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The one hundred third TV show: #816 Modern Family

We originally gave up Modern Family about six seasons in. We started off loving it, but that wear off. I'm not quite sure when it changed, but it started to grow stale. While a gay couple felt progressive when it started, how chaste it stayed, and how much it fell into stereotypes, made it feel stuck in time. There's not always a lot of growth - there's progress in the characters' place in life, but not really in personalities. It makes the entire show feel quite samey and really reliant on the episode and the characters who get focus. Nolan Gould, for example, really grew into his role and is often the best part and most of the kids work better as the series develops. It's clear they can carry more material, but it takes too long for that to come out.

Another show, The Middle, debuted at the same time, airing an hour earlier, and while its start wasn't as strong, it developed into a stronger show. There's a smaller cast, but with a stronger throughline, and they shifted focus throughout. They got stuck too, but there's something more human and more believable to that show than Modern Family is. The humanity can be missing sometimes and there's almost a manufactured cynicism to the formula that means the show doesn't always land well.

The one hundred twenty-sixth album: #126 The Small Faces - Ogden's Nut Gone Flake

If I have to summarize the first half of this album, it's that it's variations of rock. Some songs go harder, some softer, but it's moving within these defined parameters. Long Agos and Worlds Apart and Rene stand out here. From a soulful ballady song it becomes a drinking song set to rock. The decent rock songs, like Song of a Baker, work best for me, but on the whole it's good to listen to (although the stereo effects got quite distracting and made me wonder whether my headphones were failing).

The second half is more of a concept album, a fairy tale told through rock. Narrated by Stanley Unwin, we get a concept album with a story that would work better as a bedtime story than those that came before. It's quite a nice story and while the songs don't have the variety of the first half, it's well put together.

The four hundred and tenth song: That’s the Way ( I Like It) - KC & The Sunshine Band

As we're getting into disco, there are songs that feel important because of their chorus, the catchy section you dance to while the verses are less interesting. Here, the chorus really brings that and that's what feels memorable while I have no idea what they were singing about. To be honest, the title makes that clear, and the rhythm of the song makes that clear enough - a song that's clever enough to focus on its hook.

The four hundred and eleventh song: Kalimankou denkou - Le Mystere des Voix Bulgares

While some folk music sort of ended up in the classical list, we come across it here occasionally. It feels rare at this point in the list, but here we have Bulgarian folk music by performers who ended up working with Kate Bush and whose ethereal voices sound like motets, but I guess with village music interests, the angelic sounds changing enough to not be just that. The topic of the song is presumably secular as well, but it works here either way.

The four hundred and twelfth song: Marcus Garvey - Burning Spear

While I think we've covered reggae before, it was a bit bland before. Here, while the energy has gone up much, there's something about the arrangement that works better and adds some pep to it. There's the funk influence, but it still feels like it needs something to help speed it up.

The four hundred and thirteenth song: Bohemian Rhapsody - Queen

Why do so many people love this song, and why do I enjoy it this much? It's partially its weirdness, the changes in the style and the song that makes it feel like it's thrown together. There's an odd narrative, something almost psychedelic about its journey. But I think it's partially because it's so great to sing along to, almost like an anthem, a song to have fun with. It doesn't work for everyone, but I guess it's what you grew up with.

The four hundred and fourteenth song: Gloria - Patti Smith

From what I understand, at this point of time punk is getting started and Patti Smith's opening line sets up that feeling. Musically it might be fairly tame, but it feels like it describes the feeling of being outside the norm and mocking the choruses she uses, rejected the established rock world. I appreciate that sarcasm and that alone connects, making for a good challenge. It's fun as it ramps up, all with that no-care attitude.

The four hundred and fifteenth song: Tangled Up in Blue - Bob Dylan

Having listened to Simon & Garfunkel recently, we got into a conversation about how I prefer them over Bob Dylan. Not just because of their vocal skills, but how they write music that appeals to me more and sounds better produced. Tangled Up In Blue doesn't feel like it does much different musically, with lyrics that do feel quite personal, describing a relationship that he links up to his life, getting to her. I'm not sure how much it manages to affect me, but I can see its journey and how happy it made him.

