10 Favourite Sitcoms

I think that my favourite television format is the half-hour sitcom. There are plenty of examples of other shows that I think are amazing, but I always return to the sitcom for comfort. I love looking back at old sitcoms that I missed or were before my time. I love checking out the new crops of shows as they appear each year.

It is indeed that time. Watching new shows makes me think about shows that I already love and in the spirit of this blog I thought a list of my 10 favourite sitcoms would be a nice diversion.

As ever, in no particular order:

The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin (1976-1979)

This is perfect 70s satire. It begins with what was billed as the perfect life - Reggie, married to his adoring wife, lives in a lovely suburb, his children all grown up. He goes to his nice upper-middle management job and looks forward to a comfortable retirement. Except, no. The show, in its first season (I'll adopt the American lingo), demonstrates the emptiness of such a life - showing the hidden fears and anxieties that are obscured by such an existence. The second season adopts even bigger targets; capitalism, consumerism, value. And the third, the idea of fulfilment itself. In all, Perrin, perfectly played by Leonard Rossiter, attempts to dismiss these ideals only to fail upwards.

It is absurd, stupid and incredibly clever. In truth, it's probably the 'cleverest' show on the list.

The Office (US) (2004-2013)

No disrespect meant to Ricky Gervais' original, which I think is very good, but I just don't find it nearly so satisfying as the US remark. Ignore the very dodgy first season - it is plain that they can't quite find their way from under the original's shadow. Early in the second season they find it; they abandon the devastating cynicism of Gervais, and allow the characters room to breathe and grow and crucially, tell jokes. The US remake is much much funnier than the original.

It is also warmer. While it never quite lets go of the cringey qualities that characterise its origins, it is also unafraid of letting us unironically love Michael Scott (Steve Carell) and see the human side of Dwight and even learn to love the mundanity and the emotional vacuum that is the office itself. Even after Carell goes, and the show does dip a little in quality, it nonetheless maintains enough heart and jokes to not outstay its welcome until its 9th season.

Black Books (2000-2004)

A tiny, small and stupid show about an alcoholic bookshop owner (Dylan Moran), his hapless employee (Bill Bailey) and neighbour (Tamsin Greig). Very little happens over three short seasons. The three leads get drunk a lot, do stupid stuff, fall out a bit. And yet, it makes me laugh a lot.

An awful lot relies upon the cruelty and haphazardness of Bernard Black (Moran). He is another character (this list features a few of these) that is somehow sympathetic despite being quite unpleasant.

The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1970-1977)

This is a new addition to the list and time will tell whether it stays a firm favourite or not. But right now I am coming towards the end of the sixth season and am enjoying it a great deal. So we'll see...

It concerns Mary Richards (Moore), a newly single thirty something who comes to Minneapolis and stumbles into a job as a TV producer. The show revolves around her private life, in particular her friendship with Rhoda Morgenstein (Valerie Harper), and her developing career with her boss, Lou Grant (Ed Asner).

This show appeals, I think, because its general sense of warmth. No characters are totally cynical (apart from possibly Betty White's Sue Ann Nivens) - everyone, even hapless newscaster, Ted Baxter (Ted Knight), tries their best. What the show does best is show the ever growing and evolving relationships within the cast. I could say a lot more and perhaps will again elsewhere*, but in the final assessment, The MTM Show is just a world that feels good to live in, and sometimes that is exactly what you want.

Malcolm in the Middle (2000-2006)

Perhaps I’m wrong, but I never felt that Malcolm in the Middle got the acclaim it deserves. Despite running for seven seasons, I get the feeling that it is steadily fading away in our collective cultural memories (unlike other sitcoms that seem to maintain a very healthy afterlife - Friends, obviously, but also the wildly inferior Scrubs, HIMYM and others). I’m genuinely not sure why. Even though it did lag towards the end of its run - they ran out of ideas for Frances, for instance - it remained consistently funny and inventive. It also boasted a pretty impressive adult cast: most obviously Bryan Cranston, but also Jane Kaczmarek and the eternal Cloris Leachman.

