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The thirty-eighth book: #38 Emile - Jean-Jacques Rousseau

I struggled with this book. It's not really a novel, more a treatise on how to raise a boy left in your charge. It's about ways to do it, techniques and plans for it. But there's no real story here, characters are flimsy and more strawmen to create point, except for some anecdotes that intersperse the explanations and justification. A lot of it is dated, parts of it I disagree with, and everyone is idealized to show how things would go. I'm sure a lot of the advice would go different based on who it's being done to. At the same time, there are parts that feel ahead of their time, and are interesting to see how some now normal practices seem to have been different at the time.

Still, this isn't a novel, there is no story and there are no real characters, and on the whole it's just boring to read. Sure, it might be influential, but it doesn't feel like it matters much as a novel - more as a work of non-fiction. And fiction is what I was looking for.

The fifty-eighth TV show: #880 Bron/Broen

We've taken some time to get through this series. A murder drama in Danish and Swedish that tends to have quite a few conspiracy theories in it, meaning that we have to pay a lot of attention, which is exhausting enough. But it was so worth it. We watched the first two seasons, and the third is in our queue to catch up with at some point.

The murder mystery is one part of that, which in both versions has had several layers, some social commentary and enjoyable misdirection. The start of the second season was a bit weaker, but that was in part to set up later episodes. On the whole it works well.

Where it shines, where I get more of my enjoyment and where most shows tend to rise or fall, are the relationships between the characters. Like any crime show with two leads, you have the straight laced and the relaxed one. Here, however, Saga issues with social interactions - she's possibly on the autistic spectrum - which makes her blunt and straight forward, good and putting connections together but not endearing people to her. It makes for a more interesting dynamic and it means that when you feel for her, you really do. It impacts her life in the story in a meaningful way without being denigrating and it's been really interesting to see.

Beyond that, the story takes a personal turn, especially once we reach the second season, and the development of Martin is just as engaging. They make for a decent double act and the end of season two hits all the harder for it.

We'll be watching season 3 and are generally taking some time to catch up on our TV viewing. We need more of this.

The seventy-second album: #72 13th Floor Elevators - The Psychedelic Sounds of the 13th Floor Elevators

While, I must admit, the Beatles are one of my main touchstones for psychedelic rock, the thing that makes them sound poppier to my mind are the lack of hard guitar riffs, usually peeferring a gentler sound. The 13th Floor Elevators show that things can be different though, as they have the heavy guitars in here that come from their garage rock roots, as well as the shoutier vocals.The psychedelic elements are still there though, with weird sounds dominating part of the music and adding an otherworldly feel to what we'd otherwise have as a fairly standard garage rock album.

The trick is compelling enough to work, but the lack of variety means that while the whole is good, I struggle a bit to identify individual standout tracks on the album. It's a decent album, what it is trying is interesting, but falling between two genres as it does, I struggle to get a grip on it. Other bands may do it in a way that works better for me later on.

The fifty-seventh TV show: #772 Californication

I've done my best to try and get into this show, or even understand it. It has a lot of Showtime "we can show boobs" moments and a lot of it is about the vapidity of these people leading their life in a world of drugs and sex, while at the same time making their way through it with all the smaller things that inhibit this - children, bills and trying to form more mature relationships. David Duchovny is amazing at playing this, balancing the knife edge of likeable and abhorrent, but the world is one that drives me away. I don't care about the struggles and I don't really see any development. A lot of it felt like more of the same. It's a fine show, but it just isn't for me.

The seventy-first album: #71: Simon & Garfunkel - Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme

While I've covered a couple of folk albums before, with Bob Dylan the most notable, Simon & Garfunkel feel like they lift the genre to a different level. Wile the basic sounds are still there, there are many more effects, instruments and ideas mixed in that even beyond the lyrics, the songs sound quite distinct, and the feelings a song is meant to evoke come through strongly in the music. Cloudy sounds floaty, Homeward Bound has the rhythm of a train and Dangling Conversation feels distant. There's even a Bob Dylan parody on here that hits the sound and the voice quite well.

