Continuing on with a tradition I've been enveloped in (in some unorganized fashion) for many a year and wrote about here more formally last year (in a co-blog with my lady buddy Melissa over at Comfortably Numb), it's time to watch the summer that barely was slip away to the tunes of the soundtrack it hath produced.
Like any good summer, there are one or two songs that are everywhere, and you either choose to embrace them or you exhaust yourself in your detestation of them as you attempt to gripe to anyone within earshot of said ubiquitous earworm every time it spins, which is at the top and bottom of each hour, if not even more frequently than that. Last year, of course, the track was "Call Me Maybe" by Carly Rae Jepsen, and in a summer filled with a lot of great songs, I added the guilty pleasure as a bonus cut to my list of a dozen songs that captivated my summer.
This year, for whatever reason, I've been captivated by far less. I don't know, necessarily, that this means that there weren't any good songs this summer. If nothing else, we had not one but two "songs of the summer" in Daft Punk's uncharacteristically organic "Get Lucky" and Robin Thicke's he-slut high water mark, "Blurred Lines." And yeah, I dug them both. But because my list is so thin this year, I've got to add both of these done-to-death tracks to my playlist. I'm just not feeling enough of much else. Some songs, like the ever-present radio staple "Clarity" by Zedd, have great lyrics but canned and uninventive of-the-moment production values pilfered from David Guetta. Most everything, it seems, is EDM lite, and I don't like EDM much at all, even in a watered down for pop radio form. Sigh.
Other songs piqued my interest but, for whatever reason, didn't entice me into repeat viewings, a criteria I think is a baseline requriement for granting a song an appearance on a list such as this one. I then eliminated songs like Fall Out Boy's "My Songs Know What You Did in the Dark (Light 'Em Up)," because my repeat listening of them was due to something other than my choice. In the case of that particular track, by the way, I heard it repeatedly as the theme music for the Blackhawks' latest Stanley Cup run, and thus can't hear the song without marrying it to images of ice hockey.
...and I'm too classy to include "Cruise" by Florida Georgia Line, though that's a summer song if ever there was one.
I've got three theories as to why I found this summers songs so, well, "meh." And I suspsect that the answer is a combination of all three:
1. This didn't feel like a summer, weather-wise. When the sun is out and the air is hot and you're walking around with sun glasses and bare feet, so many songs feel like a respite to the oppression of the humidity and a companion to the social gatherings. But this summer was unseasonably cold and frequently rainy. In fact, at my end-of-July birthday party last weekend, it was both (low-60s and rain). As such, the soundtrack seems to compliment the mood of the day, and if the mood is "blah," the soundtrack is sure to go all emo on you. And I can only speak for myself in saying that depressing and downbeat music requires me to be in a particular state of mind to enjoy, and that state of mind might occur regularly but it is nonetheless too fleeting to merit repeat listenings. As such, fewer songs stayed with me all summer long.
2. This was the summer of nostalgia. I helped to move my mom and grandma out of an 140-year-old farmhouse that has been in my family for over 60 years. I took days looking through boxes containing the remnants of my childhood. I turned 40. I made the weekend satellite radio countdowns on the 80s and 90s channels event listening every single weekend. It was almost inevitable that I would fail to maintain a pulse on what was current, and even friends like Melissa, who shot me YouTube links like daily vitamins, interspersed those offerings with vintage tracks in equal amounts. This was the summer of "I can't believe that song is 15 years old." 30 years ago, 1983, was a watershed year for some of the most iconic albums that shaped my sonic palate. My interest in current radio play was simply diminished, and for so many completely legitimate reasons.
3. I overloaded on Prince. I just get in these moods. After all, he is my number one obsession. And this summer, I listed to over a dozen episodes of the Peach and Black podcast, in which four Australian dudes who are probably a decade younger than me but have their Prince knowledge on lock go track-by-track through every Prince release and debate the songs, then rank the album as a whole. Each episode tips near the two-hour mark, and then I find myself spinning the discs again myself to come up with my own rankings. With my free time, I'm converting files of live shows from the summer, playing full concerts on my iPod while mowing the lawn or cleaning the house. Fortunately for me, there are at least a few new Prince songs circulating, which allowed me to add him to my list. I placed him first in an act of logic, as I listended to no single artist this summer more than Prince.
So here's my favorite new Prince track, along with some others that managed to rise above the mire of the meh and keep me coming back for more.
1. "The Breakdown" - Prince and 3rd Eye Girl
This week, Rolling Stone released a list called the 50 Greatest Live Acts right now. At the top of the list sits Bruce Springsteen, and you'll get no argument from me on that, having seen Bruce live and understanding with my own senses that the E Street Band is the single greatest live band in the world, able to turn on a dime to magnetically reproduce whatever Bruce or the audience throws at them. Bruce wins because he barely writes a set list; no other live act relies so heavily on what the audience wants to hear from night to night.
But second on the list, cutting off The Rolling Stones (yes, it's true!) is my Prince. Says Rolling Stone: 'he's never sounded better, his band 3rd Eye Girl is fire-hot and he's plundering his back catalog with a vengeance."
More than that, however, Prince is making new music with his all-girl band. Those tunes are said to be appearing on a forthcoming album called "Plectrum Electrum," but Prince is so busy showing up to play a few nights here and there and everywhere from Europe to Tempe, Arizona, that he hasn't confirmed a track list of new material yet, nor a release date. And since Prince can be super squirrelly when it comes to releasing new music on a schedule, he's left fans like myself to scramble on the Internet for breadcrumbs, such as his killer three-night stand at the Montreux Jazz Festival last month.
New songs like the alleged title track to his new album and the hard-pop "FixUrLifeUp" (the latter a legally downloadable track on iTunes) are great, but the hidden gem is "The Breakdown," a moody slow-burner that builds to a thunderous conclusion that defies the melancholy of the song's lyrics ("this could be the saddest story I've ever told"). There is no studio version available as of yet, but if you are clever enough, you can find some live recordings of the track. My favorite of these is the Montreux performance, where Prince fully deploys all three personas of his still-amazing singing voice: the silky falsetto, the throaty chest voice, and the 80s-era chicken scratch screams. With a piano featuring prominently in the mix, this song feels like a cousin to "Purple Rain" but also gives off a "November Rain" vibe. It's probably the song I've listened to the most in the last month.
2. "Mission Bells" by Matt Nathanson
Over a summery, percussive beat, Nathanson opens "Mission Bells" with the line, "I had a dream you died."
Um...what?
The lyric returns for the chorus as the full band comes in as sun-dipped harmonies are layered on. I'm still not sure if this the greatest slice of sonic irony or pop schadenfreude ever, but it's exactly the kind of warm-weather pop song I like to blast from the car stereo while I'm driving down the road with the windows open.
I've been a fan of Nathanson's since before he cracked Adult Top 40 radio with "Come On Get Higher," and his latest, called, "Last of the Great Pretenders," is likely to release him from our unknown-to-him contract as one of my best kept secrets. Nathanson's gift is truly his lyrics. His new disc opens with the line, "I'd kill anyone who treats you as bad as I do," and tells us in the chorus that "it feels like summer, but it's earthquake weather." But he also manages to tackle frank and emotionally complex ideas with a trademark pop production gloss that puts him at the front of the heap when it comes to male singer-songwriters of his type.
I'm starting to hear "Mission Bells" on the radio, particularly on Sirius-XM's The Spectrum, so I suspect that I'm just beginning to realize how much I enjoy this one. Few songs this summer were as instantly catchy to me as this.
3. "Royals" by Lorde
While half of America spent their free time with their eyes glued to their televisions to await the birth of Diana's grandson, I spent my free time with my ears glued to radio stations smart enough to play this sparse and sassy track from this 16-year-old from Down Under who rhapsodizes about the Windsor life over a low and echoey boom-chick beat and finger snaps.
I learned about "Royals" from college kids while rehearsing a production of "Jesus Christ Superstar" this summer; they were posting song lyrics as status updates on Facebook and talking about the song during rehearsals. Then, WXRT-Chicago started playing it...a lot. And before long, I have friends sending me links to the track.
I find it interesting that "Royals" is really the only song by a female singer that registered with me this summer. I don't know why that is. But this song is boss, with a slack vibe perfect for a leisurely drive or an evening sipping - well, Gray Goose - on your back patio, while also possessing enough bass to groove on the dancefloor at a house party. With only an EP currently available to support the song (and this is the best song on that EP, if you ask me), I am eagerly awaiting a full release from Lorde, and I'm expecting big things from this girl who makes music that feels wise beyond her years.
4. "Radioactive" by Imagine Dragons
If "Royals" was my favorite indie song on the radio, than "Radioactive" was my favorite mainstream pop-rock track, though Imagine Dragons is still sitting precariously on the border between indie and mainstream themselves (though with more than one foot clearly planted on the mainstream side by now). It's my third song in a row that relies on heavy, pounding bass - an emerging theme on this year's list, which is something I hardly considered until now. This is one of those songs that I find myself banging my head and grooving to and yet have not quite learned the words despite the dozens of listens. But it's also one of those songs that everyone in my family likes, which is important from time to time.
5. "Back Seat Lover" by Mayer Hawthorne
Only Mayer Hawthorne earns a spot on back-to-back summer lists. This dude is one of my favorite guys out there right now. His last album, "How Do You Do," was all retro soul, and the single "The Walk" was then and still is one of my favorites from a great release. And now, as of just a few weeks ago, he's released the follow-up and with it, yet another new throwback sound. This one, "Where Does This Door Go," feels more like yacht rock than neo-soul. And though he's released two singles from the project already (showcasing his work with Pharrell, easily the producer of the summer), it's this album-opening track - heavily influenced by Steely Dan - that has kept me hitting the repeat button. With its cheeky lyric from the perspective of a guy who seems resigned to the fact that he's being asked to participate in a tryst, it's a great marriage of modern radio content and cool 70s jams.
6. "Blurred Lines" by Robin Thicke featuring T.I. and Pharrell
I am not going to use my blog space to debate whether or not the lyrics of this song or either version of its video (nude or clothed) is "rape-y" (the WORST new term that seemed to magically appear this summer and one that was bandied about everywhere from "The Today Show" to the film "This Is the End"). I'm not going to decide here if these are the lyrics of the misogynist or if Thicke is a grade-A douche. What I will say is that I had two of Thicke's releases on my shelf prior to this release and this is, without a doubt, his breakout hit. It's THE sing-along song of the summer ("hey-hey-HEY!") and I've seen more people on the street trying to capture their inner R&B crooner while blasting this than any song in a long time. Billboard ranks this as the #1 song of the summer (three other tracks on my list appear on theirs), and only Daft Punk's single merits any debate in confirming its status as such.
In a time when Jay-Z can chart with a track that has the f-word in its title and artists like Macklemore (much as I love him) can get massive airplay for singles that are little more than aural swiss cheese after their profanities are muted, I find it shocking that people who hate this song seem to forget that 20 years ago, they were running on treadmills to Janet Jackson's "If," watching the music video on a channel called MTV that used to play music videos - that one featuring dance routines that just barely counted as dancing vs. clothed sex. Yes, I've sheepishly changed the channel when this song comes on and my kids are in the back seat, just as I've done so with Bruno Mars' "Locked Out of Heaven" and its obvious references to not getting any sex and the feelings a woman's sex gives to a man. But I'm not going to sit here and lie and tell you that I don't think it has THE groove of the summer. This song brought the party to the summer of 2013, and that's saying something, considering there wasn't much of a party to speak of without it.
7. "Get Lucky" by Daft Punk
Though its lyrics clearly make it pop radio's cousin to "Blurred Lines," it's the shockingly non-computerized technique employed by French dance duo Daft Punk to create this track's groove that garner the most attention. Buoyed by some licks from the incomparable Nile Rodgers, I love "Get Lucky" because it's NOT an EDM track in a summer where it seems every dance track is a slave to the genre. This is made significantly more confounding by the fact that Daft Punk are essentially the building blocks of the very genre that is now popular; they seem to have abandoned it with "Random Access Memories" just as it's hitting its commercial peak. Kudos, Daft Punk. For this, I love you even more. And not even the fact that a Chicago DJ repeatedly swears on air that they are singing "Mexican Monkey" can dampen my love for you or this song.
8. "Mirrors" by Justin Timberlake
The album version of this track - the best one from "The 20/20 Experience" - is a balsy eight minutes-plus. It eventually morphs and contorts into something else within the album's sequencing, and I have to be honest in saying that JT's latest isn't generating the heat on my stereo that "Futuresex/Lovesounds" did. All of that being said, I'd put "Mirrors" right up there with any of his best songs, and if I debated whether or not this song was even too old to make my summer list, it's probably because it dominated the front half of my summer. I played it over and over in the car. It was probably the first song on this list that I fully memorized. Though I've grown a tad weary of it by now, it's still a first-rate production. And I'm excited to hear that JT isn't done, having just released "Take Back the Night," a funky MJ rip-off, as a precursor to a follow-up sequel disc to be released this fall.
9. "Diane Young" by Vampire Weekend
I don't know much about Vampire Weekend, but when I do listen to the "regular" radio, it's Chicago's WXRT. And they have played the hell out of this song this summer. I like the word play with the title and the lyrics and the songs almost rockabilly groove. It's made for great dishwashing music. But beyond that, I don't know what to say about it!
My list is supposed to have a dozen tracks, but truthfully, that's all I've got. I considered padding that list with a few songs I like, but thought better of defying my criteria, and the repeat listening just wasn't there for these songs, though I'm listing them hear to identify additional tunes I'm enjoying:
"Second Chances" by Gregory Alan Isakov (very Dylanesque, a free download on iTunes a few weeks back)
"Coming Home" by Dharma Protocol (the name of Boy George's new band, and it's great to hear him again, even if this song is sonically identical to George Michael's "White Light," which appeared on my list last year)
So...that's all I've got. If I was to include old songs that have recaptured my attention, I'd be adding David Bowie's "Last Dance," a song I play almost daily after having rediscovered Stevie Ray Vaughn's stacatto guitar licks peppered throughout the track. Or "Gethsemane" from "Jesus Christ Superstar," which provided me with the most emotionally visceral moments of my summer. But that's not what this list was for. In any case, it's time to wrap-up a musically lackluster summer and prepare for fall, which, if it ends up containing the long-gestating and rumored new albums from U2 and Prince, is going to be the greatest song season in the history of all mankind.
Friday, August 2, 2013
Thursday, June 6, 2013
Summer Reading: this time, it's personal
I envision that perfect summer days would look like this: I would rise, fully-refreshed, at 6 in the morning, and then head downstairs to put on a pot of coffee. I'd then take a "Friends"-sized mug o' joe out onto my back porch with one of the books listed below, where I'd stay until approximately 9 a.m. or so, at which time I'd retreat into the house to begin the day's activities of cleaning and, inevitably chauffeuring my children around to Camp I-Can't-Believe-This-Costs-$350...It's-Glorified-Recess. I'd take mid-day breaks from the monotony for 90-minute workouts at the health club in preparation for the unveiling of my newly-taught, age defying body at my 40th birthday party, then prepare a Weight Watchers-friendly meal on the bug-free and impeccably-gardened back patio before retreating to the living room or local multiplex for a TV show binge or film of the day before retreating to bed.
Ha ha ha ha...
Some of my fantasy can and will come true. I will be shuttling my kids to all sorts of camps, and I can have a book under my arm for those moments sitting in the car waiting for them. And you can bet your ass there will be coffee involved. But the rest? Well, if the first week of summer is any indication, it's not gonna happen. So I'll control what I can control, which is to attempt to sprinkle in some summer reading in between required preparation for the coming school year (see my last list). If time can even remotely permit, here's what I want to be reading for my own enjoyment...
