Category: Music

Who Binge Watches the Watchmen?

One thing I didn’t need was another streaming video service, but I got talked into giving HBOmax a try. Over the past three days I’ve watched the nine episodes of HBO’s Watchmen sequel.

The series pushes hard on culture war issues. The presentation owes a lot to the stylistic influence of Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul. Some hardcore Watchmen fans have complained the series doesn’t remain true to Alan Moore’s original vision, but it carried me through from one episode to the next. HBO has made the soundtrack available on YouTube, and it’s worth scrolling through the playlist for tracks that may be of interest.

Dutchmen Pop

My DJ roots are showing once again. Years before “Radar Love,” Golden Earring, from Holland, had the British Beat sound nailed in 1965.

Here’s the big hit that got a lot of play in the college cafeteria jukebox. With a somewhat changed lineup, the band certainly got their sound — and their look — right for the 70’s.

The White Man’s Jazz

TCM has its restored print of King of Jazz back in rotation. Paul Whiteman was as much the King of Jazz as Murray “the K” Kaufman was the Fifth Beatle. Both titles were self-proclaimed and completely untrue.

Nonetheless, Whiteman’s significance can’t be overlooked, and King of Jazz, from 1930, includes his two most significant contributions. He commissioned George Gershwin to write “Rhapsody in Blue,” and he hired Bing Crosby.

The movie is a fascinating time capsule from the early era of sound on film. It opens with a Walter Lantz cartoon with a brief appearance by Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, the character that was stolen from Walt Disney, forcing him to create Mickey Mouse.

https://youtu.be/HDReQ6T-54k

A Dusty Record

Do records sound “better?” Here is a comparison that is completely invalid in every technical sense, but is nevertheless worth hearing.

First, the official copy on YouTube.

Now from vinyl, that may have been, for all I know, mastered from a digital source.

On my Logitech Z-3 computer speakers I’m hearing the same difference I’ve always heard between CD and LP.

The Misery of Peter, Paul & Mary

When I was a little kid, up to the time when the Beatles arrived in America, and beyond, the first three Peter, Paul & Mary albums were played a lot at home. They were my first popular musical reference point.

Listening to those old mono LP’s this week for the first time in years, I’m struck by how depressing they all are! Even “Puff the Magic Dragon” is sad. I guess “If I Had a Hammer” is supposed to be the happy song?

Many of the songs are weighed down by allusions to Biblical times. This one, from the second album, is filled with despair. It’s based on a tune from sometime in the 1800’s.

This reminds me of John Lennon making fun of protest songs in the 1965 Beatles fan club Christmas record, with Ringo tossing in a River Jordan dig for good measure. Later on, John was of course big on protest songs himself.

This must be the first time I have ever significantly revised my view of some of the music that I grew up with. “Rock and Roll Music” is the only bouncy and fun Peter Paul & Mary record that comes to mind. But I think its message rings hollow, serving not to knock those other artists, but to point out just how good they were.