The four hundred and sixteenth song: Walk This Way - Aerosmith

It's hard to divorce this song from Run DMC's version, which mixes their rap with this song. Here, we just get the fast rock bits, which do show how it connects with the rap, but it stands well on its own. There's a lot of energy in this, the short guitar solos working well to punctuate the fast and high energy lyrics. It's fairly simple to listen to, but the performance is what makes it so impressive to listen to. It can't help but give you that energy.

The four hundred and seventeenth song: Wish You Were Here - Pink Floyd

The long intro to this song sets up the segue to its sad lyrics well, the feeling of missing someone portrayed well through every part of the song. Possibly written refering to Syd Barrett (although this is disputed, it's an interpretation that works on some level) it brings to mind that feeling of loss and missing someone, a seperation that's difficult to overcome. It helps that the vocals are raw, not entirely smooth, creating more of this feeling of being alone.

The one hundred twenty-fifth album: #125 Simon & Garfunkel - Bookends

While I would mostly associate Simon & Garfunkel with folk rock, the second track, following the short theme of the album, goes heavily into the psychedelic, creating a soundscape much richer than I would have expected. It goes back to folk rock after that, but there's a warmth in there that feels really effective, a study of human emotions that hits really well, the writing being perfect - nuanced and complex but not over the top in that sense.

With the first half being a concept album, a journey to someone's life, there are some odd tracks but the themes and differences work well to create that sensation and it's a delight to listen to. The second half are unconnected songs, which fear back more towards the conventional. They're well written, easy to listen to, and this stays a great album.

The sixtieth classical recording: #981 John Adams - Nixon in China

It's weird to have an opera about a contemporary subject - it makes sense that they're being written and such, but as they are associated with being older, it's an odd thought to have one dedicated to Nixon's 1972 visit to China. This means we get the likes of saxophones in there, which sound a bit more modern. At the same time, it can feel quite samey, with not always as much variation as I'd hope and songs blending together. I feel like it's the subject that's more interesting than anything else, but I didn't really feel it hit me as much as other operas have.

The one hundred twenty fourth album: #124 The Pretty Things - S.F. Sorrow

We have reached the era of rock operas, albums designed to tell a story, and S.F. Sorrow is set around the life of the titural Sebastian F. Sorrow. The music itself portrays a lot of this, often quite bluntly - Private Sorrow doesn't need the lyrics to explain what happens, for example, although the touches help. It's a very showy rock song, psychedelic rock creeping towards glam, in a way that works quite effectively.

The second half is more of a psychedelic trip and the music goes that way. The guitars screech more, the sounds change and the whole mood changes. The lyrics reflect the weird journey and it builds to a aggressive and sad ending that works well here.

The one hundred second TV show: #777 The Big Bang Theory

Big Bang Theory is one of the shows we'd given up before the list that I'm now revisiting. There's something good about the premise - geeks that have to deal with real life, with a lot of love for them. A lot of it is quite nice and it does its best to move past the stereotypes after a while. There's a lot of heart to how they treat the characters, with touching moments... but then it needs a cheap joke and moves away from it. It's the disonance that can get frustrating, as well as the slow movement of character development - there's a bit, but with a lot of backsliding. It gets frustrating and probably should have ended a few years before it actually did. It's a shame, but it's been a good journey while I was on board.

The four hundred and fourth song: Only Women Bleed - Alice Cooper

Rather than a shocking rock song that you'd expect from Alice Cooper, this is a slower ballad, still with slightly more visceral imagery, but mostly just about an abusive relationship. While somewhat grand, it's quite sensitive as well, and that's what sounds impressive here. It does tug at your heartstrings and pulls it off well.

