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The one hundred seventy-eighth album: #178 Spirit - Twelve Dreams of Dr. Sardonicus

While the album has a lofty title, Spirit's fourth album doesn't quite have the ambition or storytelling to make up for it - there's no Dr. Sardonicus through line or anything exciting like that. Instead this is a solid prog rock album, well produced but mostly with a solid musical core that lends itself to some good music. It's good early 70s rock, with some experimentation but toning down the psychedelic rock that came before - it's still in there, but it's mostly well produced, entertaining rock. No tracks stand out individually, for good or bad, but they combine into a really good one.

The four hundred and eighty-fourth song: Human Fly - The Cramps

While the influence of punk on Human Fly is clear, its country roots are as obvious and interesting. The music is calmer, more suiting to country if not for the harder guitars and the hissed vocals that stay clipped through. It's a different, unsettling sound that I don't think we've heard as often, but creates an atmosphere of its own.

The four hundred and eighty-fifth song: Shake Your Body (Down to the Ground) - The Jacksons

While we move into disco here, for me this Michael and Randy Jackson-penned work falls flat. There's often a big push on repetitive calls to dance in disco, with a comparatively simple song surrounding it, but the fact that this has an eight minute version that, I suspect, repeats itself a lot, grates. I was hoping there'd be more to the song, but it stays where it starts and doesn't really seem worth it.

The four hundred and eighty-sixth song: (I Don’t Want to Go to) Chelsea - Elvis Costello & The Attractions

Even without the title, there's something quite British about this song, with Elvis Costello's vocal performance standing out as being that bit different. It's a nice, almost happy song that talks as much about the movies set in Chelsea as the desire to stay away. There's something quite entrancing and good about it - I'll get to more one day.

The four hundred and eighty-seventh song: One Nation Under a Groove - Funkadelic

There's somethign a bit lackluster about this batch, and as much as Funkadelic tries to set up a world to dance away, the music is too mellow to really get me going. It's a fine beat, but the whole thing again feels a bit flimsy without offering much to enjoy. It picks up halfway through the song, where it picks up and brings in a nice bridge, but it struggles to really get out of the funk it starts with

The four hundred and eighty-eighth song: Das Model - Kraftwerk

There is something incredibly German about this song. We already expect the electronic melodies of Kraftwerk - in fact, I'd argue this is more melodic than other songs of theirs - but the almost-monotone, deadpan delivery of the lyrics by Emil Schult is exactly what you'd expect, creating a distance between you and the song and making it feel more mechanical. It's what suits the Kraftwerk style and brand, but there is also some humanity that comes through the otherwise dispassionate observations.

The four hundred and eighty-ninth song: Shot by Both Sides - Magazine

There's a darkness throughout this song, a commentary originally based on DeVoto's political beliefs, but possibly something that applies now. It's a hard, angry punk song that works well for me and works as a punk brand.

The four hundred and ninetieth song: Public Image - Public Image Ltd

As a follow up to the Sex Pistols, here John Lydon tries to make a statement on his own public image changing, with the expectations others have of him. I'm not sure musically that's entirely successful - while the song feels lighter than their work, there is so much punk in there that it's hard to separate out. As a message, however, it's quite effective, and the song stays good to listen to regardless of its origins.

The four hundred and ninety-first song: Alternative Ulster - Stiff Little Fingers

While we have another punk number here, the Northern Irish lens the music is filtered through makes for an interesting point of view. Stiff Little Fingers writes about the Troubles, but is formed by people from both sides, and there's a lot of substance here talking about the problems that are happening. It's a powerful number that really brings out what's happening and shows how music can comment on the world around it.

The four hundred and ninety-second song: (White Man) in Hammersmith Palais - The Clash

Fusing punk with reggae, it feels like the Clash is trying to make a statement about commercialization with a bit of scattershot approach, addressing several different places. It's not the most powerful as a song - the nearly shouted lyrics not fitting in with the relaxed reggae rhythm. While it's a bold experiment, it doesn't create a working whole through the song.

The one hundred seventy-seventh album: #177 Miles Davis - Bitches Brew

In my effort to get a last album in before the end of the year, I've ended up with a 90 minute jazz classic.Perfect, I suppose, to work to, but not quite the upbeat album I was hoping for. Bitches Brew does swing in places, running faster than some other jazz arrangements, but while the energy is there, it doesn't grab your attention or elevate things.

What it does manage to pull off more than most jazz albums is variation. There's a lot going on in here and while parts riff on the same chord, there's so much variation in here that it gives you new things often enough.

The seventy-third classical recording: #98 Johann Sebastian Bach - Christmas Oratorio

As Christmas is approaching, it seems appropriate to listen to a Christmas-themed work. An oratorio doesn't feel quite like a classical Christmas work - the German lyrics alone make it harder to get into that - but the music is lovely, with the instruments creating a decent variation as well - it's not over two hours of the same thing.

