After a little initial excitement the interest and appetite for music dramas on TV has taken a bit of a battering. Frankly Vinyl turned out to be so overwrought and ordinary that there was noone watching it and therefore no surprise in the fact it was discontinued despite its famous mentors.
It was basically bullshit and ignored lesson #1 from the Sopranos. That being the best bit was watching the gangsters when they weren’t actually doing gangster stuff and were characters in their own rights with personalities and issues.
Instead Vinyl’s cocaine demented Richie Fenestra staggered screaming from unlikely superstar set up to unlikely superstar set up -
Wife at Warhol’s Factory – check.
Hanging with Led Zeppelin backstage – check.
Having Sly Stone (or similar character) in the office – check.
Whilst a Sinatra-alike was recording a Christmas album – check.
And all that after murdering his radio plugger (which of course most people in the record business have wanted to do, but none have gone through with).
H.E.C.T.I.C.
And perhaps the most bullshit bit of all was happening to stop downtown to see his old R&B protégé and finding him at an unlikely Block Party where the DJ was Kool Herc... On the way back from seeing the New York Dolls. Yeah right. And then having the old folks tell Herc that he’d never get anywhere just playing old records. So not real and so not likely.
It might be a relief therefore that TV is having another crack at the early days of hip hop. The times when rap was fun, party music. So maybe we will give The Get Down a chance even if this trailer does little to make us think that Baz Luhrmann isn’t more disco than hip hop and wondering just how camp early hip hop can be made... But hey, at least Nas is supervising the music.
For us though, we think that Ed Piskor tells the real story a bit more, so we're excited for the next volume in early August especially being he's reached the beginning of the 'Golden Age'
-TH
Bonus beat: