Mary Lucia: 'Vinyl': You hate it; that's why I love it
by Mary Lucia
May 10, 2016
Music business. New York City, 1973.
That was enough to make this my favorite episodic TV series, sight unseen. Everybody smokes. Everybody hurts. Everybody wears tight pants with no pockets.
HBO's first season of Vinyl has ended, and before those of you in the angry mob of "I have a life, and can't watch an entire TV series in a timely fashion" descend on me, perhaps it is best you do not continue reading this because I am going to write about it as if you were sitting beside me in my pug-colored oversized chair each Sunday watching it with me. For the rest of you, or those who don't mind spoilers, please read on.
This is not a review. It's more a continuation of what I've been doing with select friends at work for 11 weeks, which includes a lot of defending a show that feels tailor-made for me. I will admit: I can be contrary in my love of things in which other people don't see the same as I do. In fact, the more people who whined about specifics of the structure of this entertaining series, the more I would rise to the challenge of having Vinyl's back.
First, let me get out of the way the long list of problems other people had with the show that don't bother me in the least:
Inaccuracies in the casting of real rock stars (e.g., Led Zeppelin's manager Peter Grant should've been way taller; Bowie should have been more emaciated). What kind of blow are they doing that would elicit that dramatic of a reaction? The New York Dolls did not have a huge following in 1973. What actual record label is this a depiction of? Too many characters were introduced and not allowed a full execution of their story. Exactly who are the Nasty Bits modeled after? What's with those dreamlike montages that offer a snapshot of a different artist from another time in music. Ray Romano in a three-way? A rock venue never collapsed during a show. And perhaps my biggest sphincter-clenching complaint: How can you like main character Richie Finestra? He's a horrible person.
OK. Got it. Richie does do horrible things; he has made some hideous choices. Good lord, he murders Andrew Dice Clay's sweating, radio-sleaze character in the pilot! Whoops.
Vinyl is NOT a Ken Burns documentary, paisan. It's a TV show. Also, Don Draper is not a real dude, and the money left under your childhood pillow when you lost a tooth was left by your dad who was probably drunk.
The acting performances across the board — from lead characters to minor blink-and-you-missed-their-supporting-chest-hair roles — are colorful and compelling. The sheer physicality Cannavale creates for Richie makes him endlessly watchable. I've even thought to myself the way he steps off the elevator at work in the Brill Building like a brown-leather-jacket-clad rooster is something I need to incorporate when I enter the hallowed halls of MPR each day: "I'm here, let's make some shit happen." Cock-a-doodle-do for the love of Donny Osmond.
Ahh yes … the music business.
Spoiler alert! People did drugs; women struggled to find their identity in this monolithic boys' club; companies spent and lost a crap-ton of money; African American artists were seriously taken advantage of; men got perms; getting radio airplay required some janky unethical maneuvers; and sometimes getting into bed with the mob seemed like a viable option.
Primarily focused on Manhattan's Lower East Side and the Chelsea Hotel scene, I snickered when I read the production had to bring in trash to dress down the streets to proper early 1970s squalor.
Max's Kansas City serves as a landing place for future rock stars, Warhol riff raff and the like. My only wish is that the next dramatization of Andy Warhol be depicted by a black woman.
Taking the show on the road, they fly to Los Angeles to sell the company jet for extra scratch, only to find their New Yawked-upness is hilariously out of place with the mellow weed haze of Los Angeles. As Richie puts it, "L.A. is like a mortuary with a view."
They wind up getting tipped off that Elvis Presley might be unhappy in his current karate Las Vegas charade. In the hopes of signing the King, they fly to Vegas. Holding on to their sacred image of Elvis and what he represented to them as kids, it doesn't take long for them to see that the King has become something quite different.
Ray Romano's Zack yelling out for "Mystery Train" in the midst of Elvis's kissing-older-women schtick is both heartbreaking and funny as hell.
All along, you know the music biz is on the cusp of something else, be it disco, hip hop or the birth of punk. Yeah, yeah, we all know that punk changed the old guard favoring attitude over musical proficiency, but we also know punk didn't get played on radio or sell millions of records. So season two of Vinyl could be an interesting bird's-eye view of the company flailing to stay financially afloat while insisting that the future of rock and roll is in the hands of the misplaced kids stealing guitars and learning only three chords.
Nice foreshadowing in the final episode of season one, as the reoccurring theme of stepping in dog crap appears. CBGB's eventual crib of punk on the Bowery was legendarily known for having dog feces scattered throughout because owner Hilly Crystal let his dogs run free in that hole. With the promise of season two, the cast of Vinyl are certainly going to step into a big steamy pile … and I for one, can't wait.
The complete first season of Vinyl is set to make its HBO Home Entertainment debut on Digital HD on May 23, 2016, and on Blu-ray with Digital HD and DVD with Digital HD June 7, 2016. HBO has renewed the series for a second season but hasn't yet released a premiere date.
