The fourty-fifth classical recording: #780 George Gershwin - Porgy and Bess

After a number of shorter pieces, we're listening to a three hour opera. Unlike the others, it's in English, set in more modern times and so more comprehensible on multiple levels.Still, it's odd to hear classic songs with an operatic bend (and it does sound more impressive that way). There's a contemporary feel to it beyond that, though, more musical-like with a story still (mostly) told through song, but feeling more modern. This seems to extend everywhere and it makes for an amazing soundtrack that way. Even that is enough to tell the (at the time controversial) story, a tragic love story made more complex through the circumstances in which they happen.

The one hundred ninth album: #109 The Incredible String Band - The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter

Scottish psychedelic folk sounds like it should be interesting - once again something different. And it's hard to ignore that it's trying to be different. At times it works - the lyrics are always interesting, thoughtful and though eccentric, the way it tries to talk about other things works really well. The melodies are lovely, the experiments with different instruments working out well. The thirteen minute Very Cellular Song shows this well. There are - as you'd probably expect from the era - a lot of Indian influences, too much sometimes, but mostly the album keeps it well balanced.

Sometimes, though, it doesn't quite work. And it's not musically, but the attitude being different. It feels like they try to be funny - and while it might be intended as a parody, it can come across as too self indulgent and... well, just stupid. It isn't a joke I feel in on and it feels unnecessary, especially with the amount of laughter coming through. I felt it misses the mark when they do that. It doesn't happen too often, but it does leave a bad taste in my mouth.

The fourty-fourth classical recording: #67 Antonio Vivaldi - Concerto for Two Trumpets

We hadn't yet featured Vivaldi, despite his works being quite famous ones. With it we have a work that focuses, obviously, on two trumpets, and that sets the piece apart. It sounds jubilant and as the brass instruments are allowed to shine, they create their own sound that feels more excited and exuberant - no wonder that trumpets are used to hail arriving royalty, they have that big sound that attracts your attention.

The fiftieth comic: #407 You Are There

There is something really compelling about worlds that are a step away from our reality. While Mornemont's technology and buildings seem real, there's something odd about an island full of walls dividing properties and the owner of the walls (but not the land in between anymore) charging people to open the gates in the walls. It's how he makes money and stays in some sort of control. Partially the comic covers his life, dealing with the people on the island who aren't happy with his presence, the insanity and weirdness of the situation. It's magical realism of sorts - not as much magical, but weirdness that intrudes in the world. It could be real, but doesn't feel it and probably wouldn't actually work. It's an interesting if bewildering insight into this odd world.

Then there's the storyline of this man, Albert There, regaining the island. It involves some political commentary, but just as much social commentary. It doesn't quite finish, it feels like a rough story, but it's more the dreamlike state this comic lives in, that suits the endless walls this world seems to take place, with how hard it is to reach. It's an area that I want to see more of, but that the story stops before you go too far.

The fourty-third classical recording: #631 Erno Dohnányi - Variations on a Nursery Song

While this piece starts with a big introduction, grandiose and described as Wagnerian (which makes sense), it moves into just a piano playing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. As variations then do, it starts to vary how the tune - or at this point, theme - is played, The reason it works so well is because the theme is so much better known, it seems easier to latch on to it and really appreciate the variations. While it feels like a nice exercise for the composer and musician, as a novice listener I appreciate the examples even more.

The one hundred eighth album: #108 Traffic - Traffic

Folk rock is another genre that seems to have been ignored recently. Here, we start with a call and response number and a blues rhytm rock song that feels out of place in the era. And while it experiments a bit, it feels like this gentler rock does need another hook, which I couldn't find in these songs. It's what it is, but nothing jumps out as special at me.

The one hundred seventh album: #107 The Rolling Stones - Beggars Banquet

Starting off with Sympathy of the Devil, the expectation for Beggars Banquet is set as something high energy, dark and feeding into the aggressive nature the Rolling Stones would stand to promote. Following up with No Expectations, that gets squashed as it's a quieter blues number, a ballad that takes that quieter direction.

And that's the contradiction at the heart of this album - while the songs the Stones became most famous for (at least in my mind) are like the first track, they seem at their most comfortable moving towards blues (often blues rock) and mixing in these heavier songs where they seem right - often followed by a lighter ballad.

The fourty-ninth comic: #497 Zot!

Superhero comics can often end up in a pretty repetitive structure, like Captain America, where the characters move on enough but the world doesn't change that much - all of that to create an ongoing monthly storyline that can last decades. Zot isn't that, instead it's a superhero with its own arcs, where Scott McCloud took breaks between storylines to let them breathe. In particular, the shift from colour to black and white is a significant shift that turns the comic from a "better in another world" superhero story to something that examines more what it's like to be a superhero, how one would fare in the real world and examining how it fits with other social issues. It's an interesting setup, and been lauded as a great deconstruction of the genre. I don't think that was the original intention, but it works well here.

Beyond all that, Zot stays readable, with very expressive art and worth reading through at any point - as a thought through superhero construction or as a commentary on that, as well as at least some more in depth teen school drama.

