What Helps Me Escape from TRMS

TRMS—the Rachel Maddow Show—has become almost required viewing for my wife and me this COVID-19 season. She is the liberal news explainer, and I appreciate that.

Lately, she’s been on a bit of an editorial crusade, sounding the alarm about infections at the nation’s nursing homes. It’s a worthwhile cause.

And I find I rarely watch Fox News these days. As a journalism professor, I used to try to catch at least a bit of that network each week, just to sample it—I don’t have the heart any more. Any part of the Trump Universe alternative right-wing media zone of delusion is just too much for me at the moment.

So, I read The Gazette, my local paper. I listen to NPR. I catch the president’s briefings when I want a small dose of crazy, and I always feel WTF after a few seconds. And then there is Rachel.

But I also have to escape. What is my relief when life and a pandemic brings me down?

Lately, besides TRMS, my wife and I have become fan kids of a new NBC show. You can’t exactly call it a comedy or a drama. It’s sort of like a sitcom in that it has a situation and a fair amount of comedy, but it’s a mixed genre show.

Publicity image from NBC.com. Jane Levy as Zoey.

It’s that girl from Suburgatory, Jane Levy, all grown up and coding in San Francisco. It’s “Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist.” From my own limited experience visiting high tech sites in the Bay Area, the set isn’t really over-the-top. The cafeterias at Facebook (which won’t post this post because my media blog is inexplicably banned) are way better than the cereal bar, by the way.



Besides Ms. Levy being talented (catch her practicing saying “hey” in the latest episode), there are other gems in this cast. Superstar Mary Steenburgen is mom. Peter Gallagher, years after being in a coma in that Christmas movie, gets to act with his eyes as her fading father.

I don’t know if the characters are “real” in any real sense. But it feels real. Mostly, the show is an old-fashioned Broadway musical using contemporary pop songs. The show is also commenting on contemporary high tech life, the feeling of it before the pandemic of 2020. It's kind of sad to think of all those characters now being stuck in their over-priced apartments.

On this blog, I’ve written before about music and how it expresses emotion. I’ve used it as an assignment in several classes—having students parse the reason a particular song touches them or has meaning. And the musical covers of pop songs on Zoey are watchable and fun.





So, I recommend it. The duet between Steenburgen and Gallagher at the end of the latest episode may make you cry. It did me, and it felt good.

Finally, worth the mention even though he always mentions news, is the incomparable Randy Rainbow. I need a smile now and then, and his latest video certainly delivers:

And the Music Winner for Now is YouTube

What music site do you prefer?

I listen to Pandora on some computers, because it’s convenient to sign into on many devices. I have Spotify installed on my office computer at home.

I kind of like Spotify because it suggests interesting new music to me. I’m sure I never heard “Hole” before Spotify suggested Malibu, and although I consider it a bit of a guilty pleasure, that’s still a pleasure.

But when I’m working at some mundane task that doesn’t require much attention, I’m likely to just launch a list suggested by YouTube. Yeah, I know, I’m being controlled by the Overlords at Google, and I get exposed to the maximum number of ads that way, but still, YouTube just seems to make the best guesses about what I might like. I think Phoebe Bridgers and The Big Moon both came onto my radar through the magical algorithms of Google.

Facebook, you think you know me, and you probably do. But my robot overlords really control me through Google and YouTube.

Anyway, when I want a break from the disaster that is the Trump impeachment reality TV show, here are some recent songs that have been the background of my life:

First, Phoebe with “Motion Sicnekss.” I often find that live recordings by radio stations—often public ones—gives me the best versions of songs, and while I like her official music video, I think this version is better:


Next, Tessa Violet, because who doesn’t need some Tessa now and then? And she has a new album. Hmmm. Christmas is coming. I like all of the songs I’ve heard from the album, this one in particular:


Third, The Big Moon, because, why not? I used one of their videos on a recent post on my bike blog, and here is another of their songs accompanied by another whimsical video:


Fourth, Taylor Swift, of all people. I have to be in a mood to listen to Taylor, she’s rarely my first choice, but when I want some pop, there she is. Both the banter and the music are entertaining in this NPR concert, and if you don’t watch NPR tiny desk concerts, there’s a whole new world of time suck on YouTube waiting for you:


Last, guiltiest of guilty pleasures. No, I am not a big Courtney Love fan, but in truth several of her songs are catchy:


All of my choices are women. Hmmmm. Men are welcome to sing, too, but I guess I'm liking listening to women. Must be the antidote to Trump.

Music: How it Touches Our Lives

Students in my intro to media class are writing what, for me, is always my favorite reflection paper of the semester: They each will pick two songs and dissect what those songs mean to them. I like it, because I learn more about my students and more about music.