Perhaps the reason it is fading from view is that it was not iconic (as say, Cosby or Roseanne). I think another reason is that it is a member of slightly derided class of sitcoms, the family sitcom. All the sitcoms that have sustained acclaim have typically featured predominantly folk in the 20s. This is a shame as there are some great family sitcoms. Anyway, MITM captures the anarchic rivalries of brotherhood and the stresses and strains of parenthood, as well as the underlying love and loyalty that is often obscured. A great show.

Father Ted (1995-1998)

A more unenthralling premise could not be pitched: three failed priests exiled to a remote island off the coast of Ireland. Yet perfectly pitched performances from the three leads, especially the late Dermot Morgan, along with awesome scripts from Graham Linehan (also Black Books!) and Arthur Matthews. The gradual expansion of the central characters to include locals, priests and more priests kept the ideas fresh and developing. I also enjoy that it has a good dollop of being clever ('that would be an ecumenical matter') but it never gets in the way of rank stupidity (the tunnel of goats!).

Cheers (1982-1993)

I am not sure that I need say very much here. Cheers marks the total arrival of the modern sitcom and as such it has it all. It has warmth (we really learn to care for Sam, and who didn't feel sad when Coach passed away), cynicism (Carla's barbs), cleverness (we meet Frasier and Lillith), stupidity (Woody) and good old fashioned romance (Sam and Diane). Cheers, of course, defined the on-again-off-again relationship. 

I'd concede that the format begins to get weary once we hit the Kirsty Alley era, but even then, it remains funny and there is plenty of growth for the more peripheral characters. It's a classic for a reason.

The Good Life (1975-1978)

Part of the pleasure of The Good Life is the warmth and the downright pleasantness of the show. Everyone is nice and it is just nice to be part of the gentle, indeed, genial world that is shown. All sorts of things are nice, of course, but that doesn't make it a great sitcom. Funny lines and great performances do that, and it is harder to imagine a better comic team than the cast. All four leads are giants in the field of comic acting and all four have made the marks in more than one classic sitcom (Briers - Ever Decreasing Circles; Eddington - Yes, (Prime) Minister; Keith - To The Manor Born; Kendall - Carla Lane's Solo).

Married.. With Children (1986-1997)

OK, let's be honest. While it lasted 11 seasons in total, only the first few were really very good. After a while, it increasingly became a pastiche of itself, recycling the same tired jokes. But for a while, at least four seasons, it offered the exact opposite of what most sitcoms had been up to that time - specifically, it was the anti-family sitcom. Here were four people who hated each other - it was unfortunate that they also happened to be family.

What drove it and made it so good were the leads of Ed O'Neil and Katey Sagal as Al and Peggy Bundy. O'Neil, in particular, pours so much pathos into the dismal, relentlessly empty existence of Al Bundy, shoe salesman. The show predates and offers direct inspiration to so many shows that ultimately followed (including a few on this list): The Simpsons, Roseanne, Seinfeld, Malcolm, It's Only Sunny in Philadelphia. It was the first sitcom to revel in the gallows humour of the socially and economically desperate.

Seinfeld (1989-1998)

Again, like Cheers, what is there to say? For me (and others, I think), it is a show that one learns to love. The first episode I watched I recall thinking that it was OK; the second, pretty good; third, no - good!; and after a few more, I'd decided that it was comic gold. Here, I think that it is the writing that takes centre stage - it is SO sharp, so perfectly framed, even when read aloud, it's hilarious. The performances of the leads (perhaps excluding Jerry) are genius. And again, the ever-increasing cast of peripheral characters steadily create a world that one can immerse oneself in. And no show has done so much to add to the quotia of catch-phrases that have entered my world. I'll never grow tired of this show.

And so, there we have it...

Two final things!

1) I do not claim that these are the BEST sitcoms, only that they are my favourites.

2) I could have called about another 10-15 shows my favourites and had I compiled this list on another day, it might well have included some of those and not these. Just in case you are wondering, these were:

• Curb Your Enthusiasm
• Black-ish
• Spaced
• Blackadder
• 30 Rock
• Parks and Rec
• Frasier
• Community
• Porridge
• Rising Damp
• M*A*S*H
• Phoenix Nights
• The Good Place
• Fawlty Towers
• Yes, Minister

* This was not the blog post I intended to write. I intended to write about sitcoms I found interesting for one reason or another and MTM was on that list. Anyway, I got sidetracked by this post so maybe I'll write the other one on another occasion.

