The one hundred and fourty-eighth TV show: #15 The Quatermass Experiment
Can you fairly judge a six part serial on only the first two episodes? I've certainly made snap judgements on other shows, but it feels difficult here, in part because I did enjoy it. Due to its age, only the first two episodes of remain - not because the recordings of the other four episodes were lost, but because recording it turned out to be so difficult that they decided not to bother for the others. It's hard to imagine now, but they would have had actors come in to the play again - live, as happened here.
The issue that arises here is one that I've also noticed in old Doctor Who serials, and others with that set up: while the first episode is interesting in the way it sets up a story, the middle episodes can feel like they're spinning their wheels until the final episode or two resolve what's going on. The skill is on dividing it well enough that it keeps being interesting, with stuff moving in and out, at which point the episodes in the middle feel like they are important in keeping things moving. With the conclusion missing, the second episode looks a bit worse as it's a lot of exposition and waiting around, a bit of a let down after the dynamic parts of the first episode. There's still some sitting around in labs, but there's some quite exciting crowd scenes that feel like they're more impressive live.
The fact that these were live - per the way the BBC worked at the time - adds to how impressive and interesting it is. There are some sound issues, where the performers aren't that clear, but on the whole it works out. Sure, they have theatre experience, but having to deal with more sets and cameras makes this even more interesting since, unlike later serials in the Quatermass series, it sounds like nothing was prerecorded and there's no room for mistakes.
I would have loved to have seen the entire serial, as the way this abruptly ends makes it a bit more awkward. Even more important, it sounds like this was incredibly influential in one of my favourite genres, I do plan on watching the other serials so I can experience those and hopefully see how the full arc works out and I hope that will keep paying off.
The one hundred and fourty-seventh TV show: #254 Abigail's Party
Some of the best comedies are the ones that are rooted in reality, that take people you know in real life, have them do their thing and have it all fall in place in a real way. Abigail's Party is about a party in the seventies that don't feel entirely different from what I would expect my parents to have (although, of course, there are no kids here), but with most dysfunctional relationships. Beverly, played by the brilliant Alison Steadman, has invited a new couple in the neighbourhood to a party at her place, together with Sue, the mother of the titular Abigail, so she can be out of the way during Abigail's party. It's an awkward affair, with the subtly bossy Beverly ordering everyone around, her husband Lawrence trying to show how elevated he is in a way that seems snobby, while the mismatched couple of Angela and Tony seem to suffer in front of us.
It makes for a comedy of awkwardness, one where nobody quite gets along but everyone stays polite enough not to cause a scene. There's a constant underlying tension that comes out further as everyone drinks more, with a dark and explosive end that both resolves and removes some of the tension, but seems to leave things worse. As a play, it's an amazing tour de force with characters that interact believably with each other creating the small stakes that the party brings, but it's also intense enough that it's difficult to watch at times. It's a known masterpiece, and it shows clearly here why that's the case.
The two hundred and thirty-fifth album: #235 Flamin' Groovies - Teenage Head
Teenage Head goes back to an earlier era of rock, taking the Stones' blues-inspired sound, using a simpler sound that avoids the more eclectic sounds contemporary rock took on. Sure, it bypasses the innocence of earlier rock, but with this listed as garage rock, the album takes on that simpler rock sound that we'll later see flow into punk and its companions. It makes for a compact half hour, with some good different riffs between tracks - Teenage Head sounds more threatening and darker than what came before, but also brings in more blues stylings than previous tracks, while Evil-Hearted Ada could easily be an Elvis Presley song.
It's in a weird way more timeless for it - a throwback to the early 60s that also fits in with the early 70s and at least resonates further down. I'm not sure I'd consider it a masterpiece as such - it doesn't line up with my tastes quite well enough for that, and there's something lacking here, but it is just a really good rock album.
The one hundred and fourty-sixth TV show: #314 The Chinese Detective
In theory, the concept of this show should have appealed to us. A Chinese detective in the Metropolitan police - a distinct minority, especially in the eighties - faces prejudice as he does his job. He's also a maverick and pursues the case of his father being thrown off the force unfairly and the corruption that underlies it.