A lot of it is like poetry, the way the words flow and the lyrics sound, as well as the images it creates. It's a lovely sound that keeps impressing me. None of it is ever very complicated, but the songs are all so different that the album as a whole feels different and more layered. It makes for something easy and lovely to listen to, while leaving more of an impression than mostly any album.

The thirty-sixth comic: #700 Great Teacher Onizuka

This was a bit of an odd manga. The basic premise doesn't sound too bad - a graduate from a fifth tier university loafs around all day, mostly without a job, until he wanders into being a substitute teacher. He then decides to make that his calling, although he's not exactly a standard teacher, isn't great at imparting normal lessons, but turns out to be amazing at dealing with trouble classes and troubled students.

Then the oddities set in, with some Japanese touches and a lot of fan service. There are plenty of voluptous students, as well as mothers and teachers that the teacher is impressed by. He avoids getting entangled with students - although more because it would cost him his job than because he actually feels he shouldn't - but is fairly perverted. There is a feeling that the bad boy (he was in a gang before) was meant to be something the teen boy readers should identify with, but I felt it was off putting. The gang elements mean that breaking through to the students went in an interesting way, one that I wouldn't want to see in real life, but make sense in the comic's context. It just is surrounded by some things I don't enjoy as much.

Through that, the story annoyed me as often as it connected, and I just didn't see the point in why would want to continue reading. It just isn't much fun.

The two hundred and ninety-fourth song: Up Around The Bend - Creedence Clearwater Revival

In what sounds like clear country rock, this is more wholesome music than we hear from most rock bands, especially with the harder guitar sounds used here. It sounds like it's about people having a good time. It's not too complicated, but it's the contrast that makes this song appear here, even if it isn't amazing.

The two hundred and ninety-fifth song: Layla - Derek & The Dominos

Here's the contrast to that, in a way, with a heavy, recognisable guitar focus that I feel a lot were inspired by later. There is a lot of raw emotion in this declaration of love, apparently inspired by Eric Clapton's future wife, then still married to George Harrison. There's a lot of that coming through in the music, in part because of the way the track is build up between the different instruments and with all the overdubbing. It has so many layers on which it works - the music, the lyrics, the meaning - and it deserves to sound as grandiose as it does. Not counting the second half though - while the piano sounds fine and big, on the whole it's a bit tacked on and unnecessary.

The two hundred and ninety-sixth song: War Pigs - Black Sabbath

The promise of Led Zeppelin has come true. We enter the 1970s and metal arrives. An angry anthem, there's a strong anti-war message here that feels powerfully underlined by the heavily tuned, dark guitars. It's a sound I'm partial to and here it strikes you hard. It would have been harder at the time, as this is the first time we've really heard this sound for the list. It's been hinted at, but it's now pushed through as we move past the friendly rock from the Beatles and the happier mood of the sixties to the conflicts in the seventies.

The two hundred and ninety-seventh song: When the Revolution Comes - The Last Poets

It's a pretty big whiplash in tone. My first worry was where to place this, but it seems to be a precursor to rap - a spoken word song with a basic backing track - a poem read out over a beat. The revolutionary message of course comes across strongly, the lyrics making it clear where they see things going, but the shock of the change in sound is weird and it feels like the genre isn't developed far enough yet to be good musically. Lyrically, though, it works.

The two hundred and ninety-eighth song: Band of Gold - Freda Payne

A poppy song about heartbreak, this goes back to more what we'd expect from the charts. A sotry about a woman whose marriage basically strands on her wedding night. It's good to hear some soul and the lyrics are deeper than othe rlove songs, with quite a lot to discover in there for you.

The two hundred and ninety-ninth song: Love the One You’re With - Stephen Stills

A nice folk song, there's a positive message in here that may sound trite and go against all of Hollywood's advice, but you get a nice, harmonious song that swings and really just feels good. It could be a maudlin song, but it's upbeat, happy and encouraging and pushes folk to be more uptempo than I associate it with.