1) "Life After Life" by Kate Atkinson. I bought this book about a month ago when Atkinson came to Anderson's Bookshop in Naperville. I had not read any of her stuff before, though I'd heard of her and her strong fan base. Known for her unusual plotting, this book features a main character who dies in the first chapter at birth and then, in the second chapter, is born again under slightly altered circumstances and lives just a little longer, and so on. Recommended by Stephen King, I was sucked in to this book as I began reading it while waiting for Atkinson to make her book store appearance, then charmed by her visit. After being sidelined from reading by the end of the school year, this is the first book I want to read for my own enjoyment.
2) "VJ: The Unplugged Adventures of MTV's First Wave" by Nina Blackwood, Mark Goodman, Alan Hunter and Martha Quinn. No joke... I have spent every Saturday for the past few months tuning into the Big 80s countdown on Sirius-XM's 80s on 8 channel. I swear that listening to this has had youth-restoring powers for me, and I'm so obsessed that I once forced my wife to remain in a parked car before entering a restaurant so that I could find out what was number one back in 1984 for that mid-May week. Though my incessant listening to the music of my youth, I learned of this work, a collection of memories by the original MTV veejays (rest in piece, J.J. Jackson), and promptly ordered my copy on Amazon. Can't wait to read it! This will be a fun, mindless escape for me in a summer filled with heavy stuff.
3) "The Yellow Birds" by Kevin Powers. This book hit my radar months ago as I read reviews that called it the first great novel written about the war in Iraq. I tend to be a sucker for first time novelists, as I aspire to one day be one myself, and I have been excited to read this. Since that time, it's been added to our 11th grade English curriculum. And though I don't teach that class, I am eager to read this book.
4) "The Cineaste: Poems" by A. Van Jordan. Poetry about "Do the Right Thing," "Oldboy" and "Blazing Saddles"? Are you shitting me? This actually exists? Say no more...I'm in.
5) "Middle Men: Stories" by Jim Gavin. About "a group of men, from young dreamers to old vets" who "make valiant forays into middle-class respectability." The description on Amazon says that the characters in this book are "caught half way between their dreams and the often crushing reality of their lives." My favorite subject. This should satisfy my fix for Tom Perrotta-like suburban male fodder, my guilty pleasure. Or, perhaps, my underlying need, as I continue to gravitate toward works like this as I fight with my never-ending daddy issues.
6) "& Sons" by David Gilbert. This book comes out a few days before my birthday and when I read about it in a magazine (probably Entertainment Weekly), I immediately pre-ordered it so that it would just appear on my doorstep as a present to myself. John Irving, my favorite modern American author, is raving about this book, the story of a reclusive novelist who returns home to eulogize an old friend and sets out to repair his own relationships. I've seen it compared to Franzen and Irving, and I don't need any more information than that to know that it's a must-read for me!
7) "Superman: Red Son" by Mark Millar. Henry Cavill said that this was one of three graphic novels he used as inspiration for his character for "Man of Steel." What if Superman had landed on Earth in Cold War-era Russia instead of farmland middle America? The premise is too good to pass up, and I'll need something to temper my Superman fever this summer. I've just recently finished reading J. Michael Straczynski's "Superman: Earth One" and "Earth One: Volume 2."
8) "Life Itself: A Memoir" by Roger Ebert. Maybe, just maybe, I'm approaching a place where I can pick this book up again without sobbing after every fifth page in mourning for the loss of one of my heroes.
9) "Night Film" by Marisha Pessl. Because Entertainment Weekly told me to read it. And every summer, I read at least one of their recommendations. I'm not a big mystery reader, but this looks trendy and hip and shocking and cool. It won't arrive until late August, so I'll be following the buzz until it arrives.
10) "Behind the Beautiful Forevers" by Katherine Boo. I tacked this one on to the end of my list because I'm already about a third of the way through this book but it is so dense that I think I need to start over and try again, as I did earlier this summer with "The Great Gatsby." This book is actually on the approved list for my sophomore class but seems so dense and depressing that I'm not sure I'd be able to use it. One of my friends who read it says that Boo's depiction of Mumbai makes Kotlowitz's Chicago in "There Are No Children Here" look like Dubai. Depressing, but also amazingly researched and written, from what I've experienced so far.
For the record, I reserve the right to replace anything on this list with anything else that strikes my fancy at any moment, including the various books sitting on my Kindle app on the iPad that I keep forgetting about as I continue to purchase physical books with prejudice, and the weekly supply of DC Comics I pick up every Wednesday from the comic book shop down the block. In other words, don't hold me to any of this!
Ha ha ha ha...
Some of my fantasy can and will come true. I will be shuttling my kids to all sorts of camps, and I can have a book under my arm for those moments sitting in the car waiting for them. And you can bet your ass there will be coffee involved. But the rest? Well, if the first week of summer is any indication, it's not gonna happen. So I'll control what I can control, which is to attempt to sprinkle in some summer reading in between required preparation for the coming school year (see my last list). If time can even remotely permit, here's what I want to be reading for my own enjoyment...
1) "Life After Life" by Kate Atkinson. I bought this book about a month ago when Atkinson came to Anderson's Bookshop in Naperville. I had not read any of her stuff before, though I'd heard of her and her strong fan base. Known for her unusual plotting, this book features a main character who dies in the first chapter at birth and then, in the second chapter, is born again under slightly altered circumstances and lives just a little longer, and so on. Recommended by Stephen King, I was sucked in to this book as I began reading it while waiting for Atkinson to make her book store appearance, then charmed by her visit. After being sidelined from reading by the end of the school year, this is the first book I want to read for my own enjoyment.
2) "VJ: The Unplugged Adventures of MTV's First Wave" by Nina Blackwood, Mark Goodman, Alan Hunter and Martha Quinn. No joke... I have spent every Saturday for the past few months tuning into the Big 80s countdown on Sirius-XM's 80s on 8 channel. I swear that listening to this has had youth-restoring powers for me, and I'm so obsessed that I once forced my wife to remain in a parked car before entering a restaurant so that I could find out what was number one back in 1984 for that mid-May week. Though my incessant listening to the music of my youth, I learned of this work, a collection of memories by the original MTV veejays (rest in piece, J.J. Jackson), and promptly ordered my copy on Amazon. Can't wait to read it! This will be a fun, mindless escape for me in a summer filled with heavy stuff.
3) "The Yellow Birds" by Kevin Powers. This book hit my radar months ago as I read reviews that called it the first great novel written about the war in Iraq. I tend to be a sucker for first time novelists, as I aspire to one day be one myself, and I have been excited to read this. Since that time, it's been added to our 11th grade English curriculum. And though I don't teach that class, I am eager to read this book.
4) "The Cineaste: Poems" by A. Van Jordan. Poetry about "Do the Right Thing," "Oldboy" and "Blazing Saddles"? Are you shitting me? This actually exists? Say no more...I'm in.
5) "Middle Men: Stories" by Jim Gavin. About "a group of men, from young dreamers to old vets" who "make valiant forays into middle-class respectability." The description on Amazon says that the characters in this book are "caught half way between their dreams and the often crushing reality of their lives." My favorite subject. This should satisfy my fix for Tom Perrotta-like suburban male fodder, my guilty pleasure. Or, perhaps, my underlying need, as I continue to gravitate toward works like this as I fight with my never-ending daddy issues.
6) "& Sons" by David Gilbert. This book comes out a few days before my birthday and when I read about it in a magazine (probably Entertainment Weekly), I immediately pre-ordered it so that it would just appear on my doorstep as a present to myself. John Irving, my favorite modern American author, is raving about this book, the story of a reclusive novelist who returns home to eulogize an old friend and sets out to repair his own relationships. I've seen it compared to Franzen and Irving, and I don't need any more information than that to know that it's a must-read for me!
7) "Superman: Red Son" by Mark Millar. Henry Cavill said that this was one of three graphic novels he used as inspiration for his character for "Man of Steel." What if Superman had landed on Earth in Cold War-era Russia instead of farmland middle America? The premise is too good to pass up, and I'll need something to temper my Superman fever this summer. I've just recently finished reading J. Michael Straczynski's "Superman: Earth One" and "Earth One: Volume 2."
8) "Life Itself: A Memoir" by Roger Ebert. Maybe, just maybe, I'm approaching a place where I can pick this book up again without sobbing after every fifth page in mourning for the loss of one of my heroes.
9) "Night Film" by Marisha Pessl. Because Entertainment Weekly told me to read it. And every summer, I read at least one of their recommendations. I'm not a big mystery reader, but this looks trendy and hip and shocking and cool. It won't arrive until late August, so I'll be following the buzz until it arrives.
10) "Behind the Beautiful Forevers" by Katherine Boo. I tacked this one on to the end of my list because I'm already about a third of the way through this book but it is so dense that I think I need to start over and try again, as I did earlier this summer with "The Great Gatsby." This book is actually on the approved list for my sophomore class but seems so dense and depressing that I'm not sure I'd be able to use it. One of my friends who read it says that Boo's depiction of Mumbai makes Kotlowitz's Chicago in "There Are No Children Here" look like Dubai. Depressing, but also amazingly researched and written, from what I've experienced so far.
For the record, I reserve the right to replace anything on this list with anything else that strikes my fancy at any moment, including the various books sitting on my Kindle app on the iPad that I keep forgetting about as I continue to purchase physical books with prejudice, and the weekly supply of DC Comics I pick up every Wednesday from the comic book shop down the block. In other words, don't hold me to any of this!
My summer must-reads (and I mean that in the literal sense)
One exciting aspect of writing a new English department (well, okay, "Communication Arts" department) curriculum has been serving on the committee making the choices of everything from what district assessments will look like to the much more exciting decision of which books will be approved for each grade level to read. The process involved a tragic slashing of the dead white males of the literary canon, thanks to a modern belief that we should be teaching the skills, not particular works. I have strong feelings about that, knowing full well that kids aren't going to pick up Steinbeck just because they have the skills to do so, but I'll keep politics out of this particular post and focus on the task at hand, which is to tell you about what I'll be reading this summer.
The Common Core curriculum, as formed by the PARCC assessment team our district is following, requires that about half of the year-long curriculum be informational/nonfiction texts and the other half be fiction, including world literature. In other words, even in my year-long sophomore journalism class, I'll be teaching a minimum of two extended works of fiction. That will explain why most of what you'll see on this list is actually nonfiction, where I'll be placing greater emphasis and where I'll even be affording my students more choice at various times during the year.
1) "The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains" by Nicholas Carr. I'm actually excited to read this one, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize a few years ago and a work that I fear will confirm my suspicions that our kids don't understand research or even the concept of cheating today because of the convenience of Google. If I end up liking this book as much as I like the idea of it, I will probably end up teaching it next year.
2) "Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers" by Mary Roach. Described by many as an odd choice for reading that you'll be surprised you're so engrossed in (and grossed-in) once you decide to pick it up, I've heard great things about this and have even witnessed reading-averse students stay engaged in this one.
3) "Scorecasting: The Hidden Influences Behind How Sports are Played and Games are Won" by Tobias J. Moskowitz and L. Jon Wertheim. Why do all nonfiction books have subtitles? In any case, this book looks like "Freakonomics" crossed with sports. I'm curious to see how it destroys my love of any games I currently love.
4) "A Long Way Gone" by Ishmael Beah. Color me embarrassed, but I never did pick up a copy of this one and read it, even as I brushed past it on countless Starbucks counters. Apparently my jonesin' for a grande skinny iced hazelnut latte won out over my desire to absorb the atrocities of child soldiers in Sierra Leone, but I will correct this amoral decision making in the coming weeks.
5) "Dead Man Walking" by Sister Helen Prejean. Not sure how I can escape memories of the fantastic film when I read this, especially when the cover of my copy has Susan Sarandon and Sean Penn on it, but I'm told that the book is actually quite different from the film, so I'm looking forward to seeing how this is the case.
6) "Nickel and Dimed" by Barbara Ehrenreich. As with "A Long Way Gone," this is already a staple work of nonfiction in school classrooms and a source of embarrassment for me, not having read it yet. It seems to me that it will occupy similar space in my mind to Alex Kotlowitz' "There Are No Children Here," and I'm already nervous that a lot of what I'll read will feel by now outdated, seeing as how this was written in 2001. But my 10th anniversary edition copy has a new afterword! So we'll see...
7) "The Fiddler in the Subway" by Gene Weingarten. I'm cheating a bit by putting this book on the list in the sense that I was the one who got the title approved for this class and have already read most of it, though not all. Written by one of the most fantastic feature newspaper writers in America, the two-time Pulitzer-winning writer for the Washington Post collects his favorite works here, including the piece after which this book is titled, a must-read for all people who believe in the power and beauty of the arts and the result of a social experiment conducted by Weingarten and violinist Joshua Bell, in which the virtuoso dressed as a peasant and played his Stradavarias outside of a D.C. subway station for handouts to see if people would stop to appreciate beautiful music. But just as good, I think, is his piece called "The Great Zucchini," about a child-party entertainer who takes spoiled kids off the hands of their rich and entitled suburban mothers for hundreds of dollars during the day and returns at night to his unfurnished apartment, his money sent directly to pay off his substantial gambling debts.
8) "One More Time: The Best of Mike Royko." One of the true masters of newspaper writing, period. I'll be fishing for pieces from this collection to use at various points during my class as I do currently with pieces by Studs Terkel, who wrote the forward for this collection.
9) "The Elements of Journalism" by Bill Kovach and Tom Rosensteil. This one is a reread. I originally received it as a gift from a student and was instantly drawn to its careful research and clear organization. I like the book so much that I got it approved for this year and am requiring all of my incoming sophomores to read it over the summer, so I'll be rereading it as well.
10) "Macbeth" by William Shakespeare. How do I teach the Scottish play in a journalism context? That's what I'll be working out in my head as I reread one of my absolute favorite works by Willie. Somehow, the connection between political deception and corrupt power struggles and the modern world seems ripe for the picking.
Now that I've written this, I must end with a question. How in the hell am I going to get all of this read?
The Common Core curriculum, as formed by the PARCC assessment team our district is following, requires that about half of the year-long curriculum be informational/nonfiction texts and the other half be fiction, including world literature. In other words, even in my year-long sophomore journalism class, I'll be teaching a minimum of two extended works of fiction. That will explain why most of what you'll see on this list is actually nonfiction, where I'll be placing greater emphasis and where I'll even be affording my students more choice at various times during the year.
1) "The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains" by Nicholas Carr. I'm actually excited to read this one, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize a few years ago and a work that I fear will confirm my suspicions that our kids don't understand research or even the concept of cheating today because of the convenience of Google. If I end up liking this book as much as I like the idea of it, I will probably end up teaching it next year.
2) "Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers" by Mary Roach. Described by many as an odd choice for reading that you'll be surprised you're so engrossed in (and grossed-in) once you decide to pick it up, I've heard great things about this and have even witnessed reading-averse students stay engaged in this one.
3) "Scorecasting: The Hidden Influences Behind How Sports are Played and Games are Won" by Tobias J. Moskowitz and L. Jon Wertheim. Why do all nonfiction books have subtitles? In any case, this book looks like "Freakonomics" crossed with sports. I'm curious to see how it destroys my love of any games I currently love.
4) "A Long Way Gone" by Ishmael Beah. Color me embarrassed, but I never did pick up a copy of this one and read it, even as I brushed past it on countless Starbucks counters. Apparently my jonesin' for a grande skinny iced hazelnut latte won out over my desire to absorb the atrocities of child soldiers in Sierra Leone, but I will correct this amoral decision making in the coming weeks.