In practice, the case of the week structure doesn't blend well with the ongoing plot and while the two can inform each other, it feels like usually, the weekly case gets removed and stays unresolved in exchange for a favour or two. It's missing some connective tissue and I think the show was made a t a time where this structure hadn't necessarily developed far enough yet. It feels like it's best when it avoids that plot and deals with a maverick detective who also fights against prejudice - creating enough of a tension to work. However, just as much of it seems to come down to Ho's father abusing him, the chief going a bit further just to be mean and it all feeling unnecessary. I guess I may have missed part of the timing, but all in all it was too much of a mixed bag to keep diving into.
The show was the first British show to feature a British Chinese lead and, I believe, might still be the only one to do so, and it's certainly notable for that. When it addresses that, the show is as interesting, as the way John Ho deals with it in the context of its day works well, but it doesn't do enough to elevate the story - an ongoing plot that built further on that might have suited better.
The two hundred and thirty-fourth album: #234 Faces - A Nod is As Good As a Wink... to a Blind Horse
It's not hard to draw a parallel between this album and the blues rock of the Rolling Stones. There's the same drawl, the same instruments, the same country-ish guitars. The album follows tha pattern, without any major surprises - not going into the really hard numbers the Stones tended to put one or two of in an album - but it flows along with some experimentation. It's still pretty straight up country and blues rock, a formula that works here.
The eighty-ninth classical recording: #718 Alexander Zemlinsky - String Quartet no. 3
I'm still not sure I've fully got the vocabulary down to talk about these recordings, which means that for these string quartets it gets harder to say much here. They can be fairly abstract - creating nice music without feeling like they have any story to them.
For me, there's always some longing in a melody using only string instruments, with this piece having a lot of those moments. There are the bursts of energy, but it really lives in the quieter parts. The main change to this is in the final part, described as 'burlesque' in one of the lists I have for this, with a far more upbeat sound. It feels a bit of an odd choice to put that at the end - usually the energetic piece comes earlier - but to be honest, it was the pick me up here that I did need today.
The two hundred and thirty-third album: #233 Fela Kuti & The Afrika 70 With Ginger Baker - Live!
How should I address an afrobeat album? As a fusion of west African music, soul, rock and jazz, there is a lot to unpack in these, with some complex arrangements that take some time to really make sense of. It's an interesting style of music, removing the droning repetition of soul while maintaining its call and response in places. It has the rock energy and mood, jazz's at times looser style and drum solos that last for ages. At the same time, this is its own sound, an album with a different style of percussion and a different way in which it makes music. Does it get tedious to listen to? Yeah, sometimes, but there's a craftsmanship in here that's incredible to listen to, and at times feels more like a classical symphony arranged using modern instruments than anything else, and that's good enough for me.
The two hundred and thirty-second album: #232 Janis Joplin - Pearl
I am certain that the initial reaction to this album was coloured by Janis Joplin's death a few months prior. Further removed from her and her work, my first thoughts went to my time in a supermarket where, for various reasons, the ambient music track that played wasn't swapped out for almost a year. As the tape played two or three times a day, you got to know the songs intimately, and even now, nearly twenty years later, I associate the pop of Burt Bacharach and the gentler soul songs on this album with those days.
Janis Joplin has a great blues voice in these songs and the lament in her voice is real - not raw and unpolished, but she carries a lot of emotion in her songs. While these are on well produced tracks, they genuinely feel hollow without her and instead feel a lot more shallow. There's a lot of emotion in her voice that carries through and knowing the circumstances of the album's production, it becomes that much more harrowing.
The eighty-eighth classical recording: #898 Iannis Xenakis - Metastasis
It's interesting how in the 20th century, especially after the second world war, classical music became more experimental. Metastatis has a lot of theory behind it, based on mathematical constructs, and uses 61 musicians playing different parts to create an uncertain, chaotic work. There's no single melody, it's unsettling, but there's a method to how the music combines - not by repetition, but by overlapping at the right time to create these moments. It's probably not a piece to just listen to, but it's an interesting experience and I can see how live, this would be even more amazing.
