Music Video Of the Week - April 8, 2022

"Playtime Is Over" by Roger Chapman  (Go to the link in the upper-right-hand corner.)

Ring Out the Old

I don't know if I'm in a position to wish anyone a happy new year.

My life continues to be the exact opposite of everything I'd hoped it to be this time two years ago thanks in no small part to the pandemic, which merrilessly rolls along.  The year 2020 was horrible, and 2021 was only marginally better, thanks to Trump being displaced from office and the brief respite we got from the pandemic between the decline in cases and the sudden blow from Delta.  But the year is now ending the way it started; the record for the highest daily average COVID case count was broken after eleven-and-a-half months, and the new one was broken in eleven-and-a-half hours.  And it will be broken again. 

Me, I'm hunkering down again. I've been told I don't have to go into lockdown because of Omicron, and it's not March 2020 and all that, because there are these "tools" to fight the virus (yes, and I hear them on CNN all the time), but we're in winter now, so where the heck am I going to go apart from the supermarket?  And I'll probably end up getting the omicorona anyway.  Cases are expected to spike to an all-time high before dropping off sharply, at least until the next variant comes along.  And, of course, I am looking at the items on my bucket list that COVID, appropriately enough, has made it increasingly impossible to check off.

Oh yeah, while all this has been going on, the replacement cassette player I got under warranty malfunctioned, and now it plays tapes to slowly as well.  I'm going to have to wait for Omicron to pass before I get this one replaced under warranty.

I don't know what my commentary on this blog in 2022 will look like, but I can guarantee you that there'll be a lot less popular culture.  I can't and don't keep up with it these days, largely because I don't care about it.  I found the story of Britney Spears' conservatorship to be largely dull, and I could care less about all of the pop music and TV shows from South Korea.  Just to show you how behind I am, I actually discovered on public television this year "Packed To The Rafters," an Australian comedy-drama series that went off the air Down Under (except for a reunion or two) in 2013.  

A for what's going on today, well, I'm very sorry that Steven Spielberg's remake of West Side Story is a box-office disaster, but despite the good reviews it's gotten, there's been a lot of pushback from Hispanic groups about the new movie, continuing Spielberg's uneasy relationship with communities of color - as if trying to turn The Color Purple into a movie taught him nothing.  (See why I gave up making year-end winners and losers lists?)  I can't let 2021 go ,however, without addressing the shooting accident on the set of Alec Baldwin's latest movie project: It was a terrible, tragic accident, and I hope all of the parties involved get through this.

Right, I'm done for the year, expect for one more Music Video Of the Week - that's coming tomorrow. See you soon.

The Beatles - Get Back (1969, 2021)

(This is a special record review.)

Peter Jackson's Disney + documentary on the Beatles' January 1969 Get Back sessions changed a lot of minds on how those sessions played out - we now know they were not the dismal, despondent affair that the Beatles themselves remembered them to be.  But no amount of historical revisionism and 20/20 hindsight can change my verdict on the original attempt producer Glyn Johns made at making an album out of the sessions.  It's still a mess.

Johns, who engineered the original Get Back sessions that led to the Let It Be album that Phil Spector ultimately wrought, tried to make an LP out of the sessions in the spring of 1969 and concentrated on playing up the Beatles' rough edges - "warts and all," as it were.  He hoped to capture the relaxed nature of the sessions and preserve the feel of the original recordings, which were mostly recorded live, with as few overdubs and edits as possible.  Having circulated for decades as a bootleg, Johns' Get Back album has always been revered by Beatles fans who were displeased with Spector's efforts, but in actuality, there's little to recommend of it.  I have the bootleg, and EMI and Apple have made the original Get Back LP available in the new Let It Be box set and on YouTube, professionally remixed for the digital age.  Even after hearing the new remix of Get Back, though, I still don't get why so many Beatles fans prefer it to Let It Be.