The three hundredth song: Fire & Rain - James Taylor

Speaking of emotion pouring out through an album, the sadness and depression James Taylor went through during the writing of this song somes through in the performance. It's hard to say why, but there's a sadness in his voice that defines your mood even when the music steps up. It stays incredibly focused and knowing the backstory makes that clearer. It's an incredibly touching song and even if you don't know the exact circumstances, the specific emotion also feels recognisable and the support from that works, somehow.

The three hundred and first song: Ain’t No Mountain High Enough - Diana Ross

Let's end on a high, though, and that's what you get from Diana Ross. I barely need to explain it, really, but there's something exciting and uplifting about this love song, its promise to find her lover no matter want and support him. It's got a big and infectious refrain, the spoken word versions good for setting the scene but really just preparing the large, sweeping sections.

The seventieth album: #70 The Rolling Stones - Aftermath

My version of Aftermath starts with a song I've praised before (and reminisced as I remembered the shows I watched with it), Paint It Black, and goes up and down from there. Stupid Girl is hard and loud (with a troubling message, but perhaps a sign of the time and culture). Then we get Lady Jane, slower, more sensitive, and more baroque rather than hard. Hearing this come from the same group, on the same album, feels like quite a change. One that makes sense from their blues roots, it's a different direction for the music to go into.

While the album features several songs about relationships, they are not love songs. Not musically, for the most part, but also in a lot of the lyrics. There are songs about power struggles, about finding a place in the world, about more raw sexual encounters and generally the more real questions that often come up. It's more personal - even if a lot of it is satirical or taking things on from other people or works. The revolutionary spirit of the time shows through here, as does the aggressive tone, and in a way this feels like the Stones might have invented something slightly different and created that path forward that kept them going for a long time. Not as inventive as the Beatles, maybe, but on a creative course that lasted for longer.

The sixty-ninth album: #69 The Mothers of Invention - Freak Out!

For an album focused on lyrics in a lot of places, The Mothers of Invention don't sound that good on their debut album. Frank Zappa's solos sound fine, but a lot of the harmonies sound mostly shouty. Who Are The Brain Police? is the first song where this really connects, although in a way where the weird effects and sounds make for a coherent intersting whole rather than shouting played over decent, but not always ambitious rock, with some odd touches thrown in. Go Cry On Somebody Ele's Shoulder is where the album hits lyrically, the doo wop sounds clearly suited to the performers while having sharp lyrics that undercut standard love songs. It feels like a well crafted mockery.

Onbce you get into Trouble Every Day, the second half of the double album, it has established this sound and it comes together better, with a decent track and good, effective lyrics. It's also the lead in for the more experimental section, with Help I'm A Rock feeling avant garde and a precursor of the experimentation that's about to come, and pushing things furtehr than the Beatles are doing around this time. It feels like it opens new possibilities not thought of before, which is exciting on its own. It Can't Happen Here, a semi-part of it, enforces that with its a capella start, sounding like a track where the music dropped out but, as you'd expect, creating its own song in a way that sounds like rock more than other a capella groups would do. It creates an album that needed to grow on me, but once it did it sounded amazing and really impressed me with how weird it would get.

The sixty-eighth album: #68 Paul Revere & The Raiders - Midnight Ride

For most of the songs, Midnight Ride feels fairly conventional for its era, rock songs with some harmonies and a clear country bend in places. There's quite a bit of (early) Beatles, with some harder songs like, in fact, Kicks, that having more of a Stones influence. Stepping Stone is a clear and fairly well known example of that.

Those songs are part of what saves the album. Leading the B-side is All I Really Need Is You, a song with its own different sound, experimental and more interesting to listen to. It's that, and some of the songs that follow, thart really create something distinct here that make the album a standout for me. Not all the tracks held up after that, but the few experiments are what saved the album for me. It's still not the best and ultimately feels like a forgettable album.