until then.

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2023-03-01 00:00:00

• The four hundred and twentieth album: #420 The Saints - Eternally Yours It feels surprising to hear punk pop up on the album, with a lot of acts having moved on at this point and using it as an influence only. Within that, their sound varies a bit - the pure punk tracks not adding much, but the moment they add elements or change it, the album is a lot more interesting - the rather basic Lost and Found is sandwiched between Know Your Product, with its horn section, and the driving but lighter "Memories are Made For This", which eschews the standard punk rhythms for something that goes between hard rock and something poppier. It ends up with a number of gems mixed with regular punk songs that go between good examples of the genre and a bit unnecessary considering everything else they pull off on this album.

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• The four hundred and nineteenth album: #419 Dire Straits - Dire Straits Listening to this album, it's a fairly straight forward rock album, its blues influences feeling old fashioned for this point in time. It's competent at what it does - not aiming for the raucous heights of the Stones, but it has that Dylan-like blues feel with a larger musical structure around it. It also feels quaint, referencing a musical style that doesn't do much for me.

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• The one hundred and fourty-ninth classical recording: #321 Robert Schumann - Concertstuck for Four Horns A rare horn-focused piece, Schumann's Concertstuck for Four Horns is still quite subdued for a piece featuring brass instruments. It has that joy, the horns adding more energy than other pieces would do, and it makes for a genuinely delightful piece, something that cheers you up. As much as this may not have been intended to fit in with other works, I do feel that I can see how in the context of a larger concert, this could be a great way to get the energy back up between more languid pieces.

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• The four hundred and eighteenth album: #418 Devo - Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo! Listening to this album today, it makes me think that while there's some good potential in Devo's music, it's not quite there yet. There's something in the lyrics, but it needs some polish, and it feels like the album never quite works out what it wants to be or what it wants you to feel. It's frustrating, and I wonder whether this album is on the list as their best or most unique, or because the first is the default pick, as I am more curious to see where they ended up (d)evolving to.

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• The four hundred and seventeenth album: #417 The Cars - The Cars With their eponymous album, The Cars bring us a strong new wave album, a strong vocal led album with some straightforward love songs and some more interesting twists on the formula. In fact, I'm not sure whether the experimental work, like I'm In Touch With the World, is necessarily always worth it compared to the more standard pop rock tracks featured on the album.

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• The four hundred and sixteenth album: #416 Willie Colon & Ruben Blades - Siembra Siembra is a celebrated salsa album. I can't judge, as it's not my scene, but this is a fine album - nothing amazing as far as I can hear, but it works well enough. There's not enough in this for me to really get me to love the album, but it sounds like it's good at its own genre.

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• The four hundred and fifteenth album: #415 Van Halen - Van Halen The recognisable meat of Van Halen's debut album is at its start, with tracks like Runnin' With the Devil being as well known as anything you can find. It shows the strengths of the album - a strong metal/hard rock base, aided by some well written music and supported by harmonies that feel rare in the genre - it's more trained than what we see, and especially compared to what we got out of the punk era. The album stays listenable and there's still a lot to enjoy in here.

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• The one hundred and fourty-eighth classical recording: #842 Dmitri Shostakovich - Piano Trio no. 2 Sad and dramatic, written by someone who wasn't in a good frame of mind, the sadness and chaos of Shostakovich's feelings at the time comes through in the nature of the music, which builds to a crescendo of anger, strings fighting strings while the piano plays darkly in the background. It's raw, almost frightening in its energy, and a positive challenge in this way.

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• The four hundred and fourteenth album: #414 Buzzcocks - Another Music in a Different Kitchen I don't know why, but somehow I was expecting something darker from my first Buzzcocks album. Their first studio album features several upbeat punk tracks, with the aggressive guitars and beat that come with punk not sinking away into the anger. A lot of this comes from Pete Shelley's vocals, who sounds happier, really, and more positive, creating a better atmosphere this way. It's an album that flies by, keeping me more entertained than I thought I would be.