5) "Dead Man Walking" by Sister Helen Prejean. Not sure how I can escape memories of the fantastic film when I read this, especially when the cover of my copy has Susan Sarandon and Sean Penn on it, but I'm told that the book is actually quite different from the film, so I'm looking forward to seeing how this is the case.
6) "Nickel and Dimed" by Barbara Ehrenreich. As with "A Long Way Gone," this is already a staple work of nonfiction in school classrooms and a source of embarrassment for me, not having read it yet. It seems to me that it will occupy similar space in my mind to Alex Kotlowitz' "There Are No Children Here," and I'm already nervous that a lot of what I'll read will feel by now outdated, seeing as how this was written in 2001. But my 10th anniversary edition copy has a new afterword! So we'll see...
7) "The Fiddler in the Subway" by Gene Weingarten. I'm cheating a bit by putting this book on the list in the sense that I was the one who got the title approved for this class and have already read most of it, though not all. Written by one of the most fantastic feature newspaper writers in America, the two-time Pulitzer-winning writer for the Washington Post collects his favorite works here, including the piece after which this book is titled, a must-read for all people who believe in the power and beauty of the arts and the result of a social experiment conducted by Weingarten and violinist Joshua Bell, in which the virtuoso dressed as a peasant and played his Stradavarias outside of a D.C. subway station for handouts to see if people would stop to appreciate beautiful music. But just as good, I think, is his piece called "The Great Zucchini," about a child-party entertainer who takes spoiled kids off the hands of their rich and entitled suburban mothers for hundreds of dollars during the day and returns at night to his unfurnished apartment, his money sent directly to pay off his substantial gambling debts.
8) "One More Time: The Best of Mike Royko." One of the true masters of newspaper writing, period. I'll be fishing for pieces from this collection to use at various points during my class as I do currently with pieces by Studs Terkel, who wrote the forward for this collection.
9) "The Elements of Journalism" by Bill Kovach and Tom Rosensteil. This one is a reread. I originally received it as a gift from a student and was instantly drawn to its careful research and clear organization. I like the book so much that I got it approved for this year and am requiring all of my incoming sophomores to read it over the summer, so I'll be rereading it as well.
10) "Macbeth" by William Shakespeare. How do I teach the Scottish play in a journalism context? That's what I'll be working out in my head as I reread one of my absolute favorite works by Willie. Somehow, the connection between political deception and corrupt power struggles and the modern world seems ripe for the picking.
Now that I've written this, I must end with a question. How in the hell am I going to get all of this read?
Summer reads make me feel fine...blowing through the jasmine in my mind
I am never one to make my reading ambitions public, largely because I am a slow reader. I love language itself far too much to blast through paper wedges in an otherwise joyless effort to uncover plot details.
Case in point: In April, I decided I would read "The Great Gatsby" again in preparation for seeing the film. Thanks to Baz Luhrmann, my dirty little secret was out - the fact that I've been an English teacher for 13 years but had not read this staple of English curriculum since I myself was a junior in high school. That's right kids...never taught it, never touched it since a year that started with a 19. So I snatched my pristine and unannotated paperback from its spot on my office shelves prior to a flight to San Francisco in late April. "This thing isn't even 200 pages! Surely I will read it this weekend!" I told myself. To ensure that this would happen, I brought only one other book along with me.
The other book was the latest by comic essayist David Sedaris, called "Let's Explore Diabetes With Owls." And certain that it would contain copious amounts of wit and humor, the new hardcover all but vibrated in the bag between my feet as I sat wedged in my seat reading "Gatsby." Not 40 pages in, I turned to my traveling companion, a fellow English teacher in my department and one who does teach the novel on a regular basis, and remarked how I was shocked to discover that not much happened in the novel in the first three chapters. "Chapter four," she assured me. "That's when it all takes off." Distracted now by puffy clouds, snoring co-passengers in our airborne tube, and a nagging fear that I might not find "Gatsby" to be as charmed and wonderful as everyone else whose opinion I treasure, I stuffed the book in my bag and removed the Sedaris. I then proceeded to scarf it down in one sitting, laughing so hard out loud at times that I woke up sleeping passengers and drew attention to myself.
I returned home and shared my "Gatsby" failure with co-workers. The two teachers I work with whom I consider to be the biggest "Gatsby" experts told me to just start over. "It's well-written," I said, "but I don't feel like anything is happening!" Literary mojo, zapped. Web address to Spark Notes, typed in the browser and ready to hit enter.
Cut to the first day of my summer vacation. I get up to an empty house, brew some coffee, and sit down with "Gatsby" once more, removing the bookmark and slapping it on the coffee table. The film has been out for over a month now, and reviews have varied wildly. I'm sure to hate it now, I tell myself, but I'm still not going to see it until I've reread the book. And so it begins that the task of reading has become just that, a task. A job. A requirement. And summer reading should not feel like "a requirement." (If I haven't bored you yet and you keep reading, you'll see that, unfortunately, much of this summer's reading will be the result of "requirements.")
But this time, something magical happened. I took the first chapter as slowly as I've read anything, this time becoming deeply absorbed in the language, stopping only to slap myself for thinking that there was nothing happening in the early pages the last time I tried reading. Of course there was something happening! I just wasn't in the right space to receive it! To make a long story short, I finished "Gatsby" this morning, after taking the book in morning-reading chunks for four days. And best of all, I found it to be quite wonderful. I wanted to rush straight into a summer school classroom to discuss it, regardless of the fact that I would likely be the only one there who would have read it. I feel like a true English teacher again.
And not a moment too soon, because a challenge from my bestie over at Uncomfortably Numb to start hitting the keys for the summer began with her post about summer reading, a topic I met with dread because for the most part, this summer's reading for me will be mostly born of necessity, rather than the traditional summer raison d'etre, pleasure. This is because our school district has decided to wipe out its existing curriculum and start over, leaving me in the stressful-yet-oddly-exciting position of having a stack of books to read or reread in preparation for teaching them in the coming year. To further entice us, our district was nice enough to allow us to choose any ten books from our approved grade band list and provide us with new copies of them. Running into the department breakroom to pick up the books when they came felt like a robbery at Barnes and Nobel. It was a glorious moment, followed by the oh-shit truth of the matter - I have to read all of this!
So I'm providing two lists here, but I'm putting them in separate posts because I write too much! The first is a list of everything I have to read for my job in preparation for the coming year. They are not all books that I will have to teach, but they are all books approved for the new curriculum for sophomore English, and so I will either be teaching them or choosing from among them.
The second list is my "true" summer reading list...the one I have for myself. In between moments of required reading and catching up on movies I've missed, I hope to chip away at this list. Whatever I can't get to is going to stay there into the fall, I can assure you.
My journey as a reader can be summed up nicely by what I've written here. I have to be in a mood. I have to have multiple books going at once. I have to choose the flavor I want that day, or choose not to partake when something else holds more interest for me. I have to start pages over, chapters over, entire books over. All of my literary friends read circles around me. It's frustrating, but I have to accept it. If I didn't, I'd probably have given up on "The Great Gatsby" as a boring book in which nothing happens. And I would have lived secretly with great shame, not to mention some incorrect memories of how the book ends.
Case in point: In April, I decided I would read "The Great Gatsby" again in preparation for seeing the film. Thanks to Baz Luhrmann, my dirty little secret was out - the fact that I've been an English teacher for 13 years but had not read this staple of English curriculum since I myself was a junior in high school. That's right kids...never taught it, never touched it since a year that started with a 19. So I snatched my pristine and unannotated paperback from its spot on my office shelves prior to a flight to San Francisco in late April. "This thing isn't even 200 pages! Surely I will read it this weekend!" I told myself. To ensure that this would happen, I brought only one other book along with me.
The other book was the latest by comic essayist David Sedaris, called "Let's Explore Diabetes With Owls." And certain that it would contain copious amounts of wit and humor, the new hardcover all but vibrated in the bag between my feet as I sat wedged in my seat reading "Gatsby." Not 40 pages in, I turned to my traveling companion, a fellow English teacher in my department and one who does teach the novel on a regular basis, and remarked how I was shocked to discover that not much happened in the novel in the first three chapters. "Chapter four," she assured me. "That's when it all takes off." Distracted now by puffy clouds, snoring co-passengers in our airborne tube, and a nagging fear that I might not find "Gatsby" to be as charmed and wonderful as everyone else whose opinion I treasure, I stuffed the book in my bag and removed the Sedaris. I then proceeded to scarf it down in one sitting, laughing so hard out loud at times that I woke up sleeping passengers and drew attention to myself.
I returned home and shared my "Gatsby" failure with co-workers. The two teachers I work with whom I consider to be the biggest "Gatsby" experts told me to just start over. "It's well-written," I said, "but I don't feel like anything is happening!" Literary mojo, zapped. Web address to Spark Notes, typed in the browser and ready to hit enter.
Cut to the first day of my summer vacation. I get up to an empty house, brew some coffee, and sit down with "Gatsby" once more, removing the bookmark and slapping it on the coffee table. The film has been out for over a month now, and reviews have varied wildly. I'm sure to hate it now, I tell myself, but I'm still not going to see it until I've reread the book. And so it begins that the task of reading has become just that, a task. A job. A requirement. And summer reading should not feel like "a requirement." (If I haven't bored you yet and you keep reading, you'll see that, unfortunately, much of this summer's reading will be the result of "requirements.")
But this time, something magical happened. I took the first chapter as slowly as I've read anything, this time becoming deeply absorbed in the language, stopping only to slap myself for thinking that there was nothing happening in the early pages the last time I tried reading. Of course there was something happening! I just wasn't in the right space to receive it! To make a long story short, I finished "Gatsby" this morning, after taking the book in morning-reading chunks for four days. And best of all, I found it to be quite wonderful. I wanted to rush straight into a summer school classroom to discuss it, regardless of the fact that I would likely be the only one there who would have read it. I feel like a true English teacher again.
And not a moment too soon, because a challenge from my bestie over at Uncomfortably Numb to start hitting the keys for the summer began with her post about summer reading, a topic I met with dread because for the most part, this summer's reading for me will be mostly born of necessity, rather than the traditional summer raison d'etre, pleasure. This is because our school district has decided to wipe out its existing curriculum and start over, leaving me in the stressful-yet-oddly-exciting position of having a stack of books to read or reread in preparation for teaching them in the coming year. To further entice us, our district was nice enough to allow us to choose any ten books from our approved grade band list and provide us with new copies of them. Running into the department breakroom to pick up the books when they came felt like a robbery at Barnes and Nobel. It was a glorious moment, followed by the oh-shit truth of the matter - I have to read all of this!
So I'm providing two lists here, but I'm putting them in separate posts because I write too much! The first is a list of everything I have to read for my job in preparation for the coming year. They are not all books that I will have to teach, but they are all books approved for the new curriculum for sophomore English, and so I will either be teaching them or choosing from among them.
The second list is my "true" summer reading list...the one I have for myself. In between moments of required reading and catching up on movies I've missed, I hope to chip away at this list. Whatever I can't get to is going to stay there into the fall, I can assure you.
My journey as a reader can be summed up nicely by what I've written here. I have to be in a mood. I have to have multiple books going at once. I have to choose the flavor I want that day, or choose not to partake when something else holds more interest for me. I have to start pages over, chapters over, entire books over. All of my literary friends read circles around me. It's frustrating, but I have to accept it. If I didn't, I'd probably have given up on "The Great Gatsby" as a boring book in which nothing happens. And I would have lived secretly with great shame, not to mention some incorrect memories of how the book ends.
Monday, October 8, 2012
That's what HE said: Fall TV 2012
I love October. I'm a summer baby, and summer is still my favorite season, but in contradicting fashion and when pressed to name my favorite destination on the Julien calendar, October it is. The first frost to vanquish my formidable allergies. The chance to wear clothes with legs and sleeves. Pumpkin anything. And of course, new fall TV shows are in full swing.
Way back when in our glory years, the summer was reserved for being outdoors; we had spent too many hours on our couches during the school year staying on top of our favorite shows and needed to be reminded what the sky looked like. For my younger readers, it should be noted that this was when the gods of TV programming told you when your show was going to air, and if that show was important to you, you made arrangements to oblige them. The time-shifting power of TiVo was nothing more than an idea at the time, and certainly not one floating around my neighborhood.
By my teen years, I reached the point where my annual TV viewing became so obsessive and so time-consuming that, ahead of my time in needing a DVR, I bought blank Maxell VHS tapes in bulk and became a master VHS-recorder operator, navigating the TV Guide grids with different colored highlighters and programming my front-loading silver and black box sitting atop our home's lone idiot box in its ornate oak cabinet with precision and regularity, always extending the recording time of each show by a minute on either end because those bastards at the networks would frequently lack accuracy in their delivery of the shows.
Then, on the weekends, I would try to catch up. And hours-deep into my videotaped review of the past week, my eyes would narrow in a wicked snicker as I'd blast past the commercials (take THAT!) in an attempt to shorten the viewing time of a half-hour sitcom to its true 22 minutes of content. But there were two problems. First, the reaction time of the rewind, fast-forward and play buttons was so slow that after three attempts to come out of each commercial break at the right time to pick up with the episode, I'd added all of that time back anyway. And second, I failed to label those VHS tapes, adding hours of frustration to my viewing resulting from my having to pop each one in every time, trying to figure out what I'd watched already and where there was room left on a tape to record something else.
Kids, I hope you appreciate how good you've got it...
In a recent moment of self-psychoanalysis, I now wonder if my reticence to label recorded VHS tapes was a predicting factor that I would one day be a high school teacher teaching a class called "Mass Media" and exciting students with my TV unit, which highlights a variety of shows from the 1950s through today. Do you know how many shows I already had on those blank tapes? As it turned out, I was writing curriculum before it was cool, gathering my materials for a career I had never predicted I would have. And the reason the tapes were never labeled was because the shows on them were originally recorded for one-time viewing. I was then supposed to recycle the tapes and record more over them. But I couldn't bear to erase them. So I kept buying more tapes because an inner-voice so strongly said to me: "You might need these again some day."
That voice is currently sequestered in about six cardboard boxes in the back corner of my basement, and it has yet to learn of the TV-series-available-on-DVD phenomenon, though I stand justified until the day that they finally release "Chicago Hope" in this format. I have every episode on VHS. The rest of you have NONE. Keith-1, World-0. Hey...do you have a VHS player I can borrow to watch "Chicago Hope"?
It goes without saying that the arrival of the DVR made me feel like Joseph Smith receiving the golden plates. But with great time-shifting-and-recording power comes great responsibility. One must manage one's DVR. And I didn't know how. Before long, I had stuffed mine to 98 percent and, unable to keep up, was soon pitting show against show in electronic cage matches in my brain, the loser getting the delete button to make room for something else. I needed a better solution.
I needed a second DVR.
This brings me to today, both in the time-of-my-life sense and the actually-right-this-moment sense concurrently, and with not one but two DVRs consistently storing over 90 percent of their capacities with programming waiting to entertain or disappoint me. So in desperation, I created a few strategies a few years ago to navigate the waters of each new fall television season. The rules are not pretty and they've often caused me some pain, but here they are:
1. Carefully study the fall TV grid, using "Entertainment Weekly" as your Bible. Read about the shows. Look at cast lists and reports coming out of the industry. Make some initial judgments based completely on hearsay. You won't have time to try out everything.
2. Go day-by-day through the grid, highlighting anything that looks interesting and taking note of potential time-slot match-ups. And in the event that a given slot should present you with three worthy options, curse the programming gods for their overly-generous bounty and inevitably sacrifice something.
