The twenty-sixth album: #26 Miriam Makeba - Miriam Makeba
And so we get to one of the rare non-American albums in the earlier parts of the list - and one that's only partially in English. Miriam Makeba is a South African singer, singing folk songs from around the world. We've heard her in the Click Song for the songs list, and now hear more of her music. It's lovely to listen to, a variety of styles with a lullaby that really was working but also several sweeping, exciting songs. It's all accompanied by the guitar and a male choir, the simplicity adding to this nature of the songs. Overall, there's a lot of happiness in the songs.
There's one exception, One More Dance has Charles Colman, her duet partner for this episode, laughing through the entire song. I don't know why it wasn't rerecorded or was included like this, but it's distracting and annoying. Such a shame - and it feels so unnecessary.
The eighth classical recording: #266 Frederic Chopin - Etudes
My frequent lamentation here has been that I don't necessarily have the vocabulary to talk about classical music, and cannot give as indepth a commentary on them - in fact, that's part of the reason we're taking on the list in the first place. I am starting to develop a further understanding, though, and these suit better. Solo piano pieces (which I'm learning is what etudes are) lead to some challenging and complex pieces, with some immediate musicality that sounds good and puts in different moods - some calming, some enticing, but most are really pleasing. The skill in them, the attention to detail, it all comes together really nicely.
The twenty-second book: #22 Robinson Crusoe - Daniel Dufoe
Reading this book now, rather than one of its numerous adaptations, is putting an interesting spin on the story. The introduction of the novel, before the shipwreck, actually takes up a fairly large section of it, and goes into Robinson's travels, being captured by Moors, getting a plantation in Brazil and, well, getting involved in the slave trade (which in part leads up to his shipwreck). At the end, he becomes governor of the island he's shipwrecked on, with the others following him. He's a natural leader, but there are tendencies of the British aristocrat in there.
The real meat of the book is, in a way, the most interesting. Once it's about survival, how he sets up his place to survive for the 28 years he's there, there's a lot of details, things he thought about and had to prepare for. It's full of small touches and it does feel like the character grows in that. It's at its best when it's just him, having to fend for himself, and becomes a bit weirder for modern readers once the preconceptions about his good friend and servant Friday come in. A lot of it is realistic, but it feels a bit uncomfortable at that point. Even so, as it has 28 years, it can take the time to explore things and give him a month of bad illnesses as he learns how to survive. It's a fascinating story at least, even if coloured by the ages - but could you get lost for that long nowadays anyway?
The twenty-fifth album: #25 Elvis Presley - Elvis is Back!
Elvis is back indeed, in this case from his two year military service. His music still sounds like fairly tame rock n roll to me, compared to what we got later, but these songs sounded more sensual and enticing for sure. It's almost a bit more grown up as well, and it's good to see an evolution that seems to be happening here.
Musically, it sounds good, nicely varied throughout the album to give several different types of songs - sometimes more of a ballad, others swinging a lot. It also sounds like Elvis was happy to be back in the studio recording songs, there are moments where he seems to be having fun and enjoying the process. It makes the album a delight to listen to.
The thirty-third TV show: #116 Star Trek
It was fun watching this again. The original series is certainly pretty camp in places, with some stars going full at it, still following some crappy politics (women's roles in particular) and other oddities. There is still an interesting mix between light sci fi and hard ideas, not in a way that necessarily satisfies hardcore viewers, but that ends up being really entertaining.
One of the big problems I had was, in fact, picking episodes to watch. Going with two per season - I'd watched the run fairly recently, so figured that'd be fair - there were always plenty of options. The start of my viewing happened to coincide with the fiftieth anniversary, so I started with the first episode broadcast, but it was trickier after that and the episode picks mostly come down to which one caught my eye.
Still, there's something good about watching the show, even with its flaws, that it all made me happy anyway.
The twenty-fourth album: #24 Joan Baez - Joan Baez
A simple folk album, Joan Baez creates a simple but very listenable album. The lyrics are meaningful and it sounds good, warmth coming through in the often sad-sounding vocals. Most of it is accompanied by guitar alone, which works incredibly well in creating the atmosphere of the album.
They are mostly from the standard song book, but adapted to her voice, Joan Baez makes them hers, fititing it to make it sound great. It's amaazing, in a way, how modern it sounds - you can still find singer-songwriters like it these days. I'ts nice, and is probably part of what makes it so easy to listen to these days.
