The one hundred eighty-eighth album: #188 Deep Purple - In Rock
Deep Purple's In Rock is another early driving force for the heavy metal movement, using long tracks with prog rock influences to break up the metal sound that mostly underlies the vocals. It goes for epic, mixing in these different elements, especially in the long runs like that of Child In Time, which feels like a mini album on its own considering the many things it does. With that said, this is the point where we've really embraced metal, and it's great to have another album on the road to it.
The eighty-seventh book: #72 Emma - Jane Austen
After Mansfield Park, Emma, the protagonist this book is obviously named after, suits me a lot better. She's active and strong willed, she drives the action and she's flawed - for the purposes of this book and in comparison to the era, very flawed. She enjoys playing matchmaker, but it shown several times to be bad at it, leading to some unsatisfactory unions and others avoiding her attention or work to get their own way. She fails, she's flawed, and while it gets tricky to keep up with the characters flying around sometimes, on the whole it's nice to see it all play out with our protagonist in the middle.
Jane Austen set out to write a character, she said, that no one but herself would really like and while I think that description goes a bit far, the fact that she isn't as easy to love makes her a more interesting character that really stands inside the world, rather than above it. Through it you get other characters around her, not straight villains and heroes, but other complex characters that the novel can explore more freely. It's an empowering story in that sense, and feels like a highlight of these romance novels so far.
The one hundred eighty-seventh album: #187 Led Zeppelin - Led Zeppelin III
Led Zeppelin provides us with another album of rock.It varies a bit on where it goes - Immigrant Song is rockier, Since I've Been Loving You closer to blues rock, but on the whole the rock stays, the aggression is there and the energy is there. It's good to wake me up on a sleepy Tuesday and is the right music to get you through on a day like that.
The seventy-seventh classical recording: #360 George Bizet - The Pearl Fishers
Taken as a musical piece, The Pearl Fishers is imposing, with some big songs and vocal parts to match. There aren't necessarily as many calm parts, it feels like the piece stays big and powerful a fair amount. I miss the balance a bit, as it feels quite full on throughout. It matches the tone of the work - both the storms and the anger that's in there. The work feels big - something that must come across quite well in the theatre performances as well.