3. Record the first episode of anything that looks remotely interesting.
4. Attempt to watch everything before the second episodes air. If not, the rule states that you must continue to record episodes of said series until you've watched the first episode, because if you decide you do like the show, you'd be screwed if you missed the subsequent episodes. This rule is where things start to get messy and "TV Left Behind" syndrome kicks in. (More on that later...)
5. This is the rule that I get criticized for the most, and it's admittedly the most careless and even insane rule I have about television. But life is short, and here it is. If I am not hooked on a show after its pilot, we're done. Yes, you heard me. One and done. I almost never give a show a second chance, and this explains why I am not currently watching shows like "Community" and "Parks and Recreation." Both praised for their brilliance by fans and critics alike, their pilot episodes were shite. I know, I know...these things take time to gel and evolve into something wonderful. But I have six boxes of tapes in my basement and two full DVRs! I don't have time!
So what am I watching this fall? I'm finally about to tell you. And let me preface this by saying that I write this under a cloud of regret for all of the shows that I wish I was watching and am not. It might not be too late thanks to all of the ways we can now access shows whose ships have already sailed. But catching up feels daunting. I'm hoping that something on this list will be worth starting with and sticking with. And since the he said/she said format I'm writing with my friend Melissa is designed to feature lists of 13, I'm giving you my notes for the seven days of the week for new shows, plus six additional categories.
1. NEW ON SUNDAY
Nothing. Wow...so far this is easy. Sundays are filled with shows I wish I was watching, like "Homeland," "Boardwalk Empire" and "The Good Wife." I buy seasons of "The Simpsons" on DVD and torture myself with watching episodes from 10 years prior when the cultural references have become stale. But as far as new shows go, the only one I've recorded to check out is ABC's "666 Park Avenue." I haven't watched it yet, but it will have to be better than Sunday Night Football to keep my interest.
2. NEW ON MONDAY
"Partners," on CBS. Although I'm nearing gay-saturation with my TV viewing, I can't not watch a show created by and based on the lives of the two men who gave me "Will & Grace," one of my favorite sitcoms of all-time. Having Michael Urie (from "Ugly Betty") on board ups the ante, and I can't resist the novelty of a show about two men who are best friends and one is gay and one is straight, as this is exactly my life (my best friend is gay). I just have to see how this plays out. I've seen two episodes so far, and though I'm not blown away (check out former Man of Steel Brandon Routh as Urie's cardboard, lifeless boyfriend), I'm still in.
3. NEW ON TUESDAY
This is a big night. I've already checked out "Ben and Kate" on FOX. The show is getting picked as the year's best new sitcom by many publications. I watched it and laughed only once, making it the first victim of my fall viewing rule #5. Now I'm sure it will probably go on to be brilliant and win a bunch of Emmys and I'll be mad that I'm not watching it. But the rule is "one and done." I must oblige!
I've also already checked out "The Mindy Project" (FOX), which I liked a lot more, though I have no sentimental attachment to Mindy Kaling whatsoever as I do not regularly watch "The Office." I will probably give this show a few more tries to make a clear decision on it, but I enjoyed the pilot enough to move ahead.
This leads me to NBC's two new Tuesday sitcoms: "Go On" and "The New Normal." I've seen two episodes of "Go On" so far and have recorded the rest. I like the premise and the show has promise, but I can't figure out why I haven't felt compelled to run to the couch and watch the rest of what's sitting there. Why am I not totally hooked yet?
As for "The New Normal," it's the one new show that I'm totally caught up on, and I'm surprised by how on-the-fence I still am about it. I could write an entire essay about my problems with the show, from its ridiculous stereotyping of every subset of humanity - a Ryan Murphy curse - to the fact that I cannot see the show's two leads as a couple at all. But I won't do that here. Instead, I will just say that the show's irreverence and snappy writing have kept me in the game, for now. Well, that and Ellen Barkin, who with better writing could be the 21st Century Archie Bunker. Just engrave the Emmy now. "Modern Family," your days of winning the supporting acting categories are numbered.
4. NEW ON WEDNESDAY
Another big night. I've already watched and immediately discarded "Animal Practice" (NBC). I've recorded "The Neighbors" (ABC) but haven't watched it yet. I've heard it's not that good but secretly want it to be, so I will still check it out. But Wednesdays come down to four shows that will make me dub this fall: Guilty Pleasures Wednesday. Here's why...
"Guys With Kids" (NBC). I am smart enough to know how conventional this show is. The live audience laughing at the darndest little things. The tired sitcom jokery. But I'm stuck enjoying it because of how closely I can identify with it. Yes, my kids are older than those portrayed on the show. And yes, I don't live in an apartment complex which conveniently also houses my two best friends and their families. But "Guys With Kids" is filled with tiny moments of recognition that ring so true to a guy my age raising kids. And I have to admit that I've already developed a boy crush on Zach Cregger. So even though I know better, I'm watching and laughing.
"Arrow" (The CW). Heaven help me...I'm going to watch a show on the CW. I'm a huge DC Comics fan, and the company's relaunch of its Green Arrow title with its "New 52" series last fall was a bust for me; I grew bored with the title after committing to the first 10 issues and stopped reading it. But I don't think I'm done with the character of playboy billionaire Oliver Quinn, and I'm excited by what I've seen so far in the promos. The networks are stuffed to the gills with fantasy and horror-edged programming now. I'm hoping this show will be my escape.
"Nashville" (ABC). I'm not a country fan, but I love music, and I love the premise behind this show, which I'm hoping will be my soap opera for the season. And it has Tammy Taylor (Connie Britton...RIP, "Friday Night Lights"), so I don't need more of a reason to watch, though having T Bone Burnett produce the music doesn't hurt.
"Chicago Fire" (NBC). Dick Wolf has made a career out of cop shows, so turning to the fire department is a natural next step. This is not the kind of show I would normally watch, but I'm tuning in for two reasons: watching a show filmed in Chicago, and Naperville Central alum David Eigenberg, who played Steve on "Sex and the City." I have to support a hometown hero, and I've met Dave a few times and know how close to his own heart the profession of firefighting is. Dave actually snuck in to the rubble post-9/11 to help with rescue, even though he wasn't a "real" firefighter. He saw that horror through their eyes. I know he'll bring that to his role, and I can't wait to watch him do it. So imagine my surprise when, in the show's pilot, they damn near kill him off in week one. He's not dead yet, as promos for upcoming episodes have teased. So I'll be tuning in to see what happens.
5. NEW ON THURSDAY
Nothing. I remember when Thursdays were the night to watch TV. Not anymore. There are a few returning shows on this night I will continue to watch, but nothing new. "Elementary" looks interesting, but I suspect the British "Sherlock" is better, and I'm tired of the derivative. The other new shows look generic. I'm playing this night safely and staying out of it. Plus, it's "Grey's Anatomy" night for my wife, so I'd rather stay the hell away from the family room.
6. NEW ON FRIDAY
Again, nothing. Whew! I have too much to watch already.
7. NEW ON SATURDAY
What? There's TV on Saturday?
Okay, so I've identified 10 new shows I'm going to try out, indicating that I'm already invested in four of them for the long haul. So here's how I feel about everything else on TV:
8. REALITY TV VIEWING
So in a moment of weakness over the summer, I let a friend convince me to tune in to the train wreck that was "Here Comes Honey Boo Boo." Fully understanding the criticisms of the show, I allowed myself to get hooked. But the novelty eventually wore off, and the last three episodes of its first season are taking up room on my living room DVR like Mama June on her living room couch. I think I've been reminded that there's only one kind of reality TV I can handle.
That kind of reality TV is the music competition, and the two shows I'm making time for are "The Voice" and "The X Factor." I watch the voice because I am genuinely entertained by the inter-play among its four superstar judges, and the singing is more regularly as good as it's billed. I watch "X Factor" because a former student of mine is employed as Simon and Britney's bitch, and because I like the format of the show; it's more interesting to me than "American Idol," which it's time to admit has one foot in the grave and like a knee from the other leg.
So will I watch "American Idol"? I want to say no, but I can't resist checking out the new judges panel, at least for a few weeks, for the same reason that any of us check out any real-life craziness on any other reality shows we watch. And then, once I've satisfied my curiosity and if I have any brain, I'll give it up. And television wouldn't take my brain, would it?
9. RETURNING SHOWS I WILL CONTINUE TO WATCH
My favorite scripted sitcom on television is ABC's "Happy Endings," a show that comes closer to my personal sense of humor than anything else on television. Though Casey Wilson is certainly brilliant, all six leads are fantastic, and the show features TV's only gay character who doesn't spit out a purse every time he opens his mouth, a feature I actually had to grow to love because the show's creators made Max virtually unlovable at first. And all gay characters are loveable, satirical mascots of humanity, right? It's a fresh version of "Friends" with quirk for days and enough Seinfeldian outrageousness to make me wish each episode was directly followed by six quickly-passing days and 23 hours.
I am also committed to satisfying my musical theatre side with "Glee" and "Smash." "Glee" can end at any time and I'd live, but I like the curves it's throwing so far this season. Like creator Ryan Murphy's newest show, "The New Normal," I have as many problems with it as I do reasons to love it, but I can't bear to look away. And Sue Sylvester remains one of the best characters on TV. "Smash," by comparison, is a more adult "Glee," and is really just getting started. Many of the numbers created for its first season were actually quite good, and I'd like to see where it goes.
Though I'm a few episodes behind still, "30 Rock" and "Modern Family" are two additional sitcoms I will continue to watch. "30 Rock" is in its final season, and though the show hasn't felt like it's had anywhere to go for a good year now, I want to see it through to the end. Plus it's still by far the most unconventional comedy I watch out of a litany of traditional comedies, such as "Modern Family," which after you strip away the novelty of the documentary style of it has fast become the very definition of conventional. But "30 Rock" is the most surprisingly written show I watch, and "Modern Family" is so brilliantly performed that I can't dislike it. I have a bunch of last season's episodes to finish of each show, but am still invested.
And finally, I'm still watching "Saturday Night Live," though I never watch it "Live." Complain all you want about how each episode has maybe two good sketches and the cast has lost it now that Kristin Wiig is gone. If you ask me, that's what the DVR is for. The show has been giving us water cooler moments for almost 40 years, and I'm not going to miss one simply because every episode is uneven. With my thumb on the fast forward button, I'll continue to tune in, always looking for the show's next big star and willing to skip over anything that bombs.
Honorable mentions must go here to "The Daily Show" and "Colbert Report," which I try to catch as often as time allows but do not weigh myself down with daily viewing requirements, and cable news networks, which are my favorite way to fill smaller amounts of free time. And Sundays are still for football in my house, whether on a network, ESPN or NFL Redzone, the glorious, ADD-themed experience where the show's host (who I think is related to the host of "Wipe Out," strangely enough) sends you from touchdown to touchdown across the country, the sports version of an adult film made up of only money shots. There was a time when watching two football games in the red zone on a split screen at the same time would have made me nuts. And then I bought a bigger TV.
10. THE SEARCH FOR A GREAT TALK SHOW
I'm not ashamed - male though I be - to admit that I've had a conspicuous O-shaped hole in my life since that fateful day when Ms. Winfrey selfishly ceased operation of her daily Chicago-based talk show. I would DVR the show every day, and my decompression time after work included checking out what was on "Oprah." If the episode focused on something dealing with makeovers or lady bits, I'd simply delete. But more often, I was riveted. And ever since she left ABC, I've been searching for a replacement.
I love Anderson Cooper as a news anchor and have been disappointed and shocked by how much I have not liked his afternoon talk show. This year, it's gotten even worse, as Anderson has changed its format to include a live taping and a rotating daily co-host - one who's inevitably on the D list and virtually irrelevant. And why can't Anderson breathe during the day? I'm annoyed by his audible inhales when he talks. Diaphragm, man! In order to continue to respect him on CNN, I had to let him go here.
The thought of another TV journo-love of mine, Katie Couric, returning, also had me excited. But I watched her episode on "50 Shades of Grey" in her new show's second week, and quickly learned that Couric had lost her magic. She's reduced herself to punny jokes, themed wardrobe choices (like a leather outfit for this particular episode) and lowest-common-denominator interview questions. I am devastated and done.
Steve Harvey? Lord, I tried. He's funny as hell, and his show has no clue what it wants to be yet. His Pinterest dating game feature is a clever idea, but I don't have the time to wait for him to figure out how to make everything gel.
So my must-watch talk show as of now has to be..."Oprah's Next Chapter." What I've learned is that no one can handle the format like Lady O, so why bother attempting to replace her? Has anyone on another talk show done an interview as compelling as the one with Kony 2012 mastermind Jason Russell or even Steven Colbert? And since the show airs only once a week, the time commitment is much smaller and my guilt non-existent.
11. SHOWS I HAVE NEVER WATCHED BUT WISH I WAS WATCHING: MY EMBARRASSING LIST OF MISSED OPPORTUNITIES AWAITING NETFLIXED REDEMPTION
"Keith, you would love 'Game of Thrones'." Indeed I would. But I've never seen it. I'll wait for the DVDs, I guess. But who am I kidding?
"Thrones" is but one of a handful of shows that I freely admit I am not in my right mind for passing over. Shows so good that I risk giving up my serious TV-viewer card for skipping. How in the name of God did I not immediately latch on to "Breaking Bad"? Why would I pass up "The Good Wife," with that cast? Mandy Patinkin is on "Homeland"...isn't that enough, or do you need to throw in Clare Danes, too? What? She's on there, too? What is wrong with me?!?
Scorsese created "Boardwalk Empire." Why am I not watching the marvelous Steve Buscemi every week, instead of getting him in small doses via Coen Brothers films on Starz? And given my love for Neil Patrick Harris and the always charming Jason Segal, was I smoking pot for not latching on to "How I Met Your Mother"? And speaking of pot, shouldn't I be watching "Weeds"?
Coulda, woulda, shoulda. Yeah...I know. But I'm damn-near embarrassed to admit that I have yet to watch any of these shows. If you asked me today, "Breaking Bad" feels like the show I'm most inclined to pick up in an effort to correct this problem. But this leads me to my last point...
12. "LEFT BEHIND TV": SHOWS I ONCE WATCHED AND LOVED OR BEGAN TO WATCH AND LOVE THAT HAVE CONTINUED TO PILE UP ON THE DVR OR DVD SHELF, STILL UNWATCHED (A PSYCHOANALYSIS)
I own every season of "Mad Men" on DVD and rave about the show every chance I get. But I can never engage in any meaningful conversation about the show because of my dirty little secret: I've never seen beyond the first season. Sure, I recommended the show to friends who have subsequently embarked on frantic library rental binges over summers and breaks, lapping up hours of Don Draper-y goodness at a time, getting caught up with me and then plowing ahead.
But when life got too busy for me, I allowed one of my favorite shows to pile up on the DVR. I became overwhelmed and froze up. Before long, the retail releases of the seasons arrived, so I bought them to allow me to free up those hours on the recorder. I could get to them on my own time, I thought. And as time and subsequent seasons march on, I continue to spout off about how amazing the show is based on what little of it I've seen.
Not finishing things is a character flaw of mine. And while discussing the fall television season seems to be a rather trite setting in which to discuss a genuine personality flaw, I've come to recognize this "Mad Men" thing as a metaphor for other aspects of my life. I love the show so much that I appear to be saving it for some special time when it has the full attention of my soul, opting instead for the consumption of lesser things that fill my time but don't fulfill it. And soon, I am "left behind," the award-winning programming raptured up to television heaven without me.
Some of the best shows on television join "Mad Men" on my list of shame. My other favorite drama is "Parenthood." Love it! Well, loved season one. Taped all of season two, then season three. Bought season two on DVD so I could erase it from the DVR (season three was still too expensive). And now I'm taping season four. (Or are we on season five now?) In my mind, I've never stopped loving the show. But when will I catch up?