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2023-02-01 00:00:00

• The four hundred and thirteenth album: #413 Talking Heads - More Songs About Buildings and Food Something that I think will keep getting me when listening to Talking Heads albums is how it sounds that bit different - still a rock song, but the vocals are different, the music more haunting at times, and the whole album feels like it has its own musical identity that doesn't stray away from a genre, but doesn't sound entirely normal either. It's too constrained to feel fully experimental, but it still continues to be interesting enough The one hundred and second book: #79 Life of a Good-For-Nothing - Joseph Von Eichendorff To be hoenst, Life of a Good-For-Nothing did little for me. Maybe it's because I don't really like the "slacker lucks into success" stories a lot, but it really felt like this story relied too much on coincidences, tired twists that I think I've seen before in previous entries on the list. Our title character was likeable at times, clearly written to be that way, but also felt too dim and unaware at times to really convince me. I ended up rushing through a bit... it just didn't reach any real depths that I cared for.

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• The one hundred and fourty-seventh classical recording: #896 Joaquin Rodrigo - Fantasia Para un Gentilhombre While we usually listen to older pieces, we get the 'proper' orchestra instruments - violins, wind instruments, perhaps a piano or organ. A guitar, though old in its own right, doesn't feature in that list, and it's a treat to hear it here, being supported by the rest of the orchestra. THe second movement, the longest of the four, dominates with its maudling tone, but it's surrounded by more upbeat pieces that do help lift the piece, giving it the variety and energy it needs. It shows off the guitar soloists well, while giving the rest of the orchestra as much time to build around that.

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• The four hundred and twelfth album: #412 Thin Lizzy - Live and Dangerous I'm not sure whether there is that much to this live album. It's fine to listen to, pretty standard hard rock fare, but I haven't had anything latch on - no memorable riffs or good lyrics, and its double album run time doesn't help make it all feel like it drags on.

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• The four hundred and eleventh album: #411 Throbbing Gristle - D.o.A: The Third and Final Report of Throbbing Gristle As an industrial and experimental album, it's hard to warm to it. You get a track that works, sort of, as an electronic rock track followed by some off putting screeching and some random conversations put together that don't really lead to anything. Is it something you end up liking? Probably not, or at least not for me - I think a live performance may enhance some of the tracks, but that's hard to tell from the album. I think I ended up appreciating the tracks more - at times they're composed, like a symphony going through its areas, bringing in motifs and changes as it does so.

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• The one hundred and first book: #1018 The Albigenses - Charles Robert Maturin I'm giving up on this book very early. Aside from the one copy that I could find being low quality, it has all the downsides of the historic novels like Walter Scott's that I've found before - overwrought language, too many unneeded historical details and just nothing that managed to draw me in. It's not worth making it through a full four volumes of this.

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• The four hundred and tenth album: #410 Funkadelic - One Nation Under a Groove As a funk rock album, while this brings the rock, it's at its best when the funk repetition isn't there. To be fair, Funkadelic does this quite well compared to most, and I found that the music worked better for me at an album length than when listening to the individual track before. It's a nice fit, not amazing, but I did enjoy the album a lot.

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• The four hundred and ninth album: #409 Bruce Springsteen - Darkness on the Edge of Town Possibly as part of a busy day, this album just ran away - the rock sound that you expect from Springsteen just driving forward continuously without any real interruptions to the flow. It works well, with some good music and interesting lyrics to go into. They're perhaps not always one I'd connect with, but it's recognisable and understandable still.

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• The one hundred and fourty-sixth classical recording: #856 Aaron Copland - Symphony no. 3 This symphony focuses on a fanfare melody, one used quite tenderly for a fair bit of it, but that it builds up to these big, booming pieces. There's something quite stirring when they come in, but it's the small, gentle parts where it feels the sound really works and gets a chance to explore itself. It's a lovely interpretation - entering my head as describing things in a forest, the quiet glade, chases happening and some playfulness, and it gives that sense of building quite well to its triumphant end.