The sound quality is the best asset of the Johns album; Johns went the extra mile to get an authentic, rootsy sound that is mostly lacking from Spector's Let It Be.  My big problem with Get Back is the choice of takes of the songs.  While Spector used more of the takes from the rooftop performance of January 30, 1969 and from the studio performance of the following day, Johns opted for earlier, unformed takes from earlier in the sessions.  Earlier recordings of "Dig a Pony" and "I've Got a Feeling" thus sound as unprofessional and sloppy as you might imagine, with flubbed lyrics and unnecessary improvisations.  An earlier recording of "Two Of Us" struggles with a slightly lower tempo and some disconcerting hesitation, and after hearing a longer, fuller version of "Dig It" here, I'm ever more grateful that Spector kept his remix to fifty seconds.  And while Johns' remix of the "The Long And Winding Road" - using the same take Spector used - is free of a Mantovani-style orchestra (this mix also appeared on Anthology 3), the better performance of this song remains the one seen in the original Let It Be movie (which made its debut on disc on Let It Be . . . Naked).      

Johns' inclusion of tune-ups, false starts and studio banter are just as distracting as those on Spector's Let It Be - more so, in fact, because Johns uses more of them.  It gets to be a distraction that diminishes even the better musical performances.  The takes Johns includes throws in some cross-talking, most annoyingly notable with John Lennon's disparagingly improvised square-dance lyric in Paul McCartney's "Teddy Boy," a song that didn't even make the final cut in either the Let It Be movie or on the album.  (And for good reason: It's not one of Paul's best.  It ended up on his first solo LP.)  A medley of an improvised instrumental with a brief cover of the  Drifters' "Save the Last Dance For Me" piques interest, but its over so quickly that you're left wondering why the Beatles couldn't follow though on a promising idea. 

Among the highlights of Get Back is its only rooftop track, "The One After 909," which is a lot more vivid than Spector's remix of the same take.  Johns also excelled with his mix of George Harrison's "For You Blue," as it uses the original vocal track and not the one George overdubbed later.  You can really hear "the warmth and freshness of a live performance" here that Spector's LP promised but rarely delivered.  But the ragged, demo-style quality of Get Back is tiresome and makes it sound like the Beatles didn't care what got put out in their name.  Except that they did; the Beatles rejected this album twice, even after Johns revised it by adding okay but undistinguished remixes of "Across the Universe" and "I Me Mine." 

No, Get Back is not the great lost treasure of the Beatles' January 1969 sessions.  It means well as an album that tries to present the Beatles in a more intimate and relaxed setting, but it doesn't do well in presenting the best elements of their music.  Spector doesn't get off the hook, though; Let It Be may be more presentable, but it suffers from its own deficiencies.  As for Get Back, Johns may have produced an album closer to the Beatles' original "live" idea and with a greater sense of consistency, but it depicts the Beatles not as a band rediscovering their roots but as a lackadaisical rock group going through the motions.  Inadvertently, it depicts Glyn Johns as a lackadaisical producer doing the same.

Christmas Greetings

No More Winners and Losers Lists

I thought I might make truncated lists of winners and losers of the year  for the end of 2021 - five on each list - and I had some probable candidates for either side.  But as the year has worn on, I have come to a decision.  Not only will there be no winners and losers lists this year on this blog, there will be no winners and losers lists for any year hereafter.

If there's one thing 2021 has taught me, it's that we are all winners and losers at one time or another, and quantifying successes and failures is a waste of time.  I don't pay enough attention to current movies or TV shows to gauge the biggest hits and flops, for example, and politicians such as President Joe Biden have proved that one can experience the best of times (declining COVID cases in the spring, the infrastructure bill) and worst of times (Afghanistan, Delta) all at once.

Also, looking at individuals who have had good years, I've noticed how the wrong people tend to have great success, all of it undeserved.  A particular celebrity I don't like now stars in a TV series that is described as the biggest hit show of 2021.  Why do I want to acknowledge that?   And a person's or institution's failure can overshadow its biggest success.  Netflix, for example, won a record number of Emmys in 2021, but subsequent fallout over Dave Chappelle's Netflix show, in which Chappelle badmouthed transsexuals, rendered that achievement meaningless.   

