Jeroen's Micro Blog

The three hundred and second song: Black Night - Deep Purple

This feels like a road trip track - a group of travelers on their Harleys driving across endless American plains. The music is loud, straight forward but it drives you on. The lyrics were written to be incidental and it shows - there's a few words that jump out fitting the theme, but they don't matter as much. For that genre, it suits it well and the solo songs alone drive it well enough.

The three hundred and third song: War - Edwin Starr

Originally a Temptations song, the single release was tied to a performer whose career would not be ruined by it. Adding a James Brown sound it, we get a more soul, looser and because of it angrier sound to it. There's a lot of energy in it, driving the structured chorus to jump out from the chaotic verses surrounding it. It's a powerful effect that sustains the song well and the sing drags you through all of it.

The three hundred and fourth song: (To Be) Young, Gifted, and Black - Bob and Marcia

Here we get another protest song, aimed at civil rights, but here adding a Jamaican band to a Nina Simone originally. It's interesting to hear the normally quite energetic, frenetic sounds and instruments of reggae applied to a more subdued, quiet song focused more on a message and it butts heads here sometimes. It works decently well though, even if I'm told it doesn't hold up to the original.

The three hundred and fifth song: Ball of Confusion- The Temptations

Whereas War was a bit too much for them earlier, here the Temptations still show a larger connection with the political at the time, although possibly in a way that's trying to be more open. We're getting more soul and take a step further for that genre, going bigger and creative once more with, still, a lot of energy. There was a lot of anger at the time (as there is now) and it feels like these songs are giving a voice to it.

The three hundred and sixth song: Avec le temps - Leo Ferre

So what's going on in France at the same time? We still mostly seem to get the slower chansons coming from there. While I'm sure rock won't have passed them by, I guess they wouldn't last as long and that's why we have this sad lovesong instead. The language and music do a lot to convey the sadness and it reaches you from the start, even without keeping up with the lyrics. It's a lovely, sweet song on the whole.

The three hundred and seventh song: The Man Who Sold the World - David Bowie

And so another big musical influencer enters the list. Produced from beginning to end, there's something esoteric from the rock song, using a lot of electronic sounds and sudden jumps, with some now odd sounds keeping up in the background, the changing of different rattles moving you between songs. There's a differnet sound to this, its own niche that I haven't quite identified before, that is good to listen to.

The three hundred and eighth song: Awaiting on You All - George Harrison

It feels like, now the Beatles are over, that George Harrison goes back a bit more to their roots rather than their later work, and here crosses it with Phil Spector's big productions. It's a good, swinging song that has a lot of happiness and exuberance in there that's clearly missing from earlier in this batch of songs - then again, you couldn't say that he wasn't at least partially in the establishment at this point. Despite its big sound, this song just can't help but make you feel good on some level.

The three hundred and ninth song: Northern Sky - Nick Drake

And now some folk music in between to calm us down - together with Leo Ferre the two smallest songs in this nine, and the lowest energy. Here that's intentional, based on Nick Drake's style, but it is a mental shift. The music was improvised separately from the writing of the track, but it works here to evoke a more magical work than just a man and a guitar would create, and it's that dreamlike quality that appeals to me here.

The three hundred and tenth song: Maybe I’m Amazed - Paul McCartney

Paul's first album following the Beatles has this on it, on what sounds like is a mostly self-produced work. There's something sweet and really well meant in the lyrics of this song, clearly dedicated to his then-wife Linda. It feels really real, something that was often missing from Beatles tracks and it becomes a lot more personal because of that. THat's what works, even if musically it doesn't feel as challenging. It's solid, which feels like it has its own appeal here.

The seventy-fourth album: #74 The Yardbirds - The Yardbirds

(Also known as Roger the Engineer)

A mix of rock songs here, with some baroque touches as well as harder sounds, The Yardbirds created an album here that's pleasant to listen to, generating a lot of energy. It feels fairly representative of late sixties rock, which feels like a good thing. It's not overly ambitious compared to the sounds of others, but it's a good, solid sound.

The thirty-eighth comic: #582 Parasyte

Parasyte has an interesting premise - these parasites invade the human race and take control of several people, fighting mostly for their survival. Our hero gets infected by a parasite, but his mind isn't taken over. He starts to fight these parasites - in part in self defense as he struggles with questions about how he fits into this world.

It's an interesting story, exploring the struggle of humanity versus needing what needs to be done, with some vague environmental comments, in particular in how you treat those who are less than you.

What's disappointing, then, is that the story ends rather quickly. There is an ending that's written to, taking out the strongest of the parasites, but it never addresses what happens in the larger world, or more important, never really resolves the question of whether our hero is still human, whether the parasite is changing him or whether it's for the best. In the end, is he doing the right thing? It's asked, but just wiped away at the end.

It's a waste of a good story, one that I wish I hadn't quite read, as it feels it overshadows the rest of it: in the end, the fun of these stories is seeing where it goes and how these people end up. Knowing the answer doesn't just quite live up to expectations (they never do) but actually make them worse is painful.