The three hundred and seventy-fourth song: Personality Crisis - New York Dolls

The New York Dolls are a new entry to the hard/glam rock arena, and here Personality Crisis has the screeching guitars, the scream-singing that was the reason parents got turned off and even some whistling. While it might set up the genre, it's hard to see what this brings and I feel the genre really needs a bit more development to be interesting, to be more than shouting over the song. The book describes this as being influential on punk rock, with other bands taking up the torch, but for me it's quite clear that those bands need to jump in to make it more worthwhile.

The three hundred and seventy-fifth song: The Ballroom Blitz - The Sweet

Here's an example of glam rock that works better. It's not hard rock, there's a lot of Bowie's work in here, but there's a melody and musical sound here that brings in a chorus, something catchy, giving you something to latch on to through the song. It sounds good and gives you something to dance to, something happier or more emotional, even with some tension in there that you could imagine building. It's gimmicky in places, but that works.

The three hundred and seventy-sixth song: Jolene - Dolly Parton

Jolene isn't the most complex soon, drums and a simple country guitar line accompanying Dolly Parton's vocals of a woman asking another, Jolene, not to steal her man. It's a simple concept, but it all works well, again with a memorable chorus. This version, with how small it stays, makes the desperation clear. She really doesn't want her man to be taken, and that works best here, with Parton's voice and the simpler music. I feel like subsequent covers sometimes go bigger, drowning the message and missing the point.

The three hundred and seventy-seventh song: Next - The Sensational Alex Harvey Band

Glam rock covering Jacques Brel is weird enough - apparently the Alex Harvey Band was known for its eclectic music and it somehow creates a merger here that pays tribute to the chanson, a louder version that sometimes sound operatic, with more full on glam rock breaking through. Still, more often we seem to get violins, pianos and classical sounds, rather than roaring guitars and drum solos. The song's message become a lot harsher, but with it being a decently accurate translation, this shows how much an interpretation can lend a different meaning to a song.

The three hundred and seventy-eighth song: 20th Century Boy - T. Rex

And to show that we do like hard glam rock, T. Rex gets it right. There's something in here that swings, something that entertains and keeps you moving along. It's energetic, fun and the vocals sound right - sure, they're loud, but there's a melody to them.

The three hundred and seventy-ninth song: Rock On - David Essex

With slow vocals, a limited backing track that is used more on its own than you'd expect and mostly relying on delays and echos, Rock On becomes an unsettling song. It's a performance, which goes for more than just entertainment, creating a mix of sounds that feels like it stands out as being incredibly different. It's good, great to listen to, but it keeps you guessing what's up and never giving you that explosion of sound that rock has trained us to expect by now.

The three hundred and eightieth song: Search & Destroy - Iggy & The Stooges

With the bar having been set by New York Dolls for this set, Search and Destroy sounds good, but fairly straight forward and by the numbers rock. There's a step towards punk here, but it's actually relatively smooth. Very competent and performed well, but not quite with punk's aggression that I'm looking for.

The three hundred and eighty-first song: Desperado - The Eagles

After all the hard rock, this is really a ballad, the piano and violins creating a longing atmosphere that feels miles away from Hotel California. It's a beautiful, emotional song that feels a love song hidden as a song about an outlaw. It's lovely, calming and a lovely finale.

The one hundred sixth album: #106 Aretha Franklin - I Never Loved A Man The Way I Loved You

We've reached the first album of the Queen of Soul, even if this was Aretha Franklin's eleventh album. It starts off with the still sensational Respect, setting a tone for the album that feels like it pushes existing songs to a more R&B sound, a loud soul that moves away from the blues origins into something more lively.

The energy shifts through the album, but it mostly stays on the up, and the slower soul songs still sound good and move along nicely still. It's well produced, but not over produced, and Aretha's voice dominates it all. She sounds perfect, with great emotion in there but always in control of the songs.

The one hundred fifth album: #105 Jimi Hendrix - Axis: Bold As Love

While this album is classed as psychedelic rock, it doesn't feel as psychedelic - as over the top - as other albums of the era. There's the touches, but mostly this feels like classic rock, possibly with some weirder lyrics, but they feel well written and on the whole there's a classic Hendrix sound here that simply sounds good as that, no other tricks needed. It's well judged in applying what it has, using enough but not more than that

The eighty-ninth TV show: #492 Cadfael

Before we picked this series, we were talking about the need to do a crime show. A monk in the 12th century investigating crimes felt like a good twist on it - and as I loved Umberto Eco's In the Name of the Rose (the book - apparently the movie doesn't hold up), it felt like a good pick. Sadly, it turned out that wasn't quite right. While the dialogue was good in places, the world is interesting and the regulars are amazing, the writing doesn't live up to it. Perhaps it's because all of these were based on books, but they drag - not in old show dragging, where it's not as tightly edited, but lots of filler dragging where the characters and world are meant to build on, but it doesn't actually manage to do so. Instead, it just plots - some definite third act problems, and it's hard to not feel like this would have been better as a standard hour rather than the feature length these episodes are. They turned it into a boring series, where the good parts don't outweight the bad.