The twenty-first book: #21 Oroonoko - Aphra Behn
It's interesting reading this not too long after watching Roots. Superficially, the main characters of both are similar - proud warriors stolen from Africa to be sold as slaves, both from time to time with a rebellious streak. The differences make this book weirder to our modern eyes. Oroonoko - or Caesar, a slave name that gets accepted the moment it's introduced - is the prince and future king of a people destroyed as the westeners come in. He gets tricked into boarding a slaver's galley and becomes a slave. Once he gets there, however, he quickly accepts his fate, only protesting when his owners become too cruel - leading to his death. It's all very accepting of something we find reprehensible nowadays, something at odds with the love story it tries to tell.
What doesn't help here is that the novel doesn't have many conflicts. There's the point where the main character (I hesitate to use the word hero, as he isn't really written to be one) becomes a slave, and the one that leads to his death at the end, but beyond that it feels superficial. It's an interesting insight to people's thoughts at the time, a contemporary look that gives some idea of what was going on, but in the end it feels a bit too distant from us to work as a 'slice of life' kind of thing.
The twentieth book: #20 The Princess of Cleves - Madame de Lafayette
This is a French courtly love story, set in the French courts of the day - and indeed written by someone who was there. Published anonymously, Madame de Lafayette became the credited writer, set in the courts she moved in herself. Indeed, apparently the details of court life are fairly accurate.
It's an interesting read - somewhat for the love stories, although that doesn't feel quite as accurate - but because of the way court life is described. Not romanticized, as we might do now, writing partially to what we'd expect it to be like - but nothing too ugly either. There are in fact some historical seeming details, concerning political maneuvering of which princes married which and what power they got. It's sort of interesting, but probably less so now as it was at the time.
Those get a bit tedious at times, but on the whole it makes for an interesting read, seeming fairly modern in set up and apparently set up the psychological novel for the future. I am looking forward to seeing where this will lead.
The twenty-seventh comic: #152 Shock and Suspenstories
This was an interesting set of stories. Each magazine contains a set of thrillers - set in various environments, although often contemporary US in some way - that led up to a shocking twist at the end. The twist often involves death or violence, sometimes in flashback form explaining how things happened, or challenging assumptions of the reader. Some are also clearly trying to be socially aware, for example challenging the common racism of the day.
The art is often fine, good for what you expect of the time, and the stories almost always interesting. Some twists are predictable, but on the whole tend to grab you often enough. Ultimately, 1950s censorship got it shut down. A sad fate, really, as there were enough interesting avenues to explore.
The twenty-third album: #23 Dave Brubeck Quartet - Time Out
More jazz. It's the music of the era - I think I can understand on some level how the rockier sounds coming up could be a reaction to this. The album sounds good, there is a lot of swing to it straight away, with a liveliness that I felt I was missing from earlier versions of the song. These were all recorded in unusual times - not something I would recognise that well, but an interesting change nonetheless, and it's probably one of the things that make the album sounds different, maybe slightly out there, certainly in a way that kept bringing me back to it.
It's an enjoyable album - more so than I expected. I might have the best ear for it, but so far it's been fine.
The twenty-second album: #22 Marty Robbins - Gunfighter Ballads and Trail Songs
Time to get into some country - we're overdue again and it feels like this is classic country, influenced by blues and early rock, something that comes across from the first song. It's a bit faster and guitar based and sounds good for it. It's also nice to listen to a singer-songwriter again, making for something more focused on his own voice.
There are also nice gems of story telling in here - whether it's about chasing a man sentenced to death or finding religion, the lyrics matter so much more and cover more than the love songs we usually heard. It allows for far more diversions from the standard theme.
I'm not sure it'll ever go in my top list, but earlier country songs (I'm not sure they quite were, but predecessors at least) didn't grab my quite as much as this did, making for something I've simply been enjoying a lot more.
The seventh classical recording: #6 Antoine Busnoys - Motets
The multi-voiced motets feel archaic, simple in the way they're voiced but complex as they build, coming (it feels) from a time where - well - you just never saw instruments. They're impressive, but their style make them a bit less easy to get into than what we expect now, made of vocals but layered in a way that makes it difficult to follow them. It's a growth from earlier works we've heard, valuing more and more some part of the structure over its contents. They're not dreary, but no longer quite as uplifting or emotional as music can (and should?) be.
The problem is that it all starts to sound samey. It's impressive at the start, but blurs together, which is unfortunate. One or two examples would be good, not the hourlong that this version came in.
The twenty-first album: #21 Miles Davis - Kind of Blue
I've had some mixed experiences with instrumental blues in the past. It's not always quite my kind of music. For this album, it worked a lot better - a better beat and more interesting sounds gave me a more interesting and appealing listening experience.
The downside is that it feels like it never quite goes anywhere. There isn't always a big difference between the tracks - I'm sure I could discern So What from Freddie Freeloader without giving it quite a bit more time. That luckily clears up a bit when the ballads come in - Blue In Green is incredibly touching and calming.