For example, several students have used country songs. I am not a country fan, but I appreciate that genre more, knowing how it can impact their lives. So I’m going to do the assignment first, although I’ll cover more than two songs.

First, some background—we know that Pop Music is, well, popular, but also rather simple. In class, we enjoyed (at least I enjoyed) this famous video by the Axis of Awesome that plays with that idea:

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So, music does not have to be complex to be popular—and Pop Music is a commodity that is processed and sold. Still, music does have meaning, I think.

The music world suffered a loss when Top Petty died on Oct. 2, 2017. He was not my favorite musical act (my enduring favs are the fab four), but I enjoyed many of his songs. And many have been covered, which says something about a musician’s impact. And in the wake of this death, Miley Cyrus and her dad performed a very poignant cover of “Wildflowers,” a song that today will bring almost any Petty fan to tears:

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Lemony Snickett wrote “that which is too stupid to be said is sung,” which I suppose has some truth—but music touches us with “large” emotions that aren’t easily reduced just to words, which is what I think Miley manages on that cover.

In Class, I played the Distrubed cover of “The Sounds of Silence,” showing that a song from my youth can be remade for today’s generations:

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That is a song by Paul Simon most popularly performed by Simon & Garfunkel. They weren’t every person’s cup of tea—some rock fans of that era almost made a point of hating S&G in the way that Celine Dion is today both loved and not loved—but I had an older sister who loved that duo, and I inherited an appreciation of them from her. Two of my favorites are “America” and “Only Living Boy in New York”:

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The songs are very much of that early 1970s time and place, a longing for a better world as the idealism of the hippie movement fell away. I can’t explain the mix of nostalgia and emotion I feel listening to those two songs, expect to say they are key parts of the soundtrack of my youth.

We also talked about how music is controversial and things that people should and would not say end up being sung. I played them a nice, catchy song by The Regrettes, which drops the F bomb repeatedly, and asked if they could summarize the message, and if they were offended by the lyrics. They weren’t offended, and several students dropped the F bomb in discussing the message—which goes, I suppose, to show that media does have an impact on behavior and norms that we don’t always understand. Student typically don’t drop F bombs in my classes, for the record.

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We also touched on music’s role as providing the anthems of political movements. And I played them a current song, which, as Iowa lawmakers are contemplating a bill clearly aimed at depressing the vote of young adults, I hope that they will take to heart:

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Speaking of politics, we didn’t even get to “Zombie” by The Cranberries—a song I’ve always enjoyed, and that I like the message of. It’s an anti-violence song set in the background of the troubles in Ireland, but certainly can apply to today, and I particularly am touched by the second version, a cover by a Canadian community choir:

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I have not explored any two of these songs in depth, students, which you will do—but I think you can see it’s easy to connect your music to larger themes, which would be easy to expand upon, which is what I hope you do in your papers. There is so much more I could do on this post—I didn’t use any Lake Street Dive songs, for example, nor any by Tessa Violet. Nor did I touch on parody, satire or Randy Rainbow. Maybe I’ll have to do more posts.

Anyway, in parting, most couples have “that song,” and for my wife and I, it was Bette Midler singing “The Rose.” I also like this version, a more contemporary performance by the woman who wrote the song:

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The Queen of Movies

I’m not a movie reviewer. But a Facebook friend of mine was recently gushing about “Bohemian Rhapsody,” and to be honest, I thoroughly enjoyed the movie, too.

For me, it was possibly nostalgia. I have several Queen albums in vinyl from my teen years—and I horrified a college newspaper crew recently by playing for them a song they had never heard from "Sheer Heart Attack,' still my favorite Queen album.

But one surprise to me is how many younger people with no memory of the heyday of Queen are also into the movie. The Facebook Friend is in her 30s, which means she was born back in the 1980s. The movie is a bit of a family affair for me, with my youngest daughter recently seeing it and saying she liked it, too. My wife and I saw it twice in the theater—a thing we rarely do (repeat a movie), and we took our youngest son the second time. He liked it.

I don’t think it’s a great movie. It’s a little manipulative, setting the stage for the Live Aid appearance of the band and perhaps overselling their impact there. But the story it tells was still well done, and I really enjoyed it.

Locally, the movie is playing at the Collins Road Theater. If you have not yet, you may want to check it out—with its sometimes-lush visuals and its rock and roll soundtrack, I think this is a good movie for the theater experience.



I don’t know much about music, but one aspect of the movie that I especially liked was the montage where the band was working on “Bohemian Rhapsody.” The peek at the creative process was interesting. And it was also interesting too that, for a band that was so into tricks in the studio while recording, Queen was also oriented to live performance.

If you’re like me and you were a Queen fan back in the day, you’ll like this movie because it will make you feel briefly young again. And if you are too young to recall those days, apparently the movie still will rock you.