Archive of 2026 | Jeroen's Micro Blog

March 2026

The two hundred and forty-first TV show: #49 Peter Gunn As I've mentioned before, our standards for action have changed since the start of television. Peter Gunn makes for an interesting crime drama, one that gets the titular private eye involved in the underworld where the police can't always get to, but focuses on the stories that surround it. It feels like there's some more excitement that has to be in there, but it feels like it can't pull off that excitement. At the same time, it doesn't deliver enough for some deeper study or investigation, sticking to some fairly professional characters. There's something interesting in this and I could see how it would appeal on some level, but in this day and age it doesn't deliver quite enough for that to work.

Permanent link to “The two hundred and forty-first TV show: #49 Peter Gunn As I've mentioned…”
The six hundred and sixty-eighth album: #668 Black Crowes - Shake Your Money Maker There's not much that's special to point out about this album - it's just a good, standard rock album, nothing too hard but just nicely accessible and energetic. It's emotional enough to work while still having that country and blues-influenced rock feeling and mostly it just feels like it gets the balance between everything right. The one hundred and thirtieth book: #97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas As one of the quintessential adventure books, The Three Musketeers plays its stories of the heroic past fairly straight: The titular three musketeers make their way through life with flaws and issues, but jump into action when required and do well resolving those issues. It has a decent set of betrayals and love stories, as you would expect from the same, and it feels like this would have set the template going forward. It drags on a bit too long to really stay interesting, especially with the…

Permanent link to “The six hundred and sixty-eighth album: #668 Black Crowes - Shake Your…”
The six hundred and sixty-seventh album: #667 The La's - The La's This album brings a number of influences together before they can go on to define pop for a decade to come. It takes from the Beatles song writing and sounds, has definite punk vibes in its guitars and plays with art pop and blues at times. I can see how this could have been unique at the time, but it's interesting to see how much this is a part of what's the come, rather than what has been so far.

Permanent link to “The six hundred and sixty-seventh album: #667 The La's - The La's This…”
The six hundred and sixty-sixth album: #666 Deee-Lite - World Clique While we've been moving towards heavy electronic music for a lot of dance music, Deee-Lite starts from their funk inspiration to stay dance-focused, a happy and positive sound that makes you feel light - whether you're listening to it in the office or are out to celebrate. Groove Is In The Heart is the biggest hit and most notable song, and while the other songs don't always feel as rich, there's always that happy undertone to the music.

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Permanent link to “The two hundred and forty-third classical recording: #443 Cesar Franck…”
The two hundred and fortieth TV show: #509 Star Trek: Voyager I watched a lot of Star Trek Voyager around the time it was first on. Rewatching the earlier episodes, it's been hitting what I felt it was - a watchable iteration of Star Trek that doesn't get to the heights of Deep Space Nine and feels a bit too standalone to take advantage of its setting, but it does enough to make you think and give you some different things to look at. At this point, I wish it could push itself further forward, not reaching the heights it could, but it's still worth watching.

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The two hundred and thirty-ninth TV show: #445 Drop the Dead Donkey There's something that works in this show even twenty-five years after its broadcast. While some of the mechanics of news have changed, this workplace comedy about a news station recently bought by an investor who is partially affecting the contents of the channel while being nominally independent. Aside from well working satire, the way the show includes recent news events (at the time - helped with an intro explaining them for modern broadcasts) elevates the feeling of timeliness of the show. It's incredibly engaging still, certainly more than I expected for its time.

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The six hundred and sixty-fifth album: #665 The Shamen - En-Tact Turning the corner from psychedelia to electronic music, En-Tact gives us the music I would associate with the earlier rave scene, even if it's not as repetitive as that - there's a lot of musicality and variation that I guess wouldn't quite fit that trance. There's a lot of interesting elements here that I enjoy, as an experiment that clearly succeeded.

Permanent link to “The six hundred and sixty-fifth album: #665 The Shamen - En-Tact Turning…”
Permanent link to “The six hundred and sixty-fourth album: #664 Cocteau Twins - Heaven Or Las…”
Permanent link to “The six hundred and sixty-third album: #663 NWA - Straight Outta Compton…”
Permanent link to “The two hundred and forty-second classical recording: #905 Dmitri…”
The two hundred and thirty-eighth TV show: #47 Sea Hunt Not every show connects. The premise of Sea Hunt, that of following a trained diver helping with emergencies, leads to some interesting adventures, and there's some excitement in it, but ultimately it feels toothless as it's more about rescues than crime and there's a limit to what you could film at the time. It means that the central conflict never feels as engaging as it could be and the episodes just pass you by. As a concept, it's reached some nice places, but ultimately there's a limit to what excites me these days.

