The eighty-fourth book: Mansfield Park - Jane Austen

I'll be honest, Mansfield Park was my least favourite of the Austen novels so far. Her first two books were great reads, with strong female protagonists (for their time) who worked to make their own destiny. I wouldn't say it was filled with action, but they drive it. On the other hand, Fanny Price is more passive, put into a position in life and accepting the virtuous, good path. It feels like a callback to earlier epistolary novels and their female characters who have everything happen to them.

It reads a bit as a morality, with Fanny Price inside it but mostly acting as an observer and mouthpiece as the protagonist with the right morals, but I didn't find much in there that actually endeared me to her and everything going on around her fell flat because she was so passive - I was waiting for that to switch, but it simply never happened.

The one hundred twenty-seventh TV show: #882 Winners & Losers

I'm struggling to figure out how I feel about this show, and it's the different sides that feel so frustrating. There's a premise here that sounds good - four losers in school come back for their reunion and decide to share a lottery ticket. That ticket wins eight million dollars that they split (with some drama here, as always) as it transforms their life. They're now winners, at least supposedly, but are they really?

It's a decent premise, but while not quite abandoned, the changes I'd expect in their lives - how do other people treat them, for example, or what happens if they spend too much and still need to watch their finances - don't really materialize. Yeah, they can buy their own place and don't have to go for a promotion at work, but mostly it plays out like a soap where none of the characters end up worrying about money. If they just didn't mention it, it would be like any other soap story.

With that, some of the characters don't stay as compelling. Francis is an amazing character, played perfectly, and Sophie's arc in the first few episodes makes her a lot more likeable. On the other hand, Jenny is well played and likeable, but the story feels quite cliche. It just never really connected in a way that became interesting.

The whole thing never quite delivers on its premise and sadly it goes in a direction that doesn't work for me. There are bits that I'd love to see more of - Francis especially - but on the whole it doesn't feel worth going on with how little actually changes.

The four hundred and ninety-third song: Ambition - Subway Sect

Ambition makes for a decent punk song, with the British punk sound, the hard guitars and synthesizers and driving melody. It feels like quite a standard punk song, fun but not something that really jumps out specifically.

The four hundred and ninety-fourth song: Hong Kong Garden - Siouxsie & The Banshees

Another (post) punk that materialized from fans around the Sex Pistols, Siouxsie and the Banshees create a song that feels a bit weird now as it uses a lot of Chinese influences in a now insensitive way. On the other hand, the spirit is there and the song feels a bit more crafted than other punk songs, with more of a build up and follow up.

The four hundred and ninety-fifth song: Being Boiled - The Human League

Electronic music is still incredibly experimental at this stage and the beeps and bloops with lyrics over them feel like a video game sound track, creating an odd experience that make it unsurprising that early audiences didn't take to it. It's thin and odd, not bad, but such a mental shift that it's hard to immediately take it in.

The four hundred and ninety-sixth song: Rock Lobster - The B52’s

With new wave come more bizarre songs and Rock Lobster, describing a party of sea animals. It's bizarre and eclectic, the sounds accompanying the story telling adding to the bizarre feeling while the melody helps make you smile. It's bizarre but entertaining and just keeps putting me in a good mood. It's a lovely surprise to get here.

The four hundred and ninety-seventh song: Roxanne - The Police

Roxanne moves to quite a different place and the reggae-influenced vocal stylings add a lot of emotion to the song's dour music and setting. There's a lot of desperation in the song in the naivety of the singer as it goes on. This is a classic, with a theme that seems to have endured, and it remains that way here, with a weird way of showing emotion that I might not otherwise have seen.

The four hundred and ninety-eighth song: Another Girl, Another Planet - The Only Ones

While I'm not sure I agree with the idea that this is the greatest rock song ever recorded, there is something good about this track that works well. It's got a good chorus, the lyrics aren't complex but work really well and the improvised, longer interludes works quite nicely here to set the tone.

The four hundred and ninety-ninth song: Germ Free Adolescents - X-Ray Spex

In a section of the list filled with new wave and punk rock, this feels slow, though not quiet. There's a fairly mellow beat underlying the similarly relaxed lyrics. Her voice is great, but feels a bit odd and out of place. There's something in the song that drags you along, but it doesn't necessarily give you any other feelings. It's odd, lovely to listen to, but frankly a bit bizarre.

The five hundredth song: Runnin’ with the Devil - Van Halen

The other side of this is that we get pushed towards hard rock, with Van Halen giving it a good showing. They sound good here, with an energetic performance that comes with the required screams and loudness, but playing and modulating it so it doesn't always come at you and the different elements get their break throughout. It's a good, powerful song that really works to give a big finish to 1978.

