Monthly Archives: October 2011

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The small screen reigns supreme

Four years ago I wrote a blog post titled ‘The Best Frakkin’ Show On TV‘ in which I singled out my five favorite shows at the time.

In the top spot was Friday Night Lights, the first season of which was practically a religious experience. The rest of its run didn’t consistently reach the heights of those first two dozen episodes but it remained the best show on TV until it bowed out — with typical grace and emotional power — earlier this year.

Three of the other shows I featured (Battlestar Galactica, Lost and Entourage) have also gone off the air since I wrote that post, and the remaining show (The Office) lost its main character.

So it’s time, I think, for an update (complete with lots of YouTube goodness).

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Song of the Day #1,192: ‘Fakin’ It’ – Simon & Garfunkel

While Side One of Simon & Garfunkel’s Bookends is thematically consistent, Side Two is more of a grab bag.

Three of the five tracks were written for Mike Nichols’ film The Graduate — with ‘Mrs. Robinson’ famously appearing in the movie while ‘Punky’s Dilemma’ and ‘Hazy Shade of Winter’ didn’t make the cut. ‘Hazy Shade of Winter’ found success on its own, charting higher than any Bookends song other than ‘Mrs. Robinson.’

The album’s final song, ‘At the Zoo,’ is a tribute to the Central Park Zoo that portrays the animals in amusingly human terms (“giraffes are insincere… zebras are reactionaries… pigeons plot in secrecy”).

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Song of the Day #1,191: ‘America’ – Simon & Garfunkel

Simon & Garfunkel’s third album, 1968’s Bookends, marked a major stylistic departure for the duo.

The straightforward acoustic folk (and folk rock) of their first few albums gave way to a record very much crafted in the studio. The songs on this album feature distorted instruments, samples, skits and interviews. It’s a cross between Peter, Paul and Mary, National Public Radio and Eminem.

Bookends is a concept album at heart, though I’m not sure the concept holds up across its full length. Side One starts and ends with ‘Bookends Theme,’ a gentle guitar melody that is echoed in the moving track ‘Old Friends,’ about two elderly men who sit on a park bench “like bookends.”

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Song of the Day #1,190: ‘Trout’ – Neneh Cherry (featuring Michael Stipe)

The end of this week has turned into an unofficial theme week, focusing on women who made a momentary splash and then fell off the face of the earth.

Next on the list is Neneh Cherry, who came to my attention in 1992 with the released of her second album, Homebrew. Cherry actually reached a bigger audience with her first album, 1989’s Raw Like Sushi, which spawned the hit single ‘Buffalo Stance,’ but I’d never heard of her before Homebrew.

This album is a mix of hip-hop, R&B and pop that may well have been too ahead of its time. You look at a group like the Black-Eyed Peas scoring hit after hit these days and wonder if Cherry might have found her niche too soon.

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A new look

WordPress is retiring my old blog theme and they’ve replaced it with the snazzy one you see now. I’m not thrilled about the extra spaces showing up between elements in the main content area and the sidebar, but the new theme does allow for a Facebook LIKE box (over on the right) and some other goodies. I’ll survive.