The one hundred twenty-sixth TV show: #921 Elementary
I've discussed Sherlock before, and Elementary is the other side of the coin. Another adaptation of the character, Elementary mostly avoids adapting the original work (in part because it is difficult in a weekly show with 22 episodes per season), instead transplanting the Sherlock Holmes character to New York, helping the police there. It evaluates his character in a modern setting - as a recovering alcoholic, he isn't as good a person, and it's Jonny Lee Miller's charismatic but slightly off approach that really seals the deal, keeping him likeable but off putting enough. What helps is Lucy Liu playing Joan Watson, the gender swapped doctor who really is our window into the world. Over the series we see her grow into someone as competent as Sherlock, but more human. Even then there's a balance on how much she starts to copy Sherlock.
In other words, rather than just focusing on the crimes, there's a lot more focus on our protagonist, as well as the supporting cast in the NYPD. It's a good watch and for the most part entertaining, a lot of this kept light while exploring certain situations quite deeply. It's an adaptation that works amazingly well, with legs that outpace the original.
The one hundred eighty-first album: #181 The Carpenters - Close To You
While I feel like I keep talking about rock and roll diversifying, with blues and jazz albums coming in between those, I've forgotten how good it feels to get a simple, straight forward pop album. The Carpenters know how to create this, with some lovely harmonies, soe good melodies, and solid covers. Burt Bacharach's Close To You, which lends its title to the album, is the famous example, but Help gets its own twist that sounds a bit folksier and, to be honest, quite seventies here. It shows how, while the album isn't experimental, it's clearly their own sound that works well. Sure, it's fairly inoffensive in what it does, but it's the right amount of relaxed to stay listenable.
The seventy-fifth classical recording: #527 Gustav Mahler - Symphony no. 4
For a four movement symphony that is small by Mahler's standards, there is still plenty of big things on display here. The symphony never gets frantic, even if it's rarely solemn, instead displaying a confidence in its sound that is happy and pleasant. It's mostly peaceful and gentle, but explores that space as well, and the energy is always still there.
Once the soprano comes in, as a listener I had settled into a comfortable, peaceful place that felt engaging, and even some of the tempo increases there didn't phase me as much as I thought they could have. There's something to the nergy that pulls you along, while avoiding becoming that dreamlike - it just works out that much better on its own.
The eightieth comic: #634 Understanding Comics
I'm not sure what the best point would be to to read this, but I feel like 80 comics in, I got a decent base to understand the specific comics and styles Scott McCloud was referencing throughout - knowing French comics, for example, is incredibly helpful.
This work starts off by defining what a comic is, then after that analysing and explaining the medium in several ways - levels of abstraction, words versus pictures, as well as exploring the gap between panels. It's an engaging thesis - mostly right, and leaving plenty open to resolve - that gives me a lot more to think about when trying to understand comics in the future. The differences between different styles - especially Japanese and Western - is well explained here and it feels like subsequent works really made use of these ideas to create a way to produce comics.
This means that this is not only a fascinating read - and it really is worth reading for any fans, or anyone trying to understand comics and why they qualify as art - but also give you a better grounding for other styles.
The one hundred eightieth album: #180 The Doors - Morrison Hotel
With the original Doors album on the list being nearly ninety albums ago, it's odd to see the throwbacks of sorts we get in this album - although in reality, less than four years has passed between he albums. The blues rock feeling here feels a bit outdated, with harder variants having taken over, as the psychedelia has been toned down - the organ is there, but it blends in and the good, strong riffs take precendence. A song like Blue Sunday veers there more, but it's a song like Peace Frog or Land Ho! that stands out more. The lyrics aren't alway sthe most out there, but they work well in the road movie sense - decently meaningful wtihout being too complex, they work well enough together.
The seventy-ninth comic: #540 Zenith
It's a bit hard to talk about this comic, in part because I'm not always convinced they entirely knew what it was meant to be.
Zenith is a slightly vacuous 80s popstar who's also a pop star - I'm not sure how often that's used during his performances, but it explains his way of travelling without much concern about the world of his powers. He's the son of two other superheroes, who disappearing in the 60s, together with all the others that exist. The first volume explores this odd world, bringing back some past superheroes to stop the ancient evil and exploring some of the things that would have changed and the generational conflict involved.
Later issues bring in an anti-Thatcher and (for a special) anti-Blair element, with a former/current superhero with mind control as part of the Tory government, which it hints at but doesn't address enough to really work. There's a story of fighting evil in there which works well in the original issues, and a "are we right to destroy some things after they're overrun by evil" section that sadly gets undercut later. The fourth issue breaks down and the story doesn't stick as well.
It's a decent read, but the story fails to engage near the end - which stays unfortunate.
The one hundred seventy-ninth album: #179 Black Sabbath - Black Sabbath
The other side of rock in the seventies feels like it really emerges here, as heavy metal comes to the foreground. The drawn out, bassy blues tones of the opening number set the scene for a gothic, intense album that indulges in the theatrical, including its dark lyrics, but also has some good, rocking tunes that sound good on their own - the choice is yours on whether you dig deeper, but it works on both lev
The seventy-eighth comic: #325 Ayako
Ayako really plays with your emotions through its run. Set, initially, in a small Japanese village, we follow a Japanese soldier who was a prisoner of war as well as a spy while he was there. He stays involved in shady dealings throughout, but slowly the focus shifts to his youngest sister, Ayako. Because of his involvement, her life turns rough and she is held underground for a long time. We explore her psyche partially, as well as the developments during and after her capture. She's part of a rotten family, staying an innocent but not always acting that way, and in a way, after a long time, resolves the crimes that were committed. The ending is incredibly fitting, and it was engaging throughout, a lovely work that really manages to get you in places.
The seventy-fourth classical recording: #799 Bohuslav Martinu - Double Concerto
Reading up a little about the tensions at the time it was created, with Europe on the brink of the second World War, the music makes a lot of sense. There's a lot of tension in it, a lot of anger as well as slow, tense bits that really get to you. It's quite impactful, making me feel the anxiety but also bringing in some moments of hope, which is just as welcome. It feels like it reflects my disordered mind at the moment - the perfect sound for me today, really.