10 Tracks That I Wish Were Available on CD

I buy CDs - lots of them. I have a large collection. Maybe I am compensating. Anyway, there are a bunch of tracks that I wish I could add to that collection. Some of them are available on vinyl but, as you know, vinyl is no good to me.

Anyway, to sum up, half of this list is old stuff that never got a CD release, the other half is RnB/Hip Hop releases that came out as mixtapes.

I carry on hoping and wishing....

As ever, in no particular order.

Leather Nun - Slow Death (Live)

I won a vinyl copy of this on the legendary Roger Hill's BBC Merseyside show in the 1980s and it immediately blew my mind. Side one comprised the original Slow Death EP - a jarring mix of hissing industrial music and the most abrasive, broken punk music. Side two held a live version of Slow Death with the band accompanied by Genesis P. Orridge and Monte Cazzara. This version stripped out the industrial hissings and brought something almost Sabbath-y to the mix. As ever 15 minutes of a dude muttering about dying over music that sounds like slowly moving slurry is irresistible. It has never been released on CD. Recently, Jonas Almquist has finally re-released a lot of old Leather Nun recordings on vinyl - perhaps he'll do a CD comp at some point...

In the video, it cuts in about 3 and a half minutes into the song... but all the sludgy nihilism is still there!

Bonnie Prince Billy - Bertrand My Son

I could fill this list with Will Oldham (Bonnie Prince Billy) releases. He is always releasing odd songs on vinyl that never see the light of day on CD. I have about half a dozen of these singles. Amongst them is a split 7" devoted to the songs of Larry Jon Wilson, who had recently passed. Oldham did a lovely cover of Wilson's tribute to his son, Bertrand, which is itself one of the most gorgeous songs about parenthood. Oldham plays it straight and it is, too, lovely.

Incidentally, I was tempted to pop Wilson's own albums on this list although strictly speaking they are available on CD, if you are willing to drop a crazy sum.

I could not find a youtube link of Oldham's cover, so here is the original...

Chance the Rapper - Coloring Book

This dude is on his third album, but thus far none have had an official physical release. Not, I add, because there is insufficient business to be made. Chance has made a name for himself guesting with Kanye, Beyonce, Kendrick, and is regarded very highly. No, he has not released them simply because he hasn't wanted to.

And they are amazing. Coloring Book is his most realised album to date drawing in Hip Hop, RnB, Gospel alongside an incredible list of collaborations. The whole album is awesome but here's one track...

Spectral Display - Spectral Display LP

A Dutch electronic music project funded by EMI, led by Michel Mulders and Henri Overduin, Spectral Display have been more or less unjustly forgotten. I came across them via MIA's third album, where she covered It Takes a Muscle. It is an odd but compelling track. A sad slightly haunting earworm with a soft, plastic reggae beat. It is awkwardly sung, and yet the coming together of the various parts is lovely. The album is a 50/50 affair - a few tracks come close to Muscle, others less so. Either way, it is a tragedy that it has never been released on CD - currently it is only available on vintage vinyl or download.

Princess Nokia (Destiny Frasqueri) - Orange Blossom

Princess Nokia finally released her 1992 Deluxe debut on Rough Trade last year but she'd been releasing bits and pieces as mix-tapes for a long while. These are pretty ragged releases in all, but even though some tracks are little more than her singing over old records (or the Soul Train theme tune in one case), they are fun and deeply appealing. They also reveal an artist that is pretty determined to make her career under her own terms, refusing to fit in comfortably with any preconceived notion of what she should be like. Orange Blossom from her Honeysuckle mixtape, billed under her own name, is a perfect summer tune - warm, lazy, blissed out. Some people have made noise about her similarities with Kali Uchis (see below); James hears it, James don't care...