Genre shows like "The Walking Dead" and "American Horror Story"? Love them. Two or three episodes apiece. And the rest is on the bedroom DVR. And shows like "The Tudors" and "Spartacus"? I watched all but the final seasons and hope to one day seal the deals, especially considering that the shows are now over.
And, most inexplicably, I'm a season back on "The Big Bang Theory." At least with this show, I've seen almost three full seasons (if I'm not mistaken), so I have a lot more invested. But why did I stop? Ditto "True Blood," a show I always manage to be just one full season behind. So close, and yet so far away.
I am looking forward to the invention of Life TiVo, that glorious day when I can pause the universe and hit play on all of this wonderful stuff I've been missing. Until then, I will rave about all of these shows, whether I've seen much of them or not. I can't give up hope that one day I'll fulfill my viewing promises to myself.
13. PLEASE LEAVE MY BOX RIGHT NOW: THE SHOW THAT NEEDS TO GO AWAY
There is no scripted show so heinous, no reality show so devoid of morality, as "The View," a daily round-tabled cage match of peri-to-post-menopausal women shrieking about everything and anything and a show that I dare say fills the gap left by Jerry Springer, even though its aims are admittedly far more noble.
Whenever I have a day off of work, a two-minute glance at this show leaves me thankful that I am gainfully employed and unable to watch with regularity.
Taken individually, the show features some interesting and talented women. Whoopi Goldberg has an EGOT, for goodness' sake! She belongs back on the big screen. Barbara Walters has had a storied journalism career and now needs to retire. Elizabeth Hasselbeck is probably a wonderful mom and should be campaigning locally for the Republican candidates of her choice. Sherri Shepard is hilarious and should limit her work to playing Tracy Morgan's wife on "30 Rock." And Joy Behar is a bitter, once-funny comedienne who still has a show on HLN to give her something to do to a much smaller niche audience.
Put these five women at a table together and you get an absolute nightmare, and the folks who book guests are clearly gunning for the most explosive screaming matches disguised as conversations that they can find. Why else would they ask Ann Coulter to appear on the show? Look away, people. I hate Rosie O'Donnell, and even she learned to look away. So should you. "Two and a Half Men" is the most played-out, overdone show on TV. But even that is more enjoyable than "The View."
So there it is - my love/hate relationship with television. We go way back, and it runs deep. And clearly, I love to talk about it. But while I've been writing this, four hours of recorded television stacked up on the DVR. So I'd better get going. If you're still reading, find out what SHE said over at Uncomfortably Numb!
Way back when in our glory years, the summer was reserved for being outdoors; we had spent too many hours on our couches during the school year staying on top of our favorite shows and needed to be reminded what the sky looked like. For my younger readers, it should be noted that this was when the gods of TV programming told you when your show was going to air, and if that show was important to you, you made arrangements to oblige them. The time-shifting power of TiVo was nothing more than an idea at the time, and certainly not one floating around my neighborhood.
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| Thank God I skipped Betamax... |
Then, on the weekends, I would try to catch up. And hours-deep into my videotaped review of the past week, my eyes would narrow in a wicked snicker as I'd blast past the commercials (take THAT!) in an attempt to shorten the viewing time of a half-hour sitcom to its true 22 minutes of content. But there were two problems. First, the reaction time of the rewind, fast-forward and play buttons was so slow that after three attempts to come out of each commercial break at the right time to pick up with the episode, I'd added all of that time back anyway. And second, I failed to label those VHS tapes, adding hours of frustration to my viewing resulting from my having to pop each one in every time, trying to figure out what I'd watched already and where there was room left on a tape to record something else.
Kids, I hope you appreciate how good you've got it...
In a recent moment of self-psychoanalysis, I now wonder if my reticence to label recorded VHS tapes was a predicting factor that I would one day be a high school teacher teaching a class called "Mass Media" and exciting students with my TV unit, which highlights a variety of shows from the 1950s through today. Do you know how many shows I already had on those blank tapes? As it turned out, I was writing curriculum before it was cool, gathering my materials for a career I had never predicted I would have. And the reason the tapes were never labeled was because the shows on them were originally recorded for one-time viewing. I was then supposed to recycle the tapes and record more over them. But I couldn't bear to erase them. So I kept buying more tapes because an inner-voice so strongly said to me: "You might need these again some day."
That voice is currently sequestered in about six cardboard boxes in the back corner of my basement, and it has yet to learn of the TV-series-available-on-DVD phenomenon, though I stand justified until the day that they finally release "Chicago Hope" in this format. I have every episode on VHS. The rest of you have NONE. Keith-1, World-0. Hey...do you have a VHS player I can borrow to watch "Chicago Hope"?
It goes without saying that the arrival of the DVR made me feel like Joseph Smith receiving the golden plates. But with great time-shifting-and-recording power comes great responsibility. One must manage one's DVR. And I didn't know how. Before long, I had stuffed mine to 98 percent and, unable to keep up, was soon pitting show against show in electronic cage matches in my brain, the loser getting the delete button to make room for something else. I needed a better solution.
I needed a second DVR.
This brings me to today, both in the time-of-my-life sense and the actually-right-this-moment sense concurrently, and with not one but two DVRs consistently storing over 90 percent of their capacities with programming waiting to entertain or disappoint me. So in desperation, I created a few strategies a few years ago to navigate the waters of each new fall television season. The rules are not pretty and they've often caused me some pain, but here they are:
1. Carefully study the fall TV grid, using "Entertainment Weekly" as your Bible. Read about the shows. Look at cast lists and reports coming out of the industry. Make some initial judgments based completely on hearsay. You won't have time to try out everything.
2. Go day-by-day through the grid, highlighting anything that looks interesting and taking note of potential time-slot match-ups. And in the event that a given slot should present you with three worthy options, curse the programming gods for their overly-generous bounty and inevitably sacrifice something.
3. Record the first episode of anything that looks remotely interesting.
4. Attempt to watch everything before the second episodes air. If not, the rule states that you must continue to record episodes of said series until you've watched the first episode, because if you decide you do like the show, you'd be screwed if you missed the subsequent episodes. This rule is where things start to get messy and "TV Left Behind" syndrome kicks in. (More on that later...)
5. This is the rule that I get criticized for the most, and it's admittedly the most careless and even insane rule I have about television. But life is short, and here it is. If I am not hooked on a show after its pilot, we're done. Yes, you heard me. One and done. I almost never give a show a second chance, and this explains why I am not currently watching shows like "Community" and "Parks and Recreation." Both praised for their brilliance by fans and critics alike, their pilot episodes were shite. I know, I know...these things take time to gel and evolve into something wonderful. But I have six boxes of tapes in my basement and two full DVRs! I don't have time!
So what am I watching this fall? I'm finally about to tell you. And let me preface this by saying that I write this under a cloud of regret for all of the shows that I wish I was watching and am not. It might not be too late thanks to all of the ways we can now access shows whose ships have already sailed. But catching up feels daunting. I'm hoping that something on this list will be worth starting with and sticking with. And since the he said/she said format I'm writing with my friend Melissa is designed to feature lists of 13, I'm giving you my notes for the seven days of the week for new shows, plus six additional categories.
1. NEW ON SUNDAY
Nothing. Wow...so far this is easy. Sundays are filled with shows I wish I was watching, like "Homeland," "Boardwalk Empire" and "The Good Wife." I buy seasons of "The Simpsons" on DVD and torture myself with watching episodes from 10 years prior when the cultural references have become stale. But as far as new shows go, the only one I've recorded to check out is ABC's "666 Park Avenue." I haven't watched it yet, but it will have to be better than Sunday Night Football to keep my interest.
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| For those who always thought Superman was gay. |
"Partners," on CBS. Although I'm nearing gay-saturation with my TV viewing, I can't not watch a show created by and based on the lives of the two men who gave me "Will & Grace," one of my favorite sitcoms of all-time. Having Michael Urie (from "Ugly Betty") on board ups the ante, and I can't resist the novelty of a show about two men who are best friends and one is gay and one is straight, as this is exactly my life (my best friend is gay). I just have to see how this plays out. I've seen two episodes so far, and though I'm not blown away (check out former Man of Steel Brandon Routh as Urie's cardboard, lifeless boyfriend), I'm still in.
3. NEW ON TUESDAY
This is a big night. I've already checked out "Ben and Kate" on FOX. The show is getting picked as the year's best new sitcom by many publications. I watched it and laughed only once, making it the first victim of my fall viewing rule #5. Now I'm sure it will probably go on to be brilliant and win a bunch of Emmys and I'll be mad that I'm not watching it. But the rule is "one and done." I must oblige!
I've also already checked out "The Mindy Project" (FOX), which I liked a lot more, though I have no sentimental attachment to Mindy Kaling whatsoever as I do not regularly watch "The Office." I will probably give this show a few more tries to make a clear decision on it, but I enjoyed the pilot enough to move ahead.
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| Bryan and David: Utah's favorite couple |
As for "The New Normal," it's the one new show that I'm totally caught up on, and I'm surprised by how on-the-fence I still am about it. I could write an entire essay about my problems with the show, from its ridiculous stereotyping of every subset of humanity - a Ryan Murphy curse - to the fact that I cannot see the show's two leads as a couple at all. But I won't do that here. Instead, I will just say that the show's irreverence and snappy writing have kept me in the game, for now. Well, that and Ellen Barkin, who with better writing could be the 21st Century Archie Bunker. Just engrave the Emmy now. "Modern Family," your days of winning the supporting acting categories are numbered.
4. NEW ON WEDNESDAY
Another big night. I've already watched and immediately discarded "Animal Practice" (NBC). I've recorded "The Neighbors" (ABC) but haven't watched it yet. I've heard it's not that good but secretly want it to be, so I will still check it out. But Wednesdays come down to four shows that will make me dub this fall: Guilty Pleasures Wednesday. Here's why...
"Guys With Kids" (NBC). I am smart enough to know how conventional this show is. The live audience laughing at the darndest little things. The tired sitcom jokery. But I'm stuck enjoying it because of how closely I can identify with it. Yes, my kids are older than those portrayed on the show. And yes, I don't live in an apartment complex which conveniently also houses my two best friends and their families. But "Guys With Kids" is filled with tiny moments of recognition that ring so true to a guy my age raising kids. And I have to admit that I've already developed a boy crush on Zach Cregger. So even though I know better, I'm watching and laughing.
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| Am I excited? Abs-olutely. |
"Nashville" (ABC). I'm not a country fan, but I love music, and I love the premise behind this show, which I'm hoping will be my soap opera for the season. And it has Tammy Taylor (Connie Britton...RIP, "Friday Night Lights"), so I don't need more of a reason to watch, though having T Bone Burnett produce the music doesn't hurt.
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| McSmokey? (McSteamy was taken) |
5. NEW ON THURSDAY
Nothing. I remember when Thursdays were the night to watch TV. Not anymore. There are a few returning shows on this night I will continue to watch, but nothing new. "Elementary" looks interesting, but I suspect the British "Sherlock" is better, and I'm tired of the derivative. The other new shows look generic. I'm playing this night safely and staying out of it. Plus, it's "Grey's Anatomy" night for my wife, so I'd rather stay the hell away from the family room.
6. NEW ON FRIDAY
Again, nothing. Whew! I have too much to watch already.
7. NEW ON SATURDAY
What? There's TV on Saturday?
Okay, so I've identified 10 new shows I'm going to try out, indicating that I'm already invested in four of them for the long haul. So here's how I feel about everything else on TV:
8. REALITY TV VIEWING
So in a moment of weakness over the summer, I let a friend convince me to tune in to the train wreck that was "Here Comes Honey Boo Boo." Fully understanding the criticisms of the show, I allowed myself to get hooked. But the novelty eventually wore off, and the last three episodes of its first season are taking up room on my living room DVR like Mama June on her living room couch. I think I've been reminded that there's only one kind of reality TV I can handle.
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| Game of thrones |
So will I watch "American Idol"? I want to say no, but I can't resist checking out the new judges panel, at least for a few weeks, for the same reason that any of us check out any real-life craziness on any other reality shows we watch. And then, once I've satisfied my curiosity and if I have any brain, I'll give it up. And television wouldn't take my brain, would it?
9. RETURNING SHOWS I WILL CONTINUE TO WATCH
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| Happy Endings: adding to the English language |
I am also committed to satisfying my musical theatre side with "Glee" and "Smash." "Glee" can end at any time and I'd live, but I like the curves it's throwing so far this season. Like creator Ryan Murphy's newest show, "The New Normal," I have as many problems with it as I do reasons to love it, but I can't bear to look away. And Sue Sylvester remains one of the best characters on TV. "Smash," by comparison, is a more adult "Glee," and is really just getting started. Many of the numbers created for its first season were actually quite good, and I'd like to see where it goes.
Though I'm a few episodes behind still, "30 Rock" and "Modern Family" are two additional sitcoms I will continue to watch. "30 Rock" is in its final season, and though the show hasn't felt like it's had anywhere to go for a good year now, I want to see it through to the end. Plus it's still by far the most unconventional comedy I watch out of a litany of traditional comedies, such as "Modern Family," which after you strip away the novelty of the documentary style of it has fast become the very definition of conventional. But "30 Rock" is the most surprisingly written show I watch, and "Modern Family" is so brilliantly performed that I can't dislike it. I have a bunch of last season's episodes to finish of each show, but am still invested.
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| Awaiting a Stefan sighting: reason enough to watch SNL |
Honorable mentions must go here to "The Daily Show" and "Colbert Report," which I try to catch as often as time allows but do not weigh myself down with daily viewing requirements, and cable news networks, which are my favorite way to fill smaller amounts of free time. And Sundays are still for football in my house, whether on a network, ESPN or NFL Redzone, the glorious, ADD-themed experience where the show's host (who I think is related to the host of "Wipe Out," strangely enough) sends you from touchdown to touchdown across the country, the sports version of an adult film made up of only money shots. There was a time when watching two football games in the red zone on a split screen at the same time would have made me nuts. And then I bought a bigger TV.
10. THE SEARCH FOR A GREAT TALK SHOW
I'm not ashamed - male though I be - to admit that I've had a conspicuous O-shaped hole in my life since that fateful day when Ms. Winfrey selfishly ceased operation of her daily Chicago-based talk show. I would DVR the show every day, and my decompression time after work included checking out what was on "Oprah." If the episode focused on something dealing with makeovers or lady bits, I'd simply delete. But more often, I was riveted. And ever since she left ABC, I've been searching for a replacement.
I love Anderson Cooper as a news anchor and have been disappointed and shocked by how much I have not liked his afternoon talk show. This year, it's gotten even worse, as Anderson has changed its format to include a live taping and a rotating daily co-host - one who's inevitably on the D list and virtually irrelevant. And why can't Anderson breathe during the day? I'm annoyed by his audible inhales when he talks. Diaphragm, man! In order to continue to respect him on CNN, I had to let him go here.
The thought of another TV journo-love of mine, Katie Couric, returning, also had me excited. But I watched her episode on "50 Shades of Grey" in her new show's second week, and quickly learned that Couric had lost her magic. She's reduced herself to punny jokes, themed wardrobe choices (like a leather outfit for this particular episode) and lowest-common-denominator interview questions. I am devastated and done.
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| Oprah: my questions, your house |
So my must-watch talk show as of now has to be..."Oprah's Next Chapter." What I've learned is that no one can handle the format like Lady O, so why bother attempting to replace her? Has anyone on another talk show done an interview as compelling as the one with Kony 2012 mastermind Jason Russell or even Steven Colbert? And since the show airs only once a week, the time commitment is much smaller and my guilt non-existent.