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• The one hundredth book: #078 Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner - James Hogg It was interesting to see a different structure in this novel. It's a classic twist these days - tell the story from two perspectives, first the clear then the inner thoughts of another player to show what's really going on. In this case, we first hear the sotry of a nobleman's firstborn and favourite son, up to his murder and the chase of his murderer, his half brother. It's a straight forward tale, quite interesting and well written. It's the other half, though, where we see through the half brother's eyes (supposedly from his various memoirs) as he explains how the religious sect he's raised in said he'll go to heaven regardless of his actions, becoming a justified sinner. It makes it an interesting psychological novel at this point, never really engendering sympathy in its protagonist, but adding so much more to the exploration of this character and where it leads. It really felt like a step up in storytelling that I hope to see more often. The four hundred and eighth album: #408 Magazine - Real Life Between yesterday's album and today's, I think it's become more clear that the best post punk comes when an album does more than just that. In the case of Magazine, the accessibility of new wave does a lot to appeal to my interests, a lighter touch that makes the songs a lot more digestible. That's not to say it's gone completely soft, but it doesn't push as much as it did before and there are more interesting tracks in here, with the second side especially building up to a happier atmosphere.

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• The four hundred and seventh album: #407 Public Image Ltd - Public Image John Lydon's next venture after the Sex Pistols led off which their self-styled album (also subtitled First Issue) and it continues exactly as you'd expect - a post punk cacophony with some tantalizingly offensive seeming lyrics and some simple love songs. It's all still pretty much coming with similar sounds, which are fine but not amazing in any real way, and then brings in Fodderstompf which is probably one of the bigger wastes of time we've had on these albums. This might be notable from music history, but it has little that appeals to me.

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• The one hundred and fourty-fifth classical recording: #372 Camille Saint-Saens - Piano Concerto no 2 Varied and engaging, there is a lot going on in this recording - allowing the piano to shine, but giving it so much more context as time goes on. It's an abstract piece, but what we've heard so far works well.

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• The four hundred and sixth album: #406 The Residents - Duck Stab/Buster and Glen From the first track, Constantinople, I knew I was in for something different with the Residents, in a way that I really like. The art rock label can apply to a lot of different styles, but here it's a collection of strange songs, all feeling different, but all intriguing to listen to, often relying on electronic sounds and manipulation. There's no clear viewpoint, there's a lot of different sounds, but the tracks are short enough that it never wears thin - there's always something new going on. There are times where the album is trying to be deliberately off-putting, but even then the subversion is enough to see how the Residents are looking to spin the song and it keeps pulling you through regardless. This is the only album from the Residents on the list, but I want to try more, even if this is one of their more accessible albums.

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• The four hundred and fifth album: #405 Big Star - Third/Sister Lovers As someone who's not familiar with the work of Big Star, this album's history reads as a bit puzzling. A rock band split up and some of them release an album of pop songs that's marketed using the same name. If nothing else, just reading the "rock band" byline and getting a number of power pop ballads and similar songs took some adjusting before I fully got it. The music itself is fine. It's the typical big production pop that we've heard, including violins in places, and it's well done at that. There's no stand out track or anything that I really loved and I don't feel like there's much of an identity in the work, but it works well for what the album wants to do.Some good pop that I'd happily hear mixed in with other songs, but not one that I'd expect to seek out myself.

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• The one hundred and eighty-second TV show: #37 Perry Mason While a lot of shows on this list are shows I just want to watch, just as many are to experience the history of TV and where things lead. Perry Mason is an early procedural, with a heavy bent, and one of the first hour long weekly shows on American TV - it seems like this was the year where they really started. At 40 episodes a week, that all seemed pretty intense as well. It's interesting to see how a number of traditions started, sometimes even out of necessity - starting off with some time without the regulars, instead showing the time before and after the crime, is something we see to set pu the show now, but was actually intended to give Raymond Burr some time off where otherwise he'd be in 98% of the episode. The show is well written and feels well researched, but it also is of its time. The main thing where you notice is the pacing. There are some really interesting scenes, but there are some slow, unengaging sections in between that really seem to drag the show. The denoument happening in the courtroom is interesting enough, but it takes a while to get there and makes for another slower section of the slow. I'm not saying we need to end in an action filled chase, but it feels like other, later shows based on similar premises bring it some more things to keep your attention. It's why this was more of an interesting curiosity to watch, an insight into the TV shows of 65 years ago as the medium was developing, rather than something I could watch the full run of.