The one hundred and fourty-fifth TV show: #489 Riget
Riget is a true split show for us. We watched the first season as part of the 1001 movies list about five or six years ago, while we left the second season until more recently - something I'd still count as part of the list. Having watched this second season, I feel it was important to see as a sequel, even if it didn't quite live up to the first.
Riget is probably best described as Twin Peaks via Lars von Trier, with a hospital drama replacing the cop show of Twin Peaks. Lars von Trier explicitly cited that show as inspiration, so it feels natural to compare. It has that show's weird vibe and at times odd storylines, mixing the mundane with the supernatural. It also doesn't live up to it. Twin Peaks presents a living town with a lot of sympathetic characters, while Riget - in part due to its shorter runtime - doesn't take the time to set up the characters that well. It takes its time with some seeming non-sequiturs, but it feels like it doesn't let the characters live. Each has their own arc, odd and bizarre, intersecting as they do.
This works best in the first season, as the weirdness slowly amps up - the first episode is mostly hospital drama, but from the end of that episode it slowly starts changing. The second season, where it's constantly there, doesn't work because it's leaning on that too much, with people getting too accepting in places. It's the weaker half, at times serving to ramp up the weakness without being committed to resolving as much that's going on. Again, to use the obvious comparison, Twin Peaks had open endings, but wasn't as afraid to end stories as others start.
That's not to say that this is a bad show. I enjoyed Riget immensely, even if some arcs suited me better than others. It's the first season that's truly the masterpiece though, with the second season at times buckling under the need to replicate it or missing the tone a bit.
The two hundred and thirty-first album: #231 Funkadelic - Maggot Brain
While funk is far from my favourite genre, funk rock and its variations that are covered by Maggot Brain works better. Some of the rhythmic repetition works better when pushed into a rock song, more as a chorus than the whole theme of the song. With that said, Maggot Brain pushes for different reasons. It starts with a ten minute guitar solo by Eddie Hazel. While it's a good performance, it is also quite different from the rest of the album, with its larger focus on vocals including the call and response parts from funk.
The sound of the album is far enough off the beaten track that I need to get used to it - no doubt in part because this is the first time the book seems to pay attention to it - but once I did it was good, something to cheer you up and keep you happy throughout. It is, for the purposes of this exploration, a new innovation in music that i know will be influencing R&B and probably feed back into mainstream rock in a way that I believe I'm really going to enjoy.
The two hundred and thirtieth album: #230 Joni MItchell - Blue
It might be the specific ordering of the book, but we're getting more folk songs in the list lately. Blue is the first of four of Joni Mitchell's albums on the list and provides some more welcome folk songs, a mix of the more maudlin works and upbeat songs occasionally verging towards rock. Musically it's lovely, the mix of instruments, underscores the songs nicely, sometimes just supporting Joni's songs while in others, such as Carey, feeling like its own story. Then the lyrics work well. There are no calls to change the world here, instead these feel like personal stories, lamenting the end of a relationship as well as celebrating better times, and I think there's something to find in most of these songs - something that connects. It's a lovely album - nothing big, but it works well at this size.
The eighty-seventh classical recording: #616 Arnold Schoenberg - Gurrelieder
Two music performances in a day? Yeah, it was time to dust off this list following everything else that's been going on in the world. Not just that, we're starting with a two hour performance of various poems, with a full orchestra, solo vocalists and a choir. While partially telling a love story, there's no other performance - it's purely the music and the songs, and although it feels it could be an opera at times, the staging doesn't work that way. The music is big and majestic, creating and invoking the fantasy landscape this seems to take place as a medieval romance.
It's a grandiose work, requiring a large orchestra and a large chorus, which means the entire work feels big. It feels like an intentional choice, in part because the story could be smaller, but intentionally isn't made to be that way. It certainly has its tender moments - the speaker's part feels that way - but it's that much bigger at other times, which is what makes this special.