The twenty-fifth classical recording: #773 Sergei Prokofiev - Lieutenant Kijé Suite

Composed as a film score, the movements feel like they support the different scenes - moving from mood to mood. It's fairly delicate, even the boisterous sections being fairly contained compared to the big orchestral pieces we've had before and only really used for emphasis. There is a lot of joy in the early movements and the composition keeps up a lot of energy - the fourth movement, Troika, has more speed in it, but one that follows from elsewhere as well. Even the final movement, the Funeral, maintains this with a sombre tone that still keeps moving.

While some of the impact of the composition is probably lost without the film, the score sounds good on its own and does take you through the story. The phases are distinct and compelling and make for some good listening and relistening. It might not be stirring, but it's incredibly satisfying to listen to.

The thirty-seventh comic: #90 Mopsy

Mopsy didn't seem to amount to as much, to be honest. It's a newspaper comic focused on a single (most of the time) woman in the 1930s. She's somewhat independent, working a job and going out to find a man. There's (obviously) no real continuity, but it's the character that roughly stays the same.

The comics are amusing - dated, but quite good in places with some decent characterization. It doesn't always land, but they mostly did and they did work. I enjoyed reading them - but too much of it wouldn't be worth it.

The sixtieth TV show: #290 Minder

Some shows don't ever quite connect with you. Maybe it's because this is a working class show and I'm just too middle class for it (I've changed man, I've changed). Perhaps it's the difference of three decades between when this show was shot and when we watched it, casual racism included. Perhaps, even, it's that supposedly likeable characters weren't to me.

I think part of it is a selection of episodes - Arthur, one of the leads - doesn't always come along as well and is too much trying to be a grifter or dubious dealer rather that someone I root for. On a show like Hustle, these characters work by picking the right targets, but here the targets don't feel as sympathetic.

Dennis Waterman's character, Terry, is more of a mixed bag. Working with the right people, he's got decent comic timing and comes across well. He comes across as a decently convincing lead, but there are times when the action is a bit forced and there are times when he misses some of the charisma to keep the show watchable. He's good, but not as the main lead.

So with all of that taken together, the show didn't work for us. It was a chore to watch and, to be honest, we're glad to drop it. There's enough of a feel we've gotten for it, so this is probably the place to leave it.

The twenty-fourth classical recording: #12 Cristobal de Morales - Motets

We're back! Time for some old motets and such, and so the choral multiple voices play to sound angelic. While the skill involved in these is impressive and I know I'm not quite educated enough to appreciate and understand the full set of techniques used, it doesn't fill me with the reverence that's meant to come from these songs. They don't speak to me, they don't evoke much of an emotion in me and doesn't give the journey I hope for.

It's probably not its fault - it's a work of its time - but given how much more we've seen done with this, I prefer the baudier, more diverse 'folk' music we got (even) earlier in the list.

The seventy-third album: #73 John Mayall's Blues Breakers - Blues Breakers with Eric Clapton

Yeah, there are two names in there - Eric Clapton joined the band later in its life, so you get this odder combination. We get a blues album here, a bit of rock, nothing too loud, but with some decent tunes and okay, if forgettable lyrics.The music just doesn't suit me for the most part, though, and I didn't really find anything in it - it played, but it seemed like that was about it.It didn't connect and lost me early on because of that.

The fourtieth book: #40 The Vicar of Wakefield - Oliver Goldsmith

So far I've been down on more of the serious books, while appreciating the satires and funnier books. That's not a pattern that always holds, but it certainly influences my initial thoughts.

WIth the Vicar of Wakefield, the reverse applied. There are two parts - starting with a satire, playing with the ideal life novels and adventuring with its ups and its downs. Partway through, however, it moves to become more of a melodrama, as the problems and bad decisions that have been building up in the past chapters become a real problem ending up with the titular vicar in debtor's prison. It ends up with a happy ending, but goes deep and serious for a while.

The second half felt more compelling to me. The first, describing country life of the day, doesn't really connect because it's so far away. It's fine, but intentionally a bit too far up itself and it didn't work. In the second part, the characters become more and more human and interesting. And while there are some deus ex machina, it makes for a better story.

That's not to say the first half isn't bad - it was still decent, but not as compelling and I found myself staring out of the train window more often. It's unfortunate, but it worked out well in the end.

The fifty-ninth TV show: #507 Knowing Me, Knowing You

I haven't gotten to The Day Today yet, the predecessor of this show in a way - or rather, where the character of Alan Partridge originated. However, I have listened to the preceeding On The Hour radio show, which sets it up just as much.

That Alan Partridge, originally a sports caster, can be presenting a chat show is a testament to how quickly it felt like a developed character. A lot of it builds on known stereotypes that hold up even now - this was parodying Top Gear before that show was established, amongst other things.

The main part is that it's hilarious, trading on a lot of general tropes and subverting them, mostly from incompetent hosting that pushes far beyond Alan Partridge's limits. It works well, though and we raced through this. Now to watch the follow up series for more.