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• The four hundred and fourth album: #404 The Adverts - Crossing the Red Sea with The Adverts I've been more critical of punk bands than I expected to be - the variation is much greater than I was expecting for a genre that was rapidly succeeded by others and referenced in music mostly as something that was built on. There is a heavy focus on riling up people - going against the establishment, shocking people and making their points, and with its shorter length and punchiness it feels like it really pulls it off. Sure, it's theatrical and over the top, but to me, that's what becomes part of the same charm.

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• The four hundred and third album: #403 Joe Ely - Honky Tonk Masquerade I'm still not a fan of country music - lyrically I rarely care, the music ends up just that bit too slow and the steel guiatar just sets me off in the worst way possible. There are times where an album comes along and works, but it's in spite of the genre most of the time. This album doesn't do anything different. While Joe Ely has a good voice in places, it doesn't add anything for me, and the straight up country tracks, some of which are covers I've heard before, don't win me over this time.

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• The ninety-ninth book: #1017 The Monastery - Sir Walter Scott I try to make not finishing a book a rare thing, but I couldn't quite get there for this, and some device switching meant I wasn't interested in trying to transfer my slow progress. The Monastery is a throwback, describing a semi-mythical medieval time that was, in some ways, really well researched (in the "I want to show off everything I know" way that can get annoying) but also romanticizing in a way that gets tedious for me to listen to. I'm playing Pentiment at the moment, with similar levels of research, but its focus on the 'lower' classes in addition to the more revered nobles and religious leaders makes it more interesting and accessible, and feel more real than I think The Monastery ever entirely gets. There's not much for me to grasp, and starting and finishing with epistles as The Monastery does didn't help me place the story. I can see where it can be revered, but it's not a type that appeals to me.

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• The four hundred and second album: #402 The Jam - All Mod Cons The mod revival of this album comes with a sound I'd never quite thought about - if only because it feels like it's gotten mixed in with other genres in the intervening years. It's a punk inspired sound, but more written than that genre implies and poppy in its accessibility. The songs aren't more complex, but have more to them than the loud punk sounds we've had before, and it has more of this simplicity that harkens back to earlier times. While there's some praise in that description, I also think it's one that I feel we've outgrown. I wish it could have a bit more to offer - it does well at what it does, but it's not enough for me.

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• The four hundred and first album: #401 Elvis Costello - This Year's Model This Year's Model's music is straightforward and very accessible - some very accessible new wave, with Elvis Costello's distinctive sound suiting it incredibly well. There is a large variety of styles - the rockier songs mixed in with what feels like pure pop - which really helps the tracks to stand out on their own. It also helps that the lyrics stand out well on their own, focused enough and adding their own layers to each song.

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• The one hundred and fourty-fourth classical recording: #582 Arnold Schoenberg - Erwartung Erwartung is a one act, short opera for an orchestra and a single soprano. Notably, it never repeats itself, which really added to the complexity of the piece. It doesn't build themes it comes back to, but its economy of storytelling means it doesn't have to, instead it can rely on continuing to tell its story - it can have its complexity because of its brevity, which is a nice compromise. It's a short, sad piece that was lovely to listen to.

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• The four hundredth album: #400 The Only Ones - The Only Ones While nominally a punk album - and featuring some tracks that go in that direction - The Only Ones feels just as often like a pop rock album, featuring love songs rather than political creeds. It's far from uncommon in punk - some bands were obviously more establishment than others - but it feels like the band is just as much a post punk band that uses it in some of their songs, but avoids it as often. Musically, it leads to a mix of songs of different proficiency, with the poppier tracks being more interesting to listen to. Lyrically, they don't do much for me, but there are some interesting attempts to do something different in the album - even if it doesn't always hold up as a whole.