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The two hundred and thirty-seventh TV show: #213 Land of the Lost There's something to be said about judging shows based on their own criteria. A 1974 action adventure with stop motion dinosaurs is always going to look dated to our eyes and with a kids' audience, there are limits to what it can do. But having immersed myself recently in Japanese tokusatsu, flowing out from Ultraman, and Doctor Who, which aims to hit a similar spot, this doesn't hold up. The production values are cheap, sure, with the focus going on the stop motion effects and the early blue screen availability, but there's no great story to go along with it - the stories never feel clever or interesting - and the acting feeling quite bad. None of the actors give that good a performance, which seems only partially age-related, and the whole thing just feels unconvincing.

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Permanent link to “The six hundred and sixty-second album: #662 Jungle Brothers - Done by the…”
The six hundred and sixty-first album: #661 Janet Jackson - Rhythm Nation 1814 While her brother was the more known king of pop, Janet Jackson shows on Rhythm Nation 1814 how much she brings as well. Heavily layered, her vocals work really well with a lot of different songs, from heavy rock tracks to ballads and the very danceable funkier tracks. There's a lot of production in this, but I do feel her stamp is on this work. The lyrics feel very personal, which adds to the sensitive feeling of a lot she sings about.

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The six hundred and sixtieth album: #660 De La Soul - 3 Feet High and Rising The legal issues surrounding sampling really changed the face of hip hop, where this older album really uses a lot of it - songs made up of samples, with few or no original vocals included, mixed with songs with rap tracks that have the sound and feel of the era, without complex lyrics. It's not a challenging album but it's got a good party vibe to it.

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February 2026

Permanent link to “The six hundred and fifty-ninth album: #659 Soul II Soul - Club Classics…”
The six hundred and fifty-eighth album: #658 Fugazi - Repeater By this point, punk has gone, and we're in the post-area of various underlying streams of the genre. This follows the hardcore vibe, calling back to past garage rock, angry and dark, droning but more written than before. It feels almost improvised at times, but then goes into bigger themes where there's clearly more thought put into it. It's not going to hit for everyone, and a full album of it was a bit more than I could stomach, but it's still a decently good sounding album.

Permanent link to “The six hundred and fifty-eighth album: #658 Fugazi - Repeater By this…”
The six hundred and fifty-seventh album: #657 Bonnie Raitt - Nick of Time As a heartfelt Americana album, Nick of Time does a lot right. There's a real folk rock root here, often without too much instrumentation but instead focuses on nearly acoustic sounds. It's a stripped down sound that allows you to focus on the emotional songs, something that feels like a real insight into how Bonnie Raitt was feeling. It avoids the gimmicks for something more real.

Permanent link to “The six hundred and fifty-seventh album: #657 Bonnie Raitt - Nick of Time…”
The two hundred and thirty-sixth TV show: #43 Canzonissima After we've already looked at the Eurovision Song Contest before, here's one of the many shows that offered the national selection for the series. For a large part of this show's run, the winner went to represent Italy in the song contest, and the songs here are one of the focuses of the show. What it also brings are the bigger musical numbers, as well as a few too many bits and sketches to fill the time between songs. It's fine to see some of it to get a feel for it, but language aside, the age of the program means that the music is as dated and just not as interesting.

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Permanent link to “The six hundred and fifty-sixth album: #656 Pixies - Doolittle There's a…”
Permanent link to “The six hundred and fifty-fifth album: #655 Aerosmith - Pump I think it's…”
The six hundred and fifty-fourth album: #654 Barry Adamson - Moss Side Story It's weird to listen to the sound track for a non-existent movie, a jazzy rock track with electronic embellishments that sets the mood for a story that doesn't exist, with track titles that match this. Incidental vocals give snippets of a setting, but the impact comes from the images and emotions they invoke regardless. It's different, but it works.

Permanent link to “The six hundred and fifty-fourth album: #654 Barry Adamson - Moss Side…”
Permanent link to “The two hundred and forty-first classical recording: #786 Olivier Messiaen…”
The six hundred and fifty-third album: #653 Coldcut - What's That Noise? The word noise applies to a lot of this album, though not in the derogatory way that's normally used. The tracks mix a lot of sounds together, combining hip hop with a heavy dose of electronic music in various places. It's listenable, but pushes the boundaries of what I can really enjoy, but the experimentation involved in that is really nice.