The one hundred eighty-third album: John Lennon - Plastic Ono Band

John Lennon's Plastic Ono Band is the first post-Beatles album by a former member on the list, although both George Harrison and Paul McCartney released in the same year and probably before this - a victim of the book's ordering. It is an interesting point of view - John Lennon always felt like the more introspective writer of the McCartney-Lennon duo and it shows through here, with songs that all feel personal on some level, from his childhood, reflections on Beatles fame and reflecting on the changes in society. While the album still drifts into avant garde rock, tracks like Working Class Hero hit the spot far more and these folk tracks and influences help make this album feel like one that's more personal.

That doesn't mean that's all, and Well Well Well is a longer, hard rock track that gets more aggressive, but on the whole the album is calmer, contemplative, not as experimental, but more of a journey through John Lennon's feeling. It's an album of growth, that might not hit you as personally as much as others might, but works as a good statement.

The one hundred eighty-second album: #182 Stephen Stills - Stephen Stills

I think the albums of the various variations of super groups Stephen Stills have been in have generally been fairly good, the type of folk rock that tends to connect. Stephen Stills' self-titled album starts Love The One You're With hits the right spot straight away, an up tempo folk rock song that connects immediately and works to set up a good album. It's a positive enough message that suits the music.

The happier feel of the music continues - avoiding the maudlin sound folk tends to get, without the anger from hard rock, the other genre this is based on, and it's an encouraging, exciting album that really works for me. It's thoughtful, but not miserable, and that's what makes this a lovely album.

The one hundred twenty-sixth TV show: #921 Elementary

I've discussed Sherlock before, and Elementary is the other side of the coin. Another adaptation of the character, Elementary mostly avoids adapting the original work (in part because it is difficult in a weekly show with 22 episodes per season), instead transplanting the Sherlock Holmes character to New York, helping the police there. It evaluates his character in a modern setting - as a recovering alcoholic, he isn't as good a person, and it's Jonny Lee Miller's charismatic but slightly off approach that really seals the deal, keeping him likeable but off putting enough. What helps is Lucy Liu playing Joan Watson, the gender swapped doctor who really is our window into the world. Over the series we see her grow into someone as competent as Sherlock, but more human. Even then there's a balance on how much she starts to copy Sherlock.

In other words, rather than just focusing on the crimes, there's a lot more focus on our protagonist, as well as the supporting cast in the NYPD. It's a good watch and for the most part entertaining, a lot of this kept light while exploring certain situations quite deeply. It's an adaptation that works amazingly well, with legs that outpace the original.

The one hundred eighty-first album: #181 The Carpenters - Close To You

While I feel like I keep talking about rock and roll diversifying, with blues and jazz albums coming in between those, I've forgotten how good it feels to get a simple, straight forward pop album. The Carpenters know how to create this, with some lovely harmonies, soe good melodies, and solid covers. Burt Bacharach's Close To You, which lends its title to the album, is the famous example, but Help gets its own twist that sounds a bit folksier and, to be honest, quite seventies here. It shows how, while the album isn't experimental, it's clearly their own sound that works well. Sure, it's fairly inoffensive in what it does, but it's the right amount of relaxed to stay listenable.

The seventy-fifth classical recording: #527 Gustav Mahler - Symphony no. 4

For a four movement symphony that is small by Mahler's standards, there is still plenty of big things on display here. The symphony never gets frantic, even if it's rarely solemn, instead displaying a confidence in its sound that is happy and pleasant. It's mostly peaceful and gentle, but explores that space as well, and the energy is always still there.

Once the soprano comes in, as a listener I had settled into a comfortable, peaceful place that felt engaging, and even some of the tempo increases there didn't phase me as much as I thought they could have. There's something to the nergy that pulls you along, while avoiding becoming that dreamlike - it just works out that much better on its own.

The eightieth comic: #634 Understanding Comics

I'm not sure what the best point would be to to read this, but I feel like 80 comics in, I got a decent base to understand the specific comics and styles Scott McCloud was referencing throughout - knowing French comics, for example, is incredibly helpful.

This work starts off by defining what a comic is, then after that analysing and explaining the medium in several ways - levels of abstraction, words versus pictures, as well as exploring the gap between panels. It's an engaging thesis - mostly right, and leaving plenty open to resolve - that gives me a lot more to think about when trying to understand comics in the future. The differences between different styles - especially Japanese and Western - is well explained here and it feels like subsequent works really made use of these ideas to create a way to produce comics.

This means that this is not only a fascinating read - and it really is worth reading for any fans, or anyone trying to understand comics and why they qualify as art - but also give you a better grounding for other styles.

The one hundred eightieth album: #180 The Doors - Morrison Hotel

With the original Doors album on the list being nearly ninety albums ago, it's odd to see the throwbacks of sorts we get in this album - although in reality, less than four years has passed between he albums. The blues rock feeling here feels a bit outdated, with harder variants having taken over, as the psychedelia has been toned down - the organ is there, but it blends in and the good, strong riffs take precendence. A song like Blue Sunday veers there more, but it's a song like Peace Frog or Land Ho! that stands out more. The lyrics aren't alway sthe most out there, but they work well in the road movie sense - decently meaningful wtihout being too complex, they work well enough together.