11. SHOWS I HAVE NEVER WATCHED BUT WISH I WAS WATCHING: MY EMBARRASSING LIST OF MISSED OPPORTUNITIES AWAITING NETFLIXED REDEMPTION
"Keith, you would love 'Game of Thrones'." Indeed I would. But I've never seen it. I'll wait for the DVDs, I guess. But who am I kidding?
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| Meth-od acting at its finest? |
"Thrones" is but one of a handful of shows that I freely admit I am not in my right mind for passing over. Shows so good that I risk giving up my serious TV-viewer card for skipping. How in the name of God did I not immediately latch on to "Breaking Bad"? Why would I pass up "The Good Wife," with that cast? Mandy Patinkin is on "Homeland"...isn't that enough, or do you need to throw in Clare Danes, too? What? She's on there, too? What is wrong with me?!?
Scorsese created "Boardwalk Empire." Why am I not watching the marvelous Steve Buscemi every week, instead of getting him in small doses via Coen Brothers films on Starz? And given my love for Neil Patrick Harris and the always charming Jason Segal, was I smoking pot for not latching on to "How I Met Your Mother"? And speaking of pot, shouldn't I be watching "Weeds"?
Coulda, woulda, shoulda. Yeah...I know. But I'm damn-near embarrassed to admit that I have yet to watch any of these shows. If you asked me today, "Breaking Bad" feels like the show I'm most inclined to pick up in an effort to correct this problem. But this leads me to my last point...
12. "LEFT BEHIND TV": SHOWS I ONCE WATCHED AND LOVED OR BEGAN TO WATCH AND LOVE THAT HAVE CONTINUED TO PILE UP ON THE DVR OR DVD SHELF, STILL UNWATCHED (A PSYCHOANALYSIS)
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| Damn you, handsome devil! |
But when life got too busy for me, I allowed one of my favorite shows to pile up on the DVR. I became overwhelmed and froze up. Before long, the retail releases of the seasons arrived, so I bought them to allow me to free up those hours on the recorder. I could get to them on my own time, I thought. And as time and subsequent seasons march on, I continue to spout off about how amazing the show is based on what little of it I've seen.
Not finishing things is a character flaw of mine. And while discussing the fall television season seems to be a rather trite setting in which to discuss a genuine personality flaw, I've come to recognize this "Mad Men" thing as a metaphor for other aspects of my life. I love the show so much that I appear to be saving it for some special time when it has the full attention of my soul, opting instead for the consumption of lesser things that fill my time but don't fulfill it. And soon, I am "left behind," the award-winning programming raptured up to television heaven without me.
Some of the best shows on television join "Mad Men" on my list of shame. My other favorite drama is "Parenthood." Love it! Well, loved season one. Taped all of season two, then season three. Bought season two on DVD so I could erase it from the DVR (season three was still too expensive). And now I'm taping season four. (Or are we on season five now?) In my mind, I've never stopped loving the show. But when will I catch up?
Genre shows like "The Walking Dead" and "American Horror Story"? Love them. Two or three episodes apiece. And the rest is on the bedroom DVR. And shows like "The Tudors" and "Spartacus"? I watched all but the final seasons and hope to one day seal the deals, especially considering that the shows are now over.
And, most inexplicably, I'm a season back on "The Big Bang Theory." At least with this show, I've seen almost three full seasons (if I'm not mistaken), so I have a lot more invested. But why did I stop? Ditto "True Blood," a show I always manage to be just one full season behind. So close, and yet so far away.
I am looking forward to the invention of Life TiVo, that glorious day when I can pause the universe and hit play on all of this wonderful stuff I've been missing. Until then, I will rave about all of these shows, whether I've seen much of them or not. I can't give up hope that one day I'll fulfill my viewing promises to myself.
13. PLEASE LEAVE MY BOX RIGHT NOW: THE SHOW THAT NEEDS TO GO AWAY
There is no scripted show so heinous, no reality show so devoid of morality, as "The View," a daily round-tabled cage match of peri-to-post-menopausal women shrieking about everything and anything and a show that I dare say fills the gap left by Jerry Springer, even though its aims are admittedly far more noble.
Whenever I have a day off of work, a two-minute glance at this show leaves me thankful that I am gainfully employed and unable to watch with regularity.
Taken individually, the show features some interesting and talented women. Whoopi Goldberg has an EGOT, for goodness' sake! She belongs back on the big screen. Barbara Walters has had a storied journalism career and now needs to retire. Elizabeth Hasselbeck is probably a wonderful mom and should be campaigning locally for the Republican candidates of her choice. Sherri Shepard is hilarious and should limit her work to playing Tracy Morgan's wife on "30 Rock." And Joy Behar is a bitter, once-funny comedienne who still has a show on HLN to give her something to do to a much smaller niche audience.
Put these five women at a table together and you get an absolute nightmare, and the folks who book guests are clearly gunning for the most explosive screaming matches disguised as conversations that they can find. Why else would they ask Ann Coulter to appear on the show? Look away, people. I hate Rosie O'Donnell, and even she learned to look away. So should you. "Two and a Half Men" is the most played-out, overdone show on TV. But even that is more enjoyable than "The View."
So there it is - my love/hate relationship with television. We go way back, and it runs deep. And clearly, I love to talk about it. But while I've been writing this, four hours of recorded television stacked up on the DVR. So I'd better get going. If you're still reading, find out what SHE said over at Uncomfortably Numb!
Sunday, September 23, 2012
Shamon! "Bad" kicks off my new "RE:3" series
Welcome to my first in what will be a new feature on my upcoming pop culture website, a joint venture with my good friend, the ridiculously talented Melissa. When we first spoke about creating a site, I knew quickly that this was a feature I wanted to do.
Have you ever pulled out an old record, CD or tape you used to love and listened to it straight through after years to see if it still sounded as good as it did back then? I do it all the time. And after hitting rock bottom in an attempt to reclaim my childhood by duking it out in a high-stakes Ebay auction for a copy of Milli Vanilli's "Girl You Know It's True" on CD (I only own the cassette, you see) to relive the memories and decide if I liked the songs now as much as I did then (all scandals as to whose vocal cords were vibrating on said record aside), I knew that it would be a worthwhile regular project to go back to the music that meant so much to me in my formative years to either reaffirm what I felt back then and dip my pinkie in the fountain of sonic youth (see what I did there?) or otherwise have a "what the hell was I thinking?" moment as a mature adult with a wise and well-developed musical palate.
For lack of a better name, I'm currently calling my new feature "RE:3," as in "records" or "recordings," "revisited" and "reviewed" (or "re-reviewed").
It makes sense to begin my musical journey with Michael Jackson's "Bad," as the CD was just re-released this week as a 25th Anniversary remaster with lots of bonus stuff. And although I will touch on some of that bonus material briefly, my goal is to concentrate on the original work. We know that "Bad" was so good back in 1987, breaking records for number of single releases from an album (nine of the 11 tracks were singles!) and setting a benchmark for five consecutive number one singles that held up until Katy Perry managed it this past year. And we know that Michael Jackson was possessed with trying to top the success of "Thriller," and "Bad" came the closest.
But now that "Bad" is 25, I'm hearing some critics speak the words of a heretic in daring to posit that perhaps, pound-for-pound, "Bad" is Jackson's greatest album. It's a thought that's crossed my mind for years, though I dared not speak those words aloud. And it was time to analyze that claim.
What I know for sure is that "Bad" was MJ's final album created under the principle of economy. His adult breakthrough, "Off the Wall," had 10 tracks on it, and its follow-up, "Thriller," had only nine. This is shocking considering how substantial both albums - particularly "Thriller" - feel. "Bad" has 11 tracks, and I seem to recall its final cut, "Leave Me Alone" being a cassette-only bonus track, so you could argue that it also had 10. Regardless, Jackson would follow four years later with "Dangerous," which was still brilliant song craft but bloated by comparison at 14 tracks and, maybe for the first time, starting to show that the great one was capable of misjudging a production and including a clunker or two. Jackson would never again give his fans a tight disc of audible perfection; he would begin to show his humanity and have some whiffs to go along with his home runs. And he would never again employ a producer with the force of Quincy Jones to tell him no.
In this feature, I decided to challenge myself by ranking tracks on each album I revisit from favorite to least-favorite, a task that was mind-blowingly stupid and difficult with a record like "Bad" that contained 80 percent released singles (50 percent of them number one singles). With that in mind, I can preface this run-down by mentioning that there's only one track of the 11 that I truly don't care for (though none I hate), and the songs I ranked at 1-8 are up there with any of my favorite Michael Jackson songs from any album.
So here goes. My track-by-track revisit of "Bad," in the order I currently feel reflects what I like the best:
1. Smooth Criminal (track 10)
It's interesting that three of my four favorite songs on "Bad" are the only ones that did not hit #1 on the Billboard charts. Somewhat shocking to me even today, "Smooth Criminal" peaked at #7. Still, it was my favorite Michael Jackson song, period, when I was a kid, and whether or not that title still holds for me today (and it probably does), repeat listenings have reminded me that "Smooth Criminal" is still far-and-away my favorite track from "Bad."
Some of it has to be because of the music video, which was also always my favorite. Yes, the video for "Thriller" was the most iconic, and yes, the introduction of the moonwalk during the Motown 25th anniversary special gave us his most breathtaking dance move, but who doesn't still freak out when Michael, dressed his best in a white suit with an electric blue shirt and black tie, fedora precariously perched on his head, leans forward at what appears to be a full 45 degree angle, both feet inexplicably planted on the ground, both legs improbably straight? Jackson never looked cooler than this. It wasn't long before his clothes were punctuated with enough buckles to tighten the pants of the entire Von Trapp family and his fetish for military wear-by-way-of-a-drag-queen began to permanently cloud his fashion judgment.
Only "Billie Jean" can challenge "Smooth Criminal" as MJ's greatest story song. And they're always about women. Here, Annie is clearly not okay...the victim of an attack in her apartment at the hands of a mysterious and paradoxically debonair assailant. I always thought the lyrics were cool because they were so different, and because of them, I never made it through CPR re-certification without flippantly exploding into the song's catchy question of a refrain.
But the greatest triumph of "Smooth Criminal" is its mood. The song's sonic palate is staccato, disturbed. It's a little faster than a typical MJ beat. And it's punctuated with explosive screams of "Dowwww!!!" in just the right spots to keep the listener locked into an inescapable intensity. Layer onto this Michael's vocal, a choppy delivery that sounds like bullets being fired from a gun, just as its video would later illustrate.
Even 25 years later, "Smooth Criminal" feels, sounds and looks as good to me as it did back then.
2. Man in the Mirror (track 7)
I remember when one's confession of love for "Man in the Mirror" was ammunition for a playground beatdown, so cheesy was its synth line and its self-help lyrics. But then, when Michael died, the song lost every existing drop of irony. It has become to Michael what "I Will Always Love You" has become in the wake of the death of Whitney Houston. It is the track for remembering Michael's heart, humanity and mission statement as an artist.
Perhaps I masked my appreciation for "Man in the Mirror" a bit as a 14-year-old, but even if I did, I always loved the song if for no other reason than the fact that I'm a sucker for a well-used choir. And "Man in the Mirror" is nothing if not a powerful showcase for half of the Winans family and Andre Crouch's choir to swoop in and convince me to "make that change."
I think "Man in the Mirror" is Michael's most important song because it stripped away his lunacy and eccentricities and, with raw emotion and direct, bare lyrics (courtesy of Siedah Garrett and Glen Ballard, as this was the only single from "Bad" that Michael did not write himself), Michael could, for five minutes, push away our memories of whatever it was about him that made his less than a truly caring human being.
Now that I'm older, I love the song more than I ever did. Few things in life make me smile as easily as overhearing one of my own children singing along to the song when it comes on. And if Michael had to be remembered for only five songs (what a cruel concept, huh?), who would argue that this track would have to be one of them?
3. Another Part of Me (track 6)
I guess "Another Part of Me" was "Bad"'s first clunker as a single, stalling just outside the top 10 at #11 after the first five singles on the album had all reached #1. Yes, stalling at #11 was the very definition of failure when you were Michael Jackson. But to me, it was the song that took MJ to a whole different level.
I could never talk about "Another Part of Me" without talking about a girl named Camille Graham with whom I shared many classes in high school. This was Camille's favorite MJ song, and she was so vocal about her love for it that we couldn't help but love it too. At the time, I had dropped my "Bad" cassette in its wooden slot in my wall-mounted cassette case in favor of sister Janet's "Control," which had just been released and had, for me, overshadowed "Bad" as my favorite of the two albums.
But Camille and I nurtured a mutual respect for Janet's "The Pleasure Principle" and Michael's "Another Part of Me" built on our shared love of all things Jackson. And while all these later I don't remember that much about Camille, I remember how easily a song can become someone's signature, or at least become my memory of a person.
As for the song itself, it's classic Michael: a propulsive and steady groove lifting positive lyrics about "brighter days." My enjoyment of the song has held up over time.
4. Liberian Girl (track 4)
I've read a lot lately about how underrated "Human Nature" is as an exquisitely-written and produced pop track, and only in my advancing age have I come to understand that "Liberian Girl" is "Bad"'s "Human Nature," its musical restraint and sonic beauty a gem for Michael's more adult listeners.
No track on "Bad" that I can think of has gone up in stock as I've gotten older as much as this song has for me. I can remember not caring much about it, and now I find it to be one Jackson's greatest moments on record. A softly-delivered female vocal part whispers in Swahili, assisted by a double downbeat-driven groove that's part Caribbean island, part African. And there's no question that the song's greatest feature is thanks to Michael's infamous studio wizardry, and that's his use of layering his own vocals until he's created a choir out of his own voice. MJ did that a lot, but I'm not sure if it ever sounded better than it does here.
5. Leave Me Alone (track 11)
By the time Michael got to his "HIStory" album, the songs he was writing about how difficult it was to be him were growing a little tiresome to listeners because of all that Jackson seemed to have brought upon himself, making "Leave Me Alone" perhaps his best self-defense track, the best song he'd written about himself. This is likely because although some very bizarre tabloid stories had circulated about the star, he was still endlessly likeable and the public had yet to discover that he was capable of making any decisions that would challenge his moral character.
Once again, the success of "Leave Me Alone" as a song is largely inseparable from its music video, a "Gullivers Travels"-inspired piece of genius in which Michael embraces - and mocks - every famous rumor about him. Only Peter Gabriel's "Sledgehammer" video contained so much whimsy and computer-generated wizardry.
When I hear the song now, I'm sobered. We didn't, after all, leave him alone. It's a somber listen today because he sings it as a humble request with a vocal largely free of vitriol. And we walked all over him for it.
6. The Way You Make Me Feel (track 2)
I bet many would pick "The Way You Make Me Feel" as their favorite Michael Jackson song from this album, but I remember this song as being the most overplayed from the album on the radio, and I think I got a little tired of it. And besides, one of the song's greatest moments never appears on record, but instead, happens in the music video, where a pop star on the prowl circles a beautiful woman on a street corner, snaps his fingers, and delivers an a cappella "You knock me off of my feet now bay-bay...HOOOOOO!" that, thanks to its naked exposure, stands as one of the greatest vocal moments of Jackson's entire career.
"The Way You Make Me Feel" is feel-good Michael at its pinnacle,and one of his best examples of a perfect-tempoed groove. He delivered the track long before we questioned whether or not the expression of such joyful feelings about a woman was a genuine sentiment. And even after all these years, the song is as ready-made for singing behind the wheel as anything I can think of.