Kanye West - The Life of Pablo

Kanye, Oh Kanye.... (Now just Ye, of course). I feel like my appreciation of Kanye's music is pretty well documented at this point. He might have moments of profound idiocy, which may stretch the patience of even his most adoring fans - his recent proclamations re: Trump and slavery are cases in point, but his musical chops are unarguable. Either way, he is annoyingly obstinate at times and this is one of those times. Feeling a little harangued, I think, about the finalising of The Life of Pablo, his seventh solo album, he kept wanting to tinker with it. There was also something about who was going to release it, Tidal or whatnot...Anyway, I am not sure quite what happened but he decided - and has apparently stuck with it - that this album would never be released on CD. Frankly, it is not his best - but even Kanye on an off day is more interesting than most artists on a good. And whilst, as an album it is a little uneven, the highs are incredible: the gospel inflected opener Ultralight Beam (featuring Chance the Rapper), the Sister Nancy/Nina Simone sampling Famous, the Kendrick Lamar collaboration, sampling Junie's magnificent Suzie Thunderpussy - No More Parties in LA. Those three tracks alone are enough for me to want a CD release NOW!

Indians in Moscow - Indians in Moscow

Indians in Moscow were a short-lived synth-pop band from Hull. They broke-up just before they gained some proper recognition with an opening slot on The Tube. They were most well known for two properly stupid songs, Naughty Miranda and Jack Pelter and his Sex-Change Chicken. They are stupid, but charming and slightly deranged. On the album that was posthumously released, they display a richer range of styles and reveal themselves a band that, had they taken a deep breathe, resisted their stupider urges, and most importantly, not broken up, had a properly interesting career. The album, incidentally, was reissued on Russian label, Other Voices a few years ago along with a bunch of extra tracks. It's worth a listen.

Missing from the release, however, is this eponymous track. It is moodier and heavier than the album. Again, I don't want to sell it as some kind of lost genius or anything, but I think it has some nice touches and suggests that they could have offered more. Despite its limitations I enjoy listening to this album now and then, and I really wish that this was on it....

Kali Uchis - Drunken Babble/Por Vida Mixtapes

I've been raving about Kali Uchis for months now and I don't think I have successfully converted anyone. No mind - I think she's awesome. Part of the reason that I feel this way is the story that precedes her. Childhood musical chops gave way to rebellion and getting kicked out of home. She sorted herself out and recorded a bunch of stuff in her bedroom. This is what became the mixtape Drunken Babble. Predictably it is rough but it leaves no doubt that she is anything less than talented. It straddles pop, RnB, hints at her Columbian heritage, and allows reggae influences to sneak in from time to time. This track, 'Never Be Yours' is a gem, riding an old Delegation sample perfectly and has become the summer jam in our household. Babble was followed by a slightly slicker, but no less charming, Por Vida in 2015. This year, at last, saw her debut album proper. Have I mentioned how much I love it?

Ganzheit - Brains To the Wall EP

This was another record I acquired via Roger Hill. I know nothing about them at all. Super independent label. As is often the way, the band don't really know who they are or what they want to be. Most obviously, they want to be an early industrial electronic band like Front 242 or Nitzer Ebb. But they also have more typical 80s indie elements, not out of place in C86 scene. There are also elements that remind me of some Siouxsie B-sides. Anyway, is it a mess? A little, but yet I find it compelling.

But it is the third and final track, Harmony, which takes a step away from the first two tracks and towards something quite different and makes it ache for proper recognition. It is almost African, but then again, not quite. A persistent tom rhythm with a repetitive percussive bass pattern, flute samples and a guitar sample that could have been lifted from the Bhundu Boys. Above the fray are samples, I assume, of singing, which again, to these ears, sound African. Such as it is, though, that I could be wrong about it all. If someone has better points of reference and wants to have a shot at describing it, please chip in.

Nightmares in Wax - The Birth of a Nation EP (and early Dead or Alive singles)

Sadly, Pete Burns is known primarily for one song. It is incredible and I hope that 'You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)' kept him in biscuits until his untimely passing in 2016. A few people may know one or two others - perhaps his first major chart hit, a cover of K.C. & The Sunshine Band's 'That's the Way (I Like It)'. What few people know is that hit represented the second phase of his pop career. There were five singles/EPs released between 1979 and 1982. I only know a couple of them - 'I'm Falling' was on a compilation 'The Indie Scene 1981' and 'The Stranger' appeared on the Sophisticated Boom-Boom reissue on Cherry Red. Both are fantastic. But neither of them compare to Nightmares in Wax who released only one EP, entitled The Birth of a Nation. Side A contained the magnificent 'Black Leather', while side B had 'Girl Song' and 'Shangri-La'.