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• The three hundred and ninety-ninth album: #399 Pere Ubu - Dub Housing Thanks to the Christmas break, the gap between the two Pere Ubu albums on the list is bigger than the two weeks we otherwise would have had - more as a quirk of the list's order than anything else. With a decent diet of post punk recently - see the recent songs post for a lot of it - Dub Housing fails to stand out. it's not by the book, but the experiments that are there don't work, there's nothing that makes them sound any better. It doesn't sound like it does anything new, it just sounds like a mess of noise. It might not all be entirely like that, but I can't say I find much more in here.

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• The five hundred fourty-first song: Love Will Tear Us Apart - Joy Division Having mostly heard the refrain of this song recontextualized in a Sufjan Stevens Christmas song, the haunting, hollow sound of the vocals in its original context hits so much more. There's a sadness and lack of energy that seems to foreshadow so much, more of an acceptance than you might expect form post-punk music. The unenthusiastic repetition builds on this, a dark and depressing mood that gets you the right feelings. The five hundred fourty-second song: Wardance - Killing Joke On the other hand, the distortion of the loduer Wardance doesn't grip me as much, the sound feeling off putting and not leaning as much on any sort of recognition of the lyrics despite what they're claiming they're saying. For me, I think this has pushed too far in the metal direction, without taking on any other aspect that I'd find listenable. The five hundred fourty-third song: Ace of Spades - Motorhead Ace of Spades does it that bit better. Yeah, the driving guitar is there, but with a bit less distortion and a repetition that really gets you to hook in. It's got punk, it's got metal, but there's enough to hook you in even if you're not as fond of all of that. The five hundred fourty-fourth song: Start! - The Jam It might be the comparison from what it follows, but The Jam's throwback to sixties pop rock has it get a bit lost. The harmonies are nice, the hook is there, but it feels a bit toothless. We're going to get pop to develop it further, but it feels like it's still teetering on the edge of starting that, still not leaning into it as much as I would have liked. The five hundred fourty-fifth song: Once in a Lifetime - Talking Heads There's a built-in looseness in the structure of the song, the keyboard jingle offset from the rhythm in a way that encourages it to stay a bit off balance. The lyrics may still feel get simple,but there's a complexity that you can't quite grasp at any time and instead keep you wondering when you can grab it. The five hundred fourty-sixth song: Vienna - Ultravox Starting off small, Midge Ure's vocals suppressed to the point of barely being comprehensible, the piano providing variation in a song that's otherwise quite structured, until it swells into a more orchestral piece with violins and a more triumphant vocal (even as it repeats the same line). It's an odd song, good in its hook, but not something that I felt I really got. The five hundred fourty-seventh song: Caballo Viejo - Simon Diaz It feels like we get one of these per batch, a song that isn't in English and may not have made it out of their countries, but made it big in, in this case, the Spanish speaking world. It's a folk song, but one that incorporates some excitement in its bridge, like a Dylan song with a bit more spirit and the occasional shouts and whip cracking. It's good at what it does, sure, but I feel I miss too much context to really get what comes out of the song. The five hundred fourty-eighth song: I Got You - Split Enz As with Start!, we have a poppier song here, but here a pop rock styled piece that has the prog rock bits, a bit of other rock influences, falling under the wider new wave moniker. It means a mostly quite happy, accessible song, often exploding as a louder track out of a more subdued verse. It's a pretty accessible song, doing quite a lot while still feeling like it could be live without relying on its production too much.

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• The one hundred and fourty-third classical recording: #210 Gioachino Rossini - L'italiana in Algeri The start of the year left me with an emptier calendar than usual, giving me time to listen to a long opera today. Thanks to the Livermore Valley Opera, I was able to watch a subtitled performance that did a good job showing the different performances as well, lending to a good build in the performance. This is about the music, though, and Rossini's score, too, feels remarkably light for a long opera. It might be the Algerian influences it's trying to achieve, but there's a levity in the music that isn't necessarily reflected in the subject matter, but leads to an opera that feels it flows fast and at its best stays out of the performer's way. The story feels like it supports it in some way. While it has a love story, the writing clearly has as much fun with the deception angle, playing parts as a comedy, with Isabella first meeting Mustafa going there a lot.

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