7. Bad (track 1)
How in the hell did Martin Scorese come to direct one of Michael Jackson's most MTV-exploting and uber-choreographed music videos? How heavy was that outfit with all of that metal hanging off of it? And how could the authentically-tough-looking gang members of "Beat It" suddenly look so effeminate? I had many questions about "Bad" back then, and some linger. (I'm hoping Spike Lee's forthcoming documentary on the anniversary of the album will provide me with some closure.)
One thing I never questioned was the four ascending synth chords that usher in "Bad"'s opening and title track. It's true that we were never convinced for even a second that Jackson was as tough as he sang he was in the song, so I think we spent a good amount of time laughing at it. But make no mistake, we were grooving to one of his catchiest bass lines while we were doing it. And then, when Jackson himself expressed enjoyment over Weird Al Yankovic's second food-related parody of one of his songs, we enjoyed "Bad" all the more.
It might seem like a gesture of dislike on my part to have placed "Bad" this low on my list, but I have to be honest and say that while I've always enjoyed the song, I've also always thought of it as a bit of a novelty track for Jackson, and listening to it afresh in 2012 confirms for me that while I've made some egregious errors in judgment when it comes to my musical tastes, this was not one of them. It's a fun song, but it's also bad....in a good way.
8. Dirty Diana (track 9)
Perhaps the biggest problem I had with "Dirty Diana" was that my mom's name is Diana and while any parallels between her and the Diana Michael sings about here were absolute impossibilities, the song at least put those thoughts in my head. So I distanced myself from it a little bit.
I also didn't know what to do with Jackson's rock side yet, though I was smart enough to understand how, as he had with Eddie Van Halen on "Thriler," Jackson could please fans of almost every genre short of skiffle on one individual album. Here again is a song that opens with a crazy electronic chord, a recurring sonic theme on the album. And then a crowd comes in. This was Jackson fighting off the women, his crazy female fans. And at the chorus, in comes hair-sprayed-to-hell metal god Steve Stevens with a crisp, bracing guitar solo. And we knew there was nothing that Michael couldn't do.
Listening to "Dirty Diana" now, I can almost see it as "Billie Jean 2.0," at least thematically. It's a great rock vocal from an R&B/pop star. And it's certainly the most dramatic track on "Bad," with only "Smooth Criminal" in competition for that title.
9. Just Good Friends (track 5)
Okay, I'll admit that I skipped "Just Good Friends" as a kid on my cassette. The song was kind of a throw-away. And it still is, but it has appreciated dramatically in value by simple virtue of the fact that it's a duet between Jackson and Stevie Wonder. No matter how you look at it, the song has everlasting value for that reason alone.
The track is filled with Stevie's Moog-banging keyboard groove, a sound that dominated his own 80s output, and I'm fascinated when I listen to it now because it truly feels like a collaboration between the two, something I might not have deduced - much less appreciated - when I was in junior high. Upon revisiting the track, I'm surprised by how much I enjoy what I otherwise know is a throwaway track if the lean "Bad" has one. But it's also a track with two of my all-time favorite artists on it, so I've had fun rediscovering it.
10. Speed Demon (track 3)
Was Michael sneezing at the end of each groove line on the intro to "Speed Demon"? "Choo!" For me, this was always the most Michael-sounding track on "Bad" that never fully clicked for me. It's incredibly mechanical, particularly in its use of a repetitive ascending-then-decending keyboard run that happens so quickly, and it's overused. The car noises felt like gimmicks, distractions. Only a Prince-style guitar part saves the track from being completely inorganic, and that feature of the song has too low of a profile in the mix.
11. I Just Can't Stop Loving You (track 8)
"I Just Can't Stop Loving You" has always been my least favorite Michael Jackson single. I'm not sure if I still feel that way today, but if I did a full reassessment, I don't think my feelings will have changed much. This is no slight on Siedah Garrett, who's genius on "Bad" was more successfully used as the co-writer of "Man in the Mirror." But for me, "I Just Can't Stop Loving You" was always soaking wet with syrup. Not even an emotional softie like me could stand how ready-made the song was for airplay in Hallmark stores around the country.
The way the vocal enters in from that softly sustained chord is high drama, and before the end of the first verse, I've had about enough. Yes, it's a good vocal. A damn good one, in fact. And there's no doubt that there's true emotion behind it. And yes, the song builds successfully to its climax. But for me, it was too much then and it's even more too much now.
A fresh listen to "Bad," summarized:
My revisit to bad found me feeling surprisingly the same toward most of its cuts today as I felt about it in 1987, the key exception being my new found excitement for "Liberian Girl." And though I listened to it repeatedly in recent days to write this review, I'm still not certain I can say whether or not this is the best Michael Jackson album. (It's amazing how important sentiment and memory is to determining something like this, and I have a deeper affection for "Bad"'s follow-up, "Dangerous," knowing full well that this is a much tighter album.)
I would recommend picking up at least the two-disc version of the anniversary reissue of "Bad," because you've got to hear many of the bonus tracks pulled from the era's recording sessions and included here without further production work (thank you, MJ's estate!). "Don't Be Messin' Round" is slight but light, fun and funky. "Song Groove (aka Abortion Papers)" hints at Michael's interest in tackling controversial topics with compassion. It's an extension of "Billie Jean," and it's also clear why he decided to abandon it, probably not confident enough that it would be taken in the spirit in which he intended it. And "Price of Fame" is a cousin to "Leave Me Alone," a prophetic early look at the ills that were already starting to befall the king of pop.
My favorite of the unreleased tracks is the transcendent "I'm So Blue," with its melody line and hook so catchy that it instantly becomes as memorable as anything that made the album's final cut. It would have done well on "Bad." I absolutely adore it. And I'm also a fan of "Al Capone," Jackson's first incarnation of what would later become "Smooth Criminal." It's simply fascinating to here what Jackson originally did with his ideas and listen for the pieces he kept and what he discarded. "Capone"'s groove stood on its own just fine, though "Smooth Criminal" further improved upon it.
Jackson's estate handed "Bad" and "Speed Demon" over to some contemporary EDM remixers, with results worthy of forgetting. Infusing a Pitbull rap in the Afrojack remix of "Bad" is what the song finally needed for it to live up to its title in the literal sense. Yes, the groove is freshened up for contemporary audiences, but how necessary is that for a song that is already perfectly funky? And while the Nero remix of "Speed Demon" is the less annoying of the two, it feels equally unnecessary, as if Skrillex jumped into the driver's seat of the car we keep hearing in the original and bumped MJ to the back.Why mess with a good thing? Especially when it's so "Bad."
Have you ever pulled out an old record, CD or tape you used to love and listened to it straight through after years to see if it still sounded as good as it did back then? I do it all the time. And after hitting rock bottom in an attempt to reclaim my childhood by duking it out in a high-stakes Ebay auction for a copy of Milli Vanilli's "Girl You Know It's True" on CD (I only own the cassette, you see) to relive the memories and decide if I liked the songs now as much as I did then (all scandals as to whose vocal cords were vibrating on said record aside), I knew that it would be a worthwhile regular project to go back to the music that meant so much to me in my formative years to either reaffirm what I felt back then and dip my pinkie in the fountain of sonic youth (see what I did there?) or otherwise have a "what the hell was I thinking?" moment as a mature adult with a wise and well-developed musical palate.
For lack of a better name, I'm currently calling my new feature "RE:3," as in "records" or "recordings," "revisited" and "reviewed" (or "re-reviewed").
It makes sense to begin my musical journey with Michael Jackson's "Bad," as the CD was just re-released this week as a 25th Anniversary remaster with lots of bonus stuff. And although I will touch on some of that bonus material briefly, my goal is to concentrate on the original work. We know that "Bad" was so good back in 1987, breaking records for number of single releases from an album (nine of the 11 tracks were singles!) and setting a benchmark for five consecutive number one singles that held up until Katy Perry managed it this past year. And we know that Michael Jackson was possessed with trying to top the success of "Thriller," and "Bad" came the closest.
But now that "Bad" is 25, I'm hearing some critics speak the words of a heretic in daring to posit that perhaps, pound-for-pound, "Bad" is Jackson's greatest album. It's a thought that's crossed my mind for years, though I dared not speak those words aloud. And it was time to analyze that claim.
What I know for sure is that "Bad" was MJ's final album created under the principle of economy. His adult breakthrough, "Off the Wall," had 10 tracks on it, and its follow-up, "Thriller," had only nine. This is shocking considering how substantial both albums - particularly "Thriller" - feel. "Bad" has 11 tracks, and I seem to recall its final cut, "Leave Me Alone" being a cassette-only bonus track, so you could argue that it also had 10. Regardless, Jackson would follow four years later with "Dangerous," which was still brilliant song craft but bloated by comparison at 14 tracks and, maybe for the first time, starting to show that the great one was capable of misjudging a production and including a clunker or two. Jackson would never again give his fans a tight disc of audible perfection; he would begin to show his humanity and have some whiffs to go along with his home runs. And he would never again employ a producer with the force of Quincy Jones to tell him no.
In this feature, I decided to challenge myself by ranking tracks on each album I revisit from favorite to least-favorite, a task that was mind-blowingly stupid and difficult with a record like "Bad" that contained 80 percent released singles (50 percent of them number one singles). With that in mind, I can preface this run-down by mentioning that there's only one track of the 11 that I truly don't care for (though none I hate), and the songs I ranked at 1-8 are up there with any of my favorite Michael Jackson songs from any album.
So here goes. My track-by-track revisit of "Bad," in the order I currently feel reflects what I like the best:
1. Smooth Criminal (track 10)
 |
| MJ in a gangsta lean. NOW who's bad? |
Some of it has to be because of the music video, which was also always my favorite. Yes, the video for "Thriller" was the most iconic, and yes, the introduction of the moonwalk during the Motown 25th anniversary special gave us his most breathtaking dance move, but who doesn't still freak out when Michael, dressed his best in a white suit with an electric blue shirt and black tie, fedora precariously perched on his head, leans forward at what appears to be a full 45 degree angle, both feet inexplicably planted on the ground, both legs improbably straight? Jackson never looked cooler than this. It wasn't long before his clothes were punctuated with enough buckles to tighten the pants of the entire Von Trapp family and his fetish for military wear-by-way-of-a-drag-queen began to permanently cloud his fashion judgment.
Only "Billie Jean" can challenge "Smooth Criminal" as MJ's greatest story song. And they're always about women. Here, Annie is clearly not okay...the victim of an attack in her apartment at the hands of a mysterious and paradoxically debonair assailant. I always thought the lyrics were cool because they were so different, and because of them, I never made it through CPR re-certification without flippantly exploding into the song's catchy question of a refrain.
But the greatest triumph of "Smooth Criminal" is its mood. The song's sonic palate is staccato, disturbed. It's a little faster than a typical MJ beat. And it's punctuated with explosive screams of "Dowwww!!!" in just the right spots to keep the listener locked into an inescapable intensity. Layer onto this Michael's vocal, a choppy delivery that sounds like bullets being fired from a gun, just as its video would later illustrate.
Even 25 years later, "Smooth Criminal" feels, sounds and looks as good to me as it did back then.
2. Man in the Mirror (track 7)
I remember when one's confession of love for "Man in the Mirror" was ammunition for a playground beatdown, so cheesy was its synth line and its self-help lyrics. But then, when Michael died, the song lost every existing drop of irony. It has become to Michael what "I Will Always Love You" has become in the wake of the death of Whitney Houston. It is the track for remembering Michael's heart, humanity and mission statement as an artist.
Perhaps I masked my appreciation for "Man in the Mirror" a bit as a 14-year-old, but even if I did, I always loved the song if for no other reason than the fact that I'm a sucker for a well-used choir. And "Man in the Mirror" is nothing if not a powerful showcase for half of the Winans family and Andre Crouch's choir to swoop in and convince me to "make that change."
I think "Man in the Mirror" is Michael's most important song because it stripped away his lunacy and eccentricities and, with raw emotion and direct, bare lyrics (courtesy of Siedah Garrett and Glen Ballard, as this was the only single from "Bad" that Michael did not write himself), Michael could, for five minutes, push away our memories of whatever it was about him that made his less than a truly caring human being.
Now that I'm older, I love the song more than I ever did. Few things in life make me smile as easily as overhearing one of my own children singing along to the song when it comes on. And if Michael had to be remembered for only five songs (what a cruel concept, huh?), who would argue that this track would have to be one of them?
3. Another Part of Me (track 6)
I guess "Another Part of Me" was "Bad"'s first clunker as a single, stalling just outside the top 10 at #11 after the first five singles on the album had all reached #1. Yes, stalling at #11 was the very definition of failure when you were Michael Jackson. But to me, it was the song that took MJ to a whole different level.
I could never talk about "Another Part of Me" without talking about a girl named Camille Graham with whom I shared many classes in high school. This was Camille's favorite MJ song, and she was so vocal about her love for it that we couldn't help but love it too. At the time, I had dropped my "Bad" cassette in its wooden slot in my wall-mounted cassette case in favor of sister Janet's "Control," which had just been released and had, for me, overshadowed "Bad" as my favorite of the two albums.
But Camille and I nurtured a mutual respect for Janet's "The Pleasure Principle" and Michael's "Another Part of Me" built on our shared love of all things Jackson. And while all these later I don't remember that much about Camille, I remember how easily a song can become someone's signature, or at least become my memory of a person.
As for the song itself, it's classic Michael: a propulsive and steady groove lifting positive lyrics about "brighter days." My enjoyment of the song has held up over time.
4. Liberian Girl (track 4)
I've read a lot lately about how underrated "Human Nature" is as an exquisitely-written and produced pop track, and only in my advancing age have I come to understand that "Liberian Girl" is "Bad"'s "Human Nature," its musical restraint and sonic beauty a gem for Michael's more adult listeners.
No track on "Bad" that I can think of has gone up in stock as I've gotten older as much as this song has for me. I can remember not caring much about it, and now I find it to be one Jackson's greatest moments on record. A softly-delivered female vocal part whispers in Swahili, assisted by a double downbeat-driven groove that's part Caribbean island, part African. And there's no question that the song's greatest feature is thanks to Michael's infamous studio wizardry, and that's his use of layering his own vocals until he's created a choir out of his own voice. MJ did that a lot, but I'm not sure if it ever sounded better than it does here.
5. Leave Me Alone (track 11)
By the time Michael got to his "HIStory" album, the songs he was writing about how difficult it was to be him were growing a little tiresome to listeners because of all that Jackson seemed to have brought upon himself, making "Leave Me Alone" perhaps his best self-defense track, the best song he'd written about himself. This is likely because although some very bizarre tabloid stories had circulated about the star, he was still endlessly likeable and the public had yet to discover that he was capable of making any decisions that would challenge his moral character.
Once again, the success of "Leave Me Alone" as a song is largely inseparable from its music video, a "Gullivers Travels"-inspired piece of genius in which Michael embraces - and mocks - every famous rumor about him. Only Peter Gabriel's "Sledgehammer" video contained so much whimsy and computer-generated wizardry.
When I hear the song now, I'm sobered. We didn't, after all, leave him alone. It's a somber listen today because he sings it as a humble request with a vocal largely free of vitriol. And we walked all over him for it.
6. The Way You Make Me Feel (track 2)
I bet many would pick "The Way You Make Me Feel" as their favorite Michael Jackson song from this album, but I remember this song as being the most overplayed from the album on the radio, and I think I got a little tired of it. And besides, one of the song's greatest moments never appears on record, but instead, happens in the music video, where a pop star on the prowl circles a beautiful woman on a street corner, snaps his fingers, and delivers an a cappella "You knock me off of my feet now bay-bay...HOOOOOO!" that, thanks to its naked exposure, stands as one of the greatest vocal moments of Jackson's entire career.