Permanent link to “The six hundred and fifty-third album: #653 Coldcut - What's That Noise…”
The two hundred and thirty-fifth TV show: #40 Wagon Train Wagon Train is a show that doesn't have any staying power. Each episode has a story, in an anthology-style our main cast walks into a new place kind of way, but I couldn't tell you much about what any of them were. They're competent, but somehow mostly forgettable. The main cast in particular, despite their constant appearance, never stuck in my mind and I'm still not sure who it is. I would have expected the pilot to have some sort of introduction - one of the reasons I always cover these - but it's such a standard episode that I didn't get a strong start there. From then on, so much blended into the background that I didn't manage to get much out of it.

Permanent link to “The two hundred and thirty-fifth TV show: #40 Wagon Train Wagon Train is a…”
Permanent link to “The six hundred and fifty-second album: #652 808 State - 808 90 There has…”
The six hundred and fifty-first album: #651 The Cure - Disintegration The creepy, gothic sound of The Cure sets a slightly unsettling atmosphere, but in a way that I am happy to continue to listen to. It's dark and depressed, but not stuck in just that mood, creating a darkness that's deep but that I find accessible. Although perhaps my mood is just that low... In the end though, it's a great masterpiece of an album.

Permanent link to “The six hundred and fifty-first album: #651 The Cure - Disintegration The…”
Permanent link to “The two hundred and fortieth classical recording: #384 Pyotr Ilyich…”
Permanent link to “The six hundred and fiftieth album: #650 Kate Bush - Sensual World On the…”
The six hundred and forty-ninth album: #649 Baaba Maal & Mansour Seck - Djam Leelii I obviously haven't heard much Senegalese music before. It's an interesting style to listen to, obviously with a lot of links to other African music, but there's an extra musicality and modern feeling to the lyrics I don't think I've heard as much. It's different, sure, but there's something entertaining to it that feels more universal.

Permanent link to “The six hundred and forty-ninth album: #649 Baaba Maal & Mansour Seck…”
Permanent link to “The six hundred and forty-eighth album: #648 Neneh Cherry - Raw Like Sushi…”

January 2026

Permanent link to “The two hundred and thirty-fourth TV show: #38 The Army Game I don't mind…”
Permanent link to “The six hundred and forty-seventh album: #647 The Stone Roses - The Stone…”
Permanent link to “The six hundred and forty-sixth album: #646 John Zorn - Spy Vs. Spy: The…”
The six hundred and forty-fifth album: #645 The Young Gods - L'Eau Rouge Whiel the album doesn't start as outwardly hard, it pretty quickly descends into the industrial rock that more famously comes from bands like Rammstein. With the vocals loud and hoarse, the music becomes intrusive only for the few instruments it has been played with. The production is small, made up for with volume a lot of the time. It's absolutely doing its own thing, in a way that works.

Permanent link to “The six hundred and forty-fifth album: #645 The Young Gods - L'Eau Rouge…”
Permanent link to “The two hundred and thirty-ninth classical recording: #243 Franz Schubert…”
The six hundred and forty-fourth album: #644 Beastie Boys - Paul's Boutique While praised as a great album that took a few years to find appreciation, I found Paul's Boutique to be a lesser entry for the Beastie Boys. The style is familiar, but in a way that feels sloppier than I associate with them, while the amount of sampling becomes too much for me, creating a bit of a dissonant sound that I don't think supports the rap lyrics quite as well.

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And with these last ten songs - the recent songs that only appeared in the final edition of the book. Let's get this done! The one thousand and twenty-second song: Drone Bomb Me - Anohni While it has an electronic backing, there is the feeling of a pop ballad in Anohni's vocals, a darkness in a love song that's otherwise filled with desire. It leaves an incredibly strong impression that feels visceral even when there are a lot of effects that might lean the other way. The one thousand and twenty-third song: You Want It Darker - Leonard Cohen Looking at the gap between entries, this feels like one of the longest ranges of appearance on the list. Leonard Cohen shows how he stays relevant, the darker tone to his music and back up vocals pushing his songs to a modern height that works incredibly well. It's at times menacing and dark and while it's recognisably his, it's also a track that works as a modern song. The one thousand and twenty-fourth song: The Numbers - Radiohead I feel like I…

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Permanent link to “The six hundred forty-third album: #643 Firehose - Fromohio Fromohio (or…”
The two hundred and thirty-eighth classical recording: #1000 Wolfgang Rihm - Jagden und Formen As one of the most modern pieces on the list, this feels like it follows a number of those examples - sounding hurried and discordant, not always pleasant to listen to. There's not much here for leaning back and listening, the anxiety for the world feels present in the performance. It's an era in classical music that just doesn't agree with me, I prefer something a bit more traditional.