The eighty-third book: #70 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen

I've previously said many good things about the television adaptation of this show, but also knew the book was still coming up. When reading it, the characters and visuals of that show come to mind, but there's a definite difference between the two. While humorous, the books don't aim for comedy as much as some of the characters on the TV show do, and by its nature feels a lot more introspective. It means it doesn't have the visual set pieces, but creates an even more natural growth of love, slower and with some more variation. It's still a fairly light book, but at times more subtle.

It feels like Austen's revelation, compared to many earlier novels, is that the stories stay as complex, but the writing feels more accessible. It's an easy read and I enjoyed myself, with some shorter letters and a focused storylines - we see a lot of the world, but in the end the digressions aren't major and it all feels relevant. It's a really fun book, with a different view form the tv series, but it's clear why this is a classic.

The eighty-second book: #1013 The Absentee - Maria Edgeworth

There are two sides to the Absentee. One is the by now known narrative of a family down on their luck through some fault of their own, having to deal with debtors and rebuild themselves, with shades of the author's earlier Castle Rackrent coming through - with a love story/scandal added in. That is mixed in with a commentary of Irish society some time after Great Britain took control. There's a lot of social commentary through the story, both on how the Irish nobility wants to align themselves with London and seem fashionable there, while draining the peasants working for them.

It's not quite that subtle about it, but it feels like the more interesting half of the novel, while the other side felt like a retreat with a slightly wondrous solution of the love story near the end. It's decent, but with Jane Austen around at this time, it fell flat for me.

The eighty-first book: #195 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy

Quite out of order, but that's down to the (for me) unusual way in which I experienced this book. Rather than reading it myself, I started listening to the Obscure podcast by Michael Ian Black about a year and a half ago. In it, he not only reads the novel (like an audiobook), but he comments on it as he goes along. It's a good way to experience the book. Michael Ian Black is, obviously, smart and quite well read, so his insights are quite valuable and add a lot of context to the book, but he also does enough to clarify the book where it's unclear, in part because he needs it. It's a good balance and I feel it made reading the book more enjoyable - I got a lot more out of it.

The book itself is, obviously, quite sad and tragic. Jude has a rough start in life and while he has lofty ambitions that he aims for, in the end it gets taken away from him. Love and marriage are to blame for a lot of it and it's clear Thomas Hardy had some issues there, but the tragic story works well, with a clear arc to positivity that gets cut down. It's flowery in places - having it read out helps - but it didn't try to put too much into its plots. It's possible and easy to track everything, which makes the impact of it that much greater. All in all, I enjoyed the experience of listening to the book, and I'm actually going to look for some more of these. It also means I'm more comfortable jumping around the book list, so expect to see more of that!

The one hundred twenty-fifth TV show: #738 Torchwood

After the modern Doctor Who, Torchwood is a good companion piece to complete the set. Again, I've seen the show before, multiple times, and have felt the urge to keep up with it even as the later special seasons turned into something different.

The first two, billed as a dark, mature Doctor Who succeed well at creating some interesting plots, not forced into the optimistic tone that Doctor Who has but still having an ultimate streak of good at its heart. The dark and edgy side probably goes wrong most often, with some misjudged episodes, but the show's bigger freedom in subject matter works well to have more serious stakes as well - there's no magic wand to fix things, people die and there are - often - consequences.

Sadly, this results in them killing off characters as well - necessary to maintain stakes but getting rid of the strength of the ensemble, which doesn't really have any weak spots. The second season's death of Owen and Tosh is bad enough - something the actors didn't want, but was done to heighten the suspense - but with Ianto having the same thing in the third season means that by that point, the core of the entire show seems lost. The mini series has a good plot, with a great role from Peter Capaldi before he got deeper in the franchise, but it doesn't seem to be the same while the others aren't there. It's certainly flawed, but I still enjoy watching the show.

The seventy-seventh comic: #353 Jenifer

Jenifer is one story in an issue of Creepy, a horror anthology series we've yet to get to, and it's incredibly effective. The story of this hideous girl, saved from murder by our protagonist, becomes haunting, and it feels like the obsession he feels with her comes through in the entire work as he tries to protect her for some unclear reason. It's a satisfying story, nothing entirely unpredictable at this point but it builds itself well. The art feels appropriately grotesque and adds to the feeling of horror in there. It does what it wants to do well, doesn't outstay its welcome but delivers a good, satisfying story.

The seventy-sixth comic: #438 The Nikopol Trilogy

Sometimes, you really need to look at different parts of a work to appreciate what it does well. The Nikopol Trilogy creates an interesting world, a grim near-future world where fascism has taken root, technology has changed lives, but many people are still suppressed. Your partial entry into this world is the titular Nikopol, who comes back from suspended animation thirty years later. He gets possessed by Horus, the Egyptian god, fighting the others. It's an odd story and while the first part of the trilogy makes some sense with it, later parts set up a plot that doesn't really go anywhere. There are no explanations - which is fine - or resolution - which can be fine - but I also felt there was no point to it, like the creator didn't bother with the plot and just wanted to draw nice images. It's an interesting world and I was happy to see it, but it would have been nice if we could have gone deeper.