This post was originally published on the Mumubl.com Newsletter. For updates and recommendations direct to your inbox don’t forget to subscribe.
Hi – It’s Dave here at Mumubl.com, welcome to our recommendation email where I give you some tips on what’s great to listen to and watch in the world of music.
After the dive into podcasts on the last recommendations newsletter it’s a more mixed bag today, that said The Art of Longevity still gets it’s usual mention. But you’ve got TV drama, documentaries and movies to enjoy in the list this week. Keep listening to those podcast recommendations though, they’re all still dropping great episodes.
If there’s any things you think I should be listening to, reading or watching then let me know, shout out on the Mumubl.com social media wherever you reside.
As always – tell all your friends – every little share helps
Currently checking out – “Strays” by Margo Price.
In this edition
Daisy Jones & The Six / Crossing the Rubicon / Spector / Fight the Power / Weird / MUMUBL.COM
Daisy Jones & The Six
I had been thinking recently you don’t really get much music based drama, there was “Vinyl” with Bobby Cannavale and Juno Temple quite a while ago now, but I can’t really think of much else outside of the usual biopics and documentaries. I guess unlike, say sport, to be really convincing you’ve got to write some proper great music, it’s a hard thing to fake. The way you can cover up an actor not being able to play football and still convey the drama (you can still tell if they aren’t playing). It’s hard to cover up a pretty rubbish song and keep pretending it’s a great emotionally stirring tune.
Which isn’t to say Daisy Jones has great songs, but they’re certainly good enough to be believable in the context of this new mockumentary drama that follows the formation and rise of a band in the 70s. Coupled with a great collection of 70s bangers on the soundtrack the music certainly is a core element here.
The first three episodes landed on Amazon last week and they’re worth checking out if you want a musical bent on your prestige TV drama, even if there is so far a feeling of all too familiar story beats and tropes (allegedly there’s a loose similarity to the goings on in Fleetwood Mac so that’d make sense). The book it was based on was a bestseller and I’m considering adding to my ever growing reading pile.
Crossing The Rubicon: Volume 1
As well as producing one of the best music podcasts around, The Song Sommelier (a.k.a. Keith) has been busy plotting some very good looking graphs, and applying science to the careers of those he’s been speaking to. His first breakdown of all of this (I assume there’ll be more as it’s called “Volume 1”) has been compiled into the excellent document “Crossing the rubicon”. The title being a reference to crossing the rubicon into longevity and artists being able to make a living from the music they make.
It all makes fascinating reading for fans and musicians alike, comparing the careers of chart toppers and household name such as Norah Jones, KT Tunstall and Suede against those of less well known acts like Calexico and Los Lobos. It provides some genuinely interesting insight and analysis of the careers of all of these acts all presented beautifully.
Spector
Phil Spector is a name familiar to many, though maybe the details of who he was and what happened may be a bit hazy. Jailed in 2009 for the murder of actress Lana Clarkson the recent Sky documentary covers his career from the early days right up to and through the trial.
It’s a compelling retreading of his story that refreshingly gives plenty of light to Lana Clarkson as well as Phil Spector, so she is a fully fledged person and not just a victim of this “musical genius”. The four episodes include interesting talking heads such as Spector’s daughter and take a look at both sides of the court case, though ultimately they paint a reasonably damming picture of the man himself.
If you don’t know much about the case, or the history of Phil Spector, it’s a good one to watch.
Fight the power
The story of hip hop in four episodes? “Fight the power: How hip hop changed the world” to give it the full title is a whistle stop tour at times but this BBC documentary does a good job of covering it all.
A talking heads documentary that is driven largely by Public Enemy star and hip hop pioneer Chuck D, who is a producer on the series, it starts way back in the 60s and moves up the modern day showing the community origins and how hip hop was driven from what was happening on the streets of these community origins. The most depressing thing being how the themes and injustices that have driving the genre and had so much light shed on them seem to have changed so little.
Weird
One that I watched a while ago but haven’t got round to including I would like to give a quick mention to the Weird Al biopic “Weird”. Daniel Radcliffe is great in the title role but this is absolutely nuts and you really do just have to go along with it. My biggest hope is that years down the line this somehow becomes the official story of the man himself. You can check it out on the Roku Channel if you can actually find that anywhere.
From Mumubl.com
As well as writing the last newsletter’s editorial you’ll find Meg Bolland has posted a few more tracks on the site as well, the post on Bowie’s album “1. Outside” in the wake of the AI explosion is worth reading. Check out all of the recent tracks at mumubl.com/posts
There’s also some other album look backs, The Metric album “Old World Underground, where are you now?” also getting a great piece on the site.
Check them out and don’t forget you can sign up and start adding your own.
This post was originally published on the Mumubl.com Newsletter. For updates and recommendations direct to your inbox don’t forget to subscribe.