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The two hundred and thirty-third TV show: #36 Maverick It's worth remembering that movies and serials were being made long before TV series became a thing. That means that, for a number of different series, there are enough examples on how to pace your stories, especially in established genres like the westerns Maverick draws on. While I wouldn't watch all of the episodes - even more when I consider a bunch are rewritten from scripts for other series, so there's some duplication there - the semi anthology format with only one of the leads appearing as repeating characters does a lot to keep it all fresh.

Permanent link to “The two hundred and thirty-third TV show: #36 Maverick It's worth…”
The six hundred and forty-second album: #642 Spacemen 3 - Playing With Fire The recreational drug-fuelled rock track of Spacemen 3 flirts with different types of rock. A track like Revolution feels as punk as it can get, while Suicide is an extended hard rock riff and Lord Can You Hear Me is a sipmle ballad. It's often more relaxed than other tracks, with a definite stoner vibe, but there are moments where it feels more harrowing too, like in the aforementioned Suicide.

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The one thousand and eighth song: Super Bass – Nicki Minaj It still feels odd to move from Queen Latifah's debut album yesterday to today's modern rap song, where the rap is at a speed no music was in at the time. I don't love Nicki Minaj's style, but musically this sounds good, the skill is there and it's impressive how it all fits together into a really great and memorable track The one thousand and ninth song: 212 – Azaelia Banks On the other side, Azaelia Banks' mechanical rap goes the other way. The lyrics are clear, the references come often and the mechanical beat stands out against the more flowing style. It's precise, in a way that works quite well. The one thousand and tenth song: Written On The Forehead – PJ Harvey The slow build up of this pop song focuses on PJ Harvey's light vocals, tuned to sound disconcerting as it addresses a world on fire. It embraces a fatalistic view on the world, in a way that's unsettling but also attractive. The one thousand and eleventh song…

Permanent link to “The one thousand and eighth song: Super Bass – Nicki Minaj It still feels…”
The six hundred and forty-first album: #641 Queen Latifah - All Hail the Queen After the rise of rap is established, Queen Latifah comes in as one of the main female rappers of the age. She's strongly political and even surrounded by the male members of her crew, she stands out strongly, as the best voice in the mix. She can rap and sing and there's a unity to the feel of the songs even as there are a lot of collaborations included. Building on soul music and including a lot of dance influences, it creates an album that has a definite impact.

Permanent link to “The six hundred and forty-first album: #641 Queen Latifah - All Hail the…”
Permanent link to “The two hundred and thirty-seventh classical recording: #204 Ludwig van…”
The two hundred and thirty-second TV show: #197 Welt am Draht Twin Peaks and The Kingdom have given me a good start at the mystery genre, together with a number of other shows and movies, and for that reason Welt am Draht gave ma a lot of the same feelngs. The similarity to Black Mirror in its point of view is notable (without spoiling this series), which meant we were probably a bit further ahead than most viewers, but then, that might depend on different levels of media savviness. The first half is the most interesting part, as the suspense builds to a big reveal. It follows it up with a more tepid second half, which goes between long drawn out, too artsy conversations and then action pieces that feel disconnected and at that point unengaging. It tries to be a character study without a character that works, and an action movie with a lack of action. It's a bit predictable, and it feels like it needed more exploration of these themes before they would have had the language to pull…

Permanent link to “The two hundred and thirty-second TV show: #197 Welt am Draht Twin Peaks…”
The one thousand and second song: Feels Like We Can Only Go Backwards – Tame Impala As a deliberate throwback to an earlier psychedelic rock era, this hits a gentle note that just feels like a breezy run through. It's not inconsequential, but there's less going on that makes it feel sweeter and simpler, a nice drift through things. The one thousand and third song: Angels – The xx Even for an indie rock band, this is such a sparse ballad - not much pushing it forward, more drifting again as a sweet and simple love song that celebrates its simplicity. The one thousand and fourth song: Doom and Gloom – The Rolling Stones This is a classic Stones song that could have fit in the seventies as much as it does here. It's a straight forward rock song, sound effects and all, showing how they can still bring that sound. The one thousand and fifth song: Where Are We Now? – David Bowie I don't know whether to read too much into this, but Where Are We Now sounds incredibly frail - from Bowie's…

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