In truth, like so many tracks here, they are pretty ragged. But they hiss and spit with life and energy and passion. I find them both thrilling and weirdly hilarious. I have the Birth of a Nation EP, but I would pay very good money for a decent compilation covering the whole period up to their signing with Epic.

Strictly speaking I cannot include Black Leather on this list as it was included on the awesome Revolutionary Spirit box-set, but check out any others...

10 Thoughts About Vinyl Records

The vinyl revolution is so well established that it is almost old hat. Even Sainsburys sells vinyl. I sold all my vinyl about 20 years ago and made the leap to CDs. Since then I have bought a lot more CDs - a lot. So I have some thoughts about this vinyl resurgence...


Vinyl is pretty

No question. It really is. The thrill of opening up a nice gatefold, especially if new with that new smell, is indescribable. A well presented 12" is a piece of art.


Vinyl has old school cache value

There are associations to records that you just don't get with CDs, or even other formats - now mostly obsolete. Picturing someone with a bunch of records under the arm is just innately cooler than picturing them with a clutch of CDs.

And then there is the theatre of selecting the record...


There is a large stock of cheap old vinyl

People have begun to twig onto this (I saw one guy on Facebook trying to sell his grandmother's James Last records for a tenner!) but there are a lot of old records, still in decent condition, kicking around for very little money. If you don't care about buying new, vinyl is a fast way to get a decent collection on the cheap.


Vinyl may sound better than CDs (See below)

I cast doubt on this below, but certainly back in the 80s, vinyl sounded clearly better than CDs, which sounded thin and unconvincing. People suggest that there is a greater warmth to vinyl. Maybe...


However,


Vinyl is big

Records take up a lot of space. In terms of length and breadth, you can get four CDs in the space you can a record.


Vinyl is bulky

Moving house with my collection is a nightmare. The CDs take about 30 banana-boxes, which thankfully stack quite well. Vinyl is much heavier. I don't know how many boxes I would need, but I am confident in saying more, many more.


Vinyl is vulnerable

People made exaggerated claims about the invulnerability of CDs when they came out. You can fuck up a CD. However, not like you can fuck up a record. Back when I played records regularly, I remember ruining a few with the slightest errors of judgement. A house party was like a zombie apocalypse for records.


Vinyl is forcing record buyers to rebuy what they already have

OK, the record industry has been doing this for a while. How many CD editions are there of 'Kind of Blue' or 'Dark Side of the Moon'? But if you already have a decent edition of an album on CD, why buy it again on vinyl?


Vinyl typically offers the buyer a less good deal

A case in point. Numero recently produced an excellent compilation, Basement Beehives, charting obscure girl group records from the 60s. The vinyl edition was a double album with 28 tracks. The CD edition was cheaper and had all those 28 tracks, plus 28 more. Again, the Rhino vinyl reissue of 1968 compilation What is Soul? had the original 12 tracks. The CD edition, again cheaper, had an additional 14 tracks (all excellent, by the way, and making it my #1 recommendation for a single disk 60s soul compilation).


Vinyl is wildly over-priced.

Records are, if you are buying new, off-puttingly expensive. A ridiculous example: I was in Sainsburys. They had Chas and Dave's Gold, a shameless cash in on the sad death of Chas, on both vinyl and CD. The CD edition had three disks and cost £5. The vinyl edition was a single disk and was £18. That is a particularly egregious example, but look at record store day or any new crop of releases and ask yourself whether £18-£25 is a good price compared to the price of a CD.


Vinyl rarely, if ever, sounds better

All of this might be understandable if vinyl was clearly a better representation of the music. If you popped on a record and the music was richer, clearer, lovelier etc., then the fragility, cumbersomeness, and cost would be worth it. However, it doesn't - at least not in the majority of cases.

I said above that in the 80s vinyl did sound better and that is incontestable. However, CD technology has come on a LOT. Where they were thin sounding, they now - assuming a nice mastering job - sound rich, and so on. It is possible that records do still sound better but only under conditions out of reach for most record buyers. If you have a very good hifi and a very good set of speakers and perhaps a very good pair of ears, then maybe they sound better. But if you're playing on an average High Street stereo, I seriously doubt it