Sports?  Katie Ledecky solidly asserted herself as the greatest female swimmer of all time at the 2020 - no, 2021 Tokyo Olympics, but her victories don't mean so much when there was practically no one there to see them in person thanks to COVID.  And even though the U.S. men's soccer team won the CONCACAF Gold Cup, their failure to qualify for the Tokyo Olympics made them a laughing stock once again.  You gotta feel sorry for these guys.  Even when they win, they lose. 

I can't do this anymore.  I'm rarely satisfied with my lists after I've published them, thinking I might have left someone out or might have been premature in choosing whom I left in - some of choices for winners at the end of one year were overturned by their colossal failures the following year - and it's a pain in the neck to construct these lists.  So that's it.  I'm done.  No more winners and losers lists.  It's over.

Sorry. 

Thanksgiving Greetings

Election Day 2021

Today is Election Day.

Vote, dammit! (You know my endorsements.)

Election Endorsements 2021

There's a big storm where I live - late October is fast becoming my least favorite time of year (especially after Sandy, nine years ago this time) - but that isn't going to distract me from doing my duty as a citizen and issue my election endorsements for 2021.  I voted already - early voting is now in New Jersey - but, thanks to Postmaster General Louis DeJoy's cynical hijacking of the Postal Service and his decision to emaciate the agency and make service slow and unreliable, I would not advise voting by mail unless you pick up the ballot yourself form your county clerk's office and put it in a ballot drop box rather than a mailbox.

That out of the way, I now offer this blog's endorsements for Election Day next week.

For Mayor of New York City: This blog endorses Democrat Eric Adams.  Guardian Angels founder Curtis Sliwa, whose group is famous for patrolling Times Square, has diabolical ideas for New York City - like getting rid of COVID vaccine mandates. Eric Adams, who was a real cop, wants to make the city safer both from crime and from COVID.

For Governor of New Jersey: This blog endorses incumbent Democrat Phil Murphy.  Murphy's progressive record is based largely on initiatives first introduced by the Democratic legislature under former Republican Governor Chris Christie and re-introduced over and over until we finally had a Democratic governor to sign them into law.  And he did.  Even if our governor is more reactive than proactive, he's still pushing New Jersey forward, and as he said, New Jersey isn't going back.

For Governor of Virginia: This blog endorses former Democratic governor Terry McAuliffe.  Really.  He compiled a fine record in Virginia when he was governor last time, so why not give him another term?  Besides, his Republican opponent Glenn Youngkin is trying to seem moderate and accommodating to people who may disagree with him while giving a nod and a wink to Trump supporters by endorsing some of their policy objectives - no COVID vaccine mandates, no teaching of critical race theory in public universities but pretending it's meant for elementary schools - but saying that he personally can't stand their tactics.  Virginia doesn't need a governor who gives the voters two faces for the price of one. 

For Mayor of Boston: This blog is making no endorsement, because, quite frankly, I have not followed that campaign.  All I know for certain is that the winner will be a woman because there are only two candidates to choose from, both women.  I'm sorry to say, though, that nether one of them is an Irish Catholic.  Didn't God decree that the mayor of Boston should always be an Irish Catholic? Or the Muses, or St. Patrick, or someone like that?

Those are my endorsements.  Now go out and vote.  Boston, you're on your own. 😉    

Loser's Circle

In 2020, the COVID crisis led me to eschew making a winners and losers list for the year, since  I saw no example of anyone being a winner in a pandemic.  Even Joe Biden, who won the Presidency, couldn't be viewed as a winner because he was chosen to assume the office in the most disastrous period of American history since the time of Abraham Lincoln's election in 1860.

The year 2021 has only been marginally better. Sure, we don't have to wear face coverings outdoors (except at open-air events in Oregon), we had the Olympics all right, and some of us have been able to resume working outside the home.  But the delta corona has pushed back a good deal of the progress made in fighting COVID, the economy is still stuck in neutral, we're being battered by climate-change-fueled storms, the Republicans are setting the stage for der Amerikaner Reich to take over in 2025, and the Democrats don't know what the hell to do about it.  