The four hundred and fifth song: Jive Talkin’ - Bee Gees

As we're seeing more of the rise of disco out of funk, the Bee Gees bring out Jive Talkin', a song drawing on black influences coming from a band out of north England. It's hard to argue that there wasn't something here about it becoming adapted to become appropriate, but the smooth sound and relatively subdued vocals give a calmer thing to listen to while having been ideal to dance to, which makes it good to listen to on its own merits.

The four hundred and sixth song: Jesus’ Blood Never Failed Me Yet - Gavin Bryars

At a length of twenty-six minutes, we've been dreading this one. It certainly takes its time building up, taking about four minutes for the first instrument to start playing. The fragment of song comes to life with that music, a classical composition that adds emotion to the entire thing. I think you need to approach it as that, the man's song another instrument in the composition, that this makes sense. The downside of the length is that it doesn't change it up quite enough and starts getting repetitive. There's some enchantment to the repetition, but it feels like it sometimes takes a bit too much time to shift. Even so, the piece is affecting and gets to you, especially knowing there's an anonymous homeless man who sang this and the place he must have been in. Still, it was good, just not twenty five minutes good.

The four hundred and seventh song: Boulder to Birmingham - Emmylou Harris

We're staying with sad songs, although not affecting in the same way, Boulder to Birmingham is about saying goodbye to someone who has passed. The story behind it is just as sad and the emotions here feel real too, it has a real feeling of loss. The emotion goes through it and the more you listen to the ballad, the more it gets to you.

The four hundred and eighth song: Fight the Power (Parts 1 & 2) - The Isley Brothers

For a shift in emotion, Fight the Power is not a sad song, but contains a lot of anger instead. There is still a lot of anger in the air and this funk song is a lot angrier than the genre usually is, a big protest song where it feels the music has shifted, giving a different tone. It's catchy in its own way, thrilling and tempting with a clear and ambigious meaning - anti-authoritarian without addressing a specific authority.

The one hundred twenty-third album: #123 Iron Butterfly - In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida

Iron Butterfly was a clear example of the rock bands as they were in the late 60s, incorporating an organ for that psychedelic feel with the heavier guitars that lean towards what became hard rock and metal. The vocals are appropriately gruff, the guitar riffs often fairly simple, with the organ adding the flourishes. The lyrics mostly feel fairly tame - still love songs and normal life songs, nothing rebelious or out there, which feels simple. The first half isn't overproduced either - these feel like songs that can be played easily at a concert, something not all rock of the time can claim.

The second half is a single seventeen minute song - or jam, really - with some lyrics but mostly showing off the instruments and creating a whole song. It feels like an early anthem, an ongoing hard rock sound that keeps going while still staying interesting. It's a sign of hard rock and metal, something this may have influenced, but certainly where rock is going towards.

The one hundred first TV show: #362 Das Boot

Das Boot is a war film... up to a point. While set on a submarine in the second world war, aside from some short sequences at the start and end, and one refuelling stop, the crew is isolated. They may hear bits of news over the radio, but they only have themselves to rely on. Even a passing sub in the distance is something you can only wave at and send light signals to, you can never really get close.

It creates camaraderie and tension and while the movie plays with that, too, the bigger threat is the danger of the environment. Dive too deep and the sub can't take it - you need to patch it up and fix things. You're mostly defenseless against a bunch of threats. You're a lonely island to defend the mainland, but can't go anywhere. It creates a psychological drama that's intense already.

Then there are the attacks. The ships and planes that do are faceless - frightening big things you'd like to take down but that harm you just as much. The sub recovering from those and the crew pulling together to do so lead to some of the most harrowing, challenging scenes while also feeling genuinely tense.

The tension comes from the filming environment as well. Everything is small and constrained and even the camera has to carefully weave around everything, as the set was built to scale. It's expertly done, but you feel that oppression at all times. The atmosphere comes across in every scene and these six episodes felt like they flew by because of it.