The seventy-ninth classical recording: #563 Jean Sibelius - Pelleas et Melisande Suite
The movements of this suite are mostly slow, not bombastic but big and impressive. They hit that mix of moods, as parts of the bigger work these belonged to, and while the thematic through line may be missing a bit in comparison, it's a good, inspiring piece of music that gets you through the day in a way.
The one hundred eighty-ninth album: #189 Van Morrison - Moondance
The folksy and jazzy rock of Van Morrison again hits a different part of my brain, as the titular track of Moondance manages to hit the right points to work for me. Following the jazz with a ballad works well, both imbuing the previous song with more energy while Crazy Love becomes a sweeter love song for it. Moving on the edges between blues, folk rock and jazz, a bunch of these songs turn up a lot of depth while still working as a casual listen. You need to dig to really get everything out of it, but it's a surprisingly upbeat set of songs without it.
The seventy-eighth classical recording: #929 Henri Dutilleux - Metaboles
When I was reading up on this piece before listening to it, I got intrigued straight away - this is a piece that plays with transforming elements of the usic, taking in the basic parts and playing with it. It sounded like an interesting idea and the work delivers on it, with a busy piece that runs through a lot of variations of - well - everything, it seems. As a piece it's on the shorter side, but aside from interesting in its setup, it's also nice to listen to, an energetic, more modern work that creates something well.
The one hundred twenty-eighth TV show: #303 Cosmos
Cosmos, initially, presents itself as a show about space. Talking about how we explored it, learned about the Earth, the solar system and galaxies, while teaching about what's there and how it interacts. It's simple if you've read up on it, and at times a bit outdated, but it explains it well, giving you some things to think about, with things we discussed afterwards and in between. It reflects on the Earth too, the dilemmas we face with things like climate change, an issue even in the seventies, and war, which was an even bigger threat at the time.
As the show continues though, that later part starts to overtake. While there might be life on other planets, they're unlikely to reach us unless we reach out, and only if we survive for long enough. It ends up preachy, but at the same time uses science and reason to promote a better, more conscientious earth. It paints the spreading of science as political and makes points that still ring true today - even if it feels we progressed a bit. I miss the space talk - it's the best bit - but Carl Sagan stays engaging throughout.
The one hundred eighty-eighth album: #188 Deep Purple - In Rock
Deep Purple's In Rock is another early driving force for the heavy metal movement, using long tracks with prog rock influences to break up the metal sound that mostly underlies the vocals. It goes for epic, mixing in these different elements, especially in the long runs like that of Child In Time, which feels like a mini album on its own considering the many things it does. With that said, this is the point where we've really embraced metal, and it's great to have another album on the road to it.
The eighty-seventh book: #72 Emma - Jane Austen
After Mansfield Park, Emma, the protagonist this book is obviously named after, suits me a lot better. She's active and strong willed, she drives the action and she's flawed - for the purposes of this book and in comparison to the era, very flawed. She enjoys playing matchmaker, but it shown several times to be bad at it, leading to some unsatisfactory unions and others avoiding her attention or work to get their own way. She fails, she's flawed, and while it gets tricky to keep up with the characters flying around sometimes, on the whole it's nice to see it all play out with our protagonist in the middle.
Jane Austen set out to write a character, she said, that no one but herself would really like and while I think that description goes a bit far, the fact that she isn't as easy to love makes her a more interesting character that really stands inside the world, rather than above it. Through it you get other characters around her, not straight villains and heroes, but other complex characters that the novel can explore more freely. It's an empowering story in that sense, and feels like a highlight of these romance novels so far.
The one hundred eighty-seventh album: #187 Led Zeppelin - Led Zeppelin III
Led Zeppelin provides us with another album of rock.It varies a bit on where it goes - Immigrant Song is rockier, Since I've Been Loving You closer to blues rock, but on the whole the rock stays, the aggression is there and the energy is there. It's good to wake me up on a sleepy Tuesday and is the right music to get you through on a day like that.
The seventy-seventh classical recording: #360 George Bizet - The Pearl Fishers
Taken as a musical piece, The Pearl Fishers is imposing, with some big songs and vocal parts to match. There aren't necessarily as many calm parts, it feels like the piece stays big and powerful a fair amount. I miss the balance a bit, as it feels quite full on throughout. It matches the tone of the work - both the storms and the anger that's in there. The work feels big - something that must come across quite well in the theatre performances as well.
The one hundred eighty-sixth album: #186 Neil Young - After The Gold Rush
While Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young's folk rock went for the more energetic, faster folk rock, Neil Young's album goes to the gentler country rock, not quite producing ballads but creating something simpler, perhaps at times sadder ("Only Love Can Break Your Heart" shows that) as well. There are comparative rockers, like "Southern Man", but even then those would be gentler songs for other bands. Lyrically, the songs are richer, with the aforementioned Southern Man commenting on racism, while After the Gold Rush tells a fairly vivid story. It's nothing fancy, but the album just works so well.
The one hundred eighty-fifth album: #185 Black Sabbath - Paranoid
I'm covering another Black Sabbath album pretty shortly after the first, with the band, it seems, already moving more into heavy metal. There are some absolute masterpieces in here that cover that, with Paranoid feeling like an immediate classic that gets followed by a quieter, simpler Planet Caravan that feels as trippy, just not as loud. I'm not sure the lyrics always extend that well - Iron Man isn't a literary masterpiece - but the music does enough to evoke a feeling that the lyrics feel easy to overlook in those place. This is probably where heavy metal comes out better - not as a single song, where its isolation makes it stand out, but in an album where it has time to build and relax. There's a good flow to the album, with some great moments in the song that sound better in context.