"The Way You Make Me Feel" is feel-good Michael at its pinnacle,and one of his best examples of a perfect-tempoed groove. He delivered the track long before we questioned whether or not the expression of such joyful feelings about a woman was a genuine sentiment. And even after all these years, the song is as ready-made for singing behind the wheel as anything I can think of.
7. Bad (track 1)
How in the hell did Martin Scorese come to direct one of Michael Jackson's most MTV-exploting and uber-choreographed music videos? How heavy was that outfit with all of that metal hanging off of it? And how could the authentically-tough-looking gang members of "Beat It" suddenly look so effeminate? I had many questions about "Bad" back then, and some linger. (I'm hoping Spike Lee's forthcoming documentary on the anniversary of the album will provide me with some closure.)
One thing I never questioned was the four ascending synth chords that usher in "Bad"'s opening and title track. It's true that we were never convinced for even a second that Jackson was as tough as he sang he was in the song, so I think we spent a good amount of time laughing at it. But make no mistake, we were grooving to one of his catchiest bass lines while we were doing it. And then, when Jackson himself expressed enjoyment over Weird Al Yankovic's second food-related parody of one of his songs, we enjoyed "Bad" all the more.
It might seem like a gesture of dislike on my part to have placed "Bad" this low on my list, but I have to be honest and say that while I've always enjoyed the song, I've also always thought of it as a bit of a novelty track for Jackson, and listening to it afresh in 2012 confirms for me that while I've made some egregious errors in judgment when it comes to my musical tastes, this was not one of them. It's a fun song, but it's also bad....in a good way.
8. Dirty Diana (track 9)
Perhaps the biggest problem I had with "Dirty Diana" was that my mom's name is Diana and while any parallels between her and the Diana Michael sings about here were absolute impossibilities, the song at least put those thoughts in my head. So I distanced myself from it a little bit.
I also didn't know what to do with Jackson's rock side yet, though I was smart enough to understand how, as he had with Eddie Van Halen on "Thriler," Jackson could please fans of almost every genre short of skiffle on one individual album. Here again is a song that opens with a crazy electronic chord, a recurring sonic theme on the album. And then a crowd comes in. This was Jackson fighting off the women, his crazy female fans. And at the chorus, in comes hair-sprayed-to-hell metal god Steve Stevens with a crisp, bracing guitar solo. And we knew there was nothing that Michael couldn't do.
Listening to "Dirty Diana" now, I can almost see it as "Billie Jean 2.0," at least thematically. It's a great rock vocal from an R&B/pop star. And it's certainly the most dramatic track on "Bad," with only "Smooth Criminal" in competition for that title.
9. Just Good Friends (track 5)
Okay, I'll admit that I skipped "Just Good Friends" as a kid on my cassette. The song was kind of a throw-away. And it still is, but it has appreciated dramatically in value by simple virtue of the fact that it's a duet between Jackson and Stevie Wonder. No matter how you look at it, the song has everlasting value for that reason alone.
The track is filled with Stevie's Moog-banging keyboard groove, a sound that dominated his own 80s output, and I'm fascinated when I listen to it now because it truly feels like a collaboration between the two, something I might not have deduced - much less appreciated - when I was in junior high. Upon revisiting the track, I'm surprised by how much I enjoy what I otherwise know is a throwaway track if the lean "Bad" has one. But it's also a track with two of my all-time favorite artists on it, so I've had fun rediscovering it.
10. Speed Demon (track 3)
Was Michael sneezing at the end of each groove line on the intro to "Speed Demon"? "Choo!" For me, this was always the most Michael-sounding track on "Bad" that never fully clicked for me. It's incredibly mechanical, particularly in its use of a repetitive ascending-then-decending keyboard run that happens so quickly, and it's overused. The car noises felt like gimmicks, distractions. Only a Prince-style guitar part saves the track from being completely inorganic, and that feature of the song has too low of a profile in the mix.
11. I Just Can't Stop Loving You (track 8)
"I Just Can't Stop Loving You" has always been my least favorite Michael Jackson single. I'm not sure if I still feel that way today, but if I did a full reassessment, I don't think my feelings will have changed much. This is no slight on Siedah Garrett, who's genius on "Bad" was more successfully used as the co-writer of "Man in the Mirror." But for me, "I Just Can't Stop Loving You" was always soaking wet with syrup. Not even an emotional softie like me could stand how ready-made the song was for airplay in Hallmark stores around the country.
The way the vocal enters in from that softly sustained chord is high drama, and before the end of the first verse, I've had about enough. Yes, it's a good vocal. A damn good one, in fact. And there's no doubt that there's true emotion behind it. And yes, the song builds successfully to its climax. But for me, it was too much then and it's even more too much now.
A fresh listen to "Bad," summarized:
My revisit to bad found me feeling surprisingly the same toward most of its cuts today as I felt about it in 1987, the key exception being my new found excitement for "Liberian Girl." And though I listened to it repeatedly in recent days to write this review, I'm still not certain I can say whether or not this is the best Michael Jackson album. (It's amazing how important sentiment and memory is to determining something like this, and I have a deeper affection for "Bad"'s follow-up, "Dangerous," knowing full well that this is a much tighter album.)
I would recommend picking up at least the two-disc version of the anniversary reissue of "Bad," because you've got to hear many of the bonus tracks pulled from the era's recording sessions and included here without further production work (thank you, MJ's estate!). "Don't Be Messin' Round" is slight but light, fun and funky. "Song Groove (aka Abortion Papers)" hints at Michael's interest in tackling controversial topics with compassion. It's an extension of "Billie Jean," and it's also clear why he decided to abandon it, probably not confident enough that it would be taken in the spirit in which he intended it. And "Price of Fame" is a cousin to "Leave Me Alone," a prophetic early look at the ills that were already starting to befall the king of pop.
My favorite of the unreleased tracks is the transcendent "I'm So Blue," with its melody line and hook so catchy that it instantly becomes as memorable as anything that made the album's final cut. It would have done well on "Bad." I absolutely adore it. And I'm also a fan of "Al Capone," Jackson's first incarnation of what would later become "Smooth Criminal." It's simply fascinating to here what Jackson originally did with his ideas and listen for the pieces he kept and what he discarded. "Capone"'s groove stood on its own just fine, though "Smooth Criminal" further improved upon it.
Jackson's estate handed "Bad" and "Speed Demon" over to some contemporary EDM remixers, with results worthy of forgetting. Infusing a Pitbull rap in the Afrojack remix of "Bad" is what the song finally needed for it to live up to its title in the literal sense. Yes, the groove is freshened up for contemporary audiences, but how necessary is that for a song that is already perfectly funky? And while the Nero remix of "Speed Demon" is the less annoying of the two, it feels equally unnecessary, as if Skrillex jumped into the driver's seat of the car we keep hearing in the original and bumped MJ to the back.Why mess with a good thing? Especially when it's so "Bad."
Monday, September 3, 2012
That's what HE said: The soundtrack for Summer 2012
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| Summer music, when it's good, makes me feel like I've been here. In truth, I went NOWHERE this summer... |
All these years later, I have yet to outgrow my fascination with making lists, and am even further away from the day when I’ll no longer find sheer, life-giving joy in finding the perfect pop song to brighten up the most mundane moments in life, or the hottest of summer days. I have and will continue to love music in virtually every genre, and rarely discriminate in my annual search for the best ear worms of the season. And yes, I maintain to this day a fully-functioning tape deck component to my home stereo so that I can listen to “Mercedes Boy” whenever I feel like it.
By the time the summer of 2012 began, I had already grown tired of a number of songs that would have otherwise made a list of the most catchy summer tunes, including Katy Perry’s “Wide Awake,” Gotye’s “Somebody That I Used to Know,” Nicki Minaj’s “Starships” and Maroon 5’s self-parody, “Payphone.” And since I spent most of my summer behind my steering wheel as dad chauffeur, I experienced on a daily basis the sonic waterboarding of “Turn on Radio Disney!,” slowly eroding my defenses until I’d formed a Stockholm syndrome-like fondness for “Chasing the Sun” by The Wanted, “One Thing” by One Direction, and “All Around the World” by Justin Bieber featuring Ludacris.
In an expanded playlist of 20 songs – which you know damn well I have already created in iTunes and am listening to right now – those child-chosen tracks are included. But in an effort to show some adult-like discipline and personal choice, here is my list of my favorite dozen tracks of the summer of 2012. Or baker’s dozen. Because you have to include “Call Me Maybe,” right?
1) Ed Sheeran – “The A Team”
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| Now for an A-team stylist... |
2) The Killers – “Runaways”
If there’s a list of rock front men I love so much that I occasionally grow confused about my…ahem…leanings, then Brandon Flowers is one of them. I am eight years older than him and I think want to be him (except for the Mormon part…happy Lutheran here, no offense). And I love The Killers so much that they could have released a cover of an Outfield song and I would have foamed over it, but “Runaways” is better than that. (Make no mistake…I loves me some Outfield!) I actually waited in the kitchen for the world-premiere spin on the radio of their first new material since 2008’s “Day and Age” (not including Flowers’ under-appreciated 2010 solo debut, “Flamingo,” one of my favorite albums of that year). The track was solid, classic Killers upon first listen, but no “All These Things That I’ve Done” or “Read My Mind.” But then came the Vegas magic of the repeat listen. It just gets better every time I hear it. See you in line at Best Buy on September 18 for “Battle Born.” And while I’m waiting, I think I’m going to take a late summer trip back to “Sam’s Town.”3) George Michael – “White Light”
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| Don't let the lady eyebrows fool you. |
4) Adam Lambert – “Trespassing”
_cover.jpg/220px-Trespassing_(album)_cover.jpg) |
| Don't let the lady eyebrows fool you. |
5) fun. – “Some Nights”
The vocal spirit of Freddie Mercury then leapt from Adam Lambert and into the larynx of fun. frontman Nate Ruess, thus compelling me to list this track immediately after “Tresspassing.” When Ruess starts the first verse lyric, “this is it boys, this is war” after the opening a cappella vocal stack and marching band percussion intro, tell me that you don’t hear Freddie. It’s uncanny. Yes, “We Are Young” featuring Janelle Monae was the smash hit single by the band, but I’m not including it here because it was already big enough in the spring to spawn YouTube cover parodies, months before the same thing happened to “Call Me Maybe.” And, for as anthemic as that song is, I was always drawn to this one, the album’s title track, which is far more bizarre and disjointed, but also more playful. Every summer needs a “what the hell are they singing about?” song, and for 2012, this is it. I have no idea what the hell is going on or how one lyric connects to the next, and I love it.6) Eric Hutchinson – “Watching You Watch Him”
I have a known weakness for twenty-to-thirty-something, white singer-songwriter-poppy-guitar-strumming or piano-banging solo artists who fly under the radar. If you have never heard of Dave Barnes, Matt Nathanson or Jon McLaughlan, you might not know my type. So along comes a new name to add to my list, Eric Hutchinson, with the most sunny and upbeat song of relationship paranoia of the summer. Jealousy never sounded so breezy. In fact, this could possibly be the catchiest pop song on my entire list. And thank you, satellite radio, for turning me on to this one. How FM could be so stupid as to pass this up, I’ll never know. “I love you from the bottom of my heart,” Hutchinson sings in echo-bathed denial. Eric, I feel the same way about you.7) Demi Lovato – “Give Your Heart a Break”
Thinking I was being nice to my daughter, I bought her the new Demi Lovato CD one day in Target after having heard “Skyscraper,” the most lovely, inspirational ballad by a Disney starlet since Miley Cyrus and “The Climb.” But just as Disney rejected Lovato for being too complex, independent and rough around the edges, so too did my daughter reject the CD, saying that she wasn’t interested in Demi any more, that fallen, self-injuring harlot of “Camp Rock” fame. So I took the CD for myself. And then this second single hit the radio and now my daughter wants it back. Sitting among a lot of Katy Perry and Rihanna and a bunch of new pop girls on the radio this summer (Kimbra? Sounds like something I made from a cigar box and popsicle sticks in fourth grade music class…), I thought this was the best straight-up pop song by a young female singer this season. Yup, even better than the inescapable you-know-what, though this list wouldn’t be complete without the inclusion of that track, too.8) Glen Hansard – “Love Don’t Leave Me Waiting”
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| Yes, this looks like a Charles Schwab ad. |
9) Green Day – “Oh Love”
Oh, Green Day. Welcome back. You are just as good when you’re writing about love as you are when you’re writing about politics. Probably even better. Please accept my apology for not adding tracks from “Dookie” to our playlist when I was the music director of my college radio station and said that your album lived up to its title. Your crunchy guitars and raw, plaintive Billy Joe vocals have shown me the error of my ways. This song is perfect in every Green Day-sort-of-way possible. I won’t be an American idiot ever again.10) Passion Pit – “Take a Walk (The M Machine Remix)”
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| He said - take a WALK! |
11) Mayer Hawthorne – “The Walk”
Talk about a summer breeze! One of the hot trends in music right now is this white-boys-doing-retro-soul thing, and I’m digging it. This summer featured other tracks in the genre by the likes of J.D. McPherson and Nick Waterhouse, but at the moment, my favorite is this track from Michigan-born Andrew Mayer Cohen, a DJ/producer/performer who goes by Mayer Hawthorne, possibly the only performer I can think of who truly took to heart the idea of taking your middle name and the name of the street you grew up on to create his…oh, that’s your porn star name…well, anyway… Combining the “woops” of the Temptations in between absolutely modern kiss-off lyrics, Hawthorne juxtaposes 70s soul with a current sensibility that keeps the track from being just an old-school soul copycat track. “The Walk” is the breakup song of the summer, from the guy’s point of view: “so long, you did me wrong.” Best lyric? “You’re shaped like an hourglass, but I think you’re time’s up.”12) Per Gessle – “Dream On”
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| America forgot to visit Charm School the first time. |
Per Gessle is the male half of Roxette, probably one of my top five all-time favorite pop bands. They’re a band that just sounds like summer, and one I never, ever gave up on even after their stateside popularity inexplicably waned following their “Pretty Woman” soundtrack superstardom and smash “Joyride” CD. I cannot figure out why Roxette didn’t maintain its popularity in the U.S., but they lost their American record deal, forcing me to pay in the mid $20s for imports of their last four studio albums and three hits collections, each of which contained at least a few songs as good as “Dressed for Success” and “Fading Like a Flower (Every Time You Leave).” What’s interesting here is that although Roxette just released a new CD a few months ago and is even returning to perform their first live dates in the U.S. in over a decade (though no Chicago stop…BOOO!!!!) this fall, the song that’s been lighting up a few of my favorite Sirius-XM stations is this track from their previous disc, 2011’s “Charm School.” Even more interesting, it’s not the fully-produced version of the track “Dream On,” co-vocaled in classic Roxette style by Marie Fredriksson, but the solo demo of the song recorded by Per and an acoustic guitar. I think I ultimately prefer the more Beatle-y, fully-produced version, but this stripped-down demo shines in its own right. I am praying that some sort of U.S. resurgence for Roxette is afoot. But mostly, this track truly connects my youth to my current self, a reminder that the songs of summer are forever.
13) Baker’s Dozen Bonus: Carly Rae Jepsen – “Call Me Maybe”
How can I not? What would you argue was a catchier song this year? This ubiquitous, omni-present, cross-cultural juggernaut is so infectious that I’m almost ready to stop trying to figure out how she missed him so bad before he came into her life. And whenever I think I’m sick of it, I look in the rearview mirror and find renewed joy in watching my children bopping in perfect rhythmic unison, not missing one word of the lyrics, never falling off pitch. If it’s good enough for Colin Powell, the U.S. swim team, and a host of others, it’s good enough for me.Now that you've seen my list, head over to Uncomfortably Numb to find out what SHE said...
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