And Peugeot announced it will not return to the U.S. market after all.

Okay, that last sentence was a joke, but I'm not joking when I say America and the world are in deep trouble.  Who's winning? Who can really say they won anything? I mean, apart from Katie Ledecky? Right now, no one. I'd be hard pressed to find anyone, anything or any place that's coming out ahead.  Least of all Afghanistan. 

So, while I haven't made a final decision yet, chances are that  I will not be making a winners and losers list for 2021 at the end of the year.  Remember, the year began with an insurrection against the U.S. government that hasn't really ended.  It started out bad and, while it hasn't worsened generally, we still have four months to go, and I have no hope for the rest of 2021 as it is.  The year 2021 is not as bad as 2020 was, though, but that's like saying Cleopatra was not as bad as Heaven's Gate.

One other thing: Don't be surprised if, even after the pandemic is over, I never make a year-end winners and losers list ever again.  

Father's Day 2021

 

Memorial Day 2021

 

Mother's Day 2021

 

Easter Greetings

 

St. Patrick's Day 2021

Forget 2021

While it's already been said quietly and out loud, it's pretty much a done deal.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, who knows more abut COVID-19 than anyone else, says that the country and the planet won't return to the status quo ante that existed before the pandemic until December.

Next December.

The vaccine should be ready by this December at the earliest, or some time in early 2021, but it will take months before it's widely available to enough people to stop it and tame it like the flu.  By the end of 2021, of course, many people will not survive it, and many businesses and cultural institutions will be gone forever as well.

So, whether Trump or Biden wins, we still have some difficult days, weeks, and months ahead. And to those of you who were hoping that 2021 would be better . . .

Eat your reality sandwich!    

Auto Show Blues, Part Three

Forget Frankfurt.

Remember when I said I hoped to go the auto show at Frankfurt if it was the last thing I did?  Yeah, about that . . ..  The German International Automobile Show, as the auto show in Frankfurt is called, will not be held in Frankfurt in 2021.  Germany's national automobile association awarded the show for 2021 to Munich instead. Munich (shown above) was chosen in part because it has a good reputation for organizing major events like Oktoberfest.  And while this is in some ways a good deal, considering the Bavarian capital's history and its own automotive heritage (the Bavarian Motor Works, which we all know as BMW, is located there), the show will take on a less traditional theme, looking at newfangled mobility solutions that don't necessarily involve cars and also emphasizing the concept of the digitally connected "smart" city.  It will be less like the Frankfurt shows of yore and be more like a cross between an auto show and the South by Southwest Festival in Austin (canceled this year because of coronavirus, of course).  Anyone expecting a grand auto salon like the Frankfurt shows of yore may be disappointed.

Yeah, well, to quote that great poet David Gates, it don't matter to me.  I'm looking at a future that increasingly appears to exclude foreign travel, and not just because of the coronavirus.  I simply might not be able to spare the time or have the money.  I actually began to look at going sometime last year until an unexpected disruption to my personal life (which I won't discuss here because it's, well, personal), and quite frankly, I think the year 2019 was my last chance of traveling anywhere outside North America.  I think I'll go to the Jersey Shore this summer and look out the ocean in the direction of Portugal, which is due east of New Jersey, and wonder what the other side is like, just like I did when I was a kid.

And if I see any new cars on display this year, it'll probably be at my dealership while I'm waiting for my car to be serviced.

Oh yeah, more good news: Audi, BMW, and Mercedes-Benz are all skipping the 2020 New York Auto Show, citing the great expense involved.  All of these announcements were made before the coronavirus got out of hand.  Among German automakers, that only leaves Porsche showing cars I can't get into and Volkswagen showing cars I can see at my dealer plus a new electric crossover I don't care about!  Why should I even want to go this year at this point?  Call this show "Manhattangrad," as in Stalingrad, seeing how the Germans have retreated from it.