Greatest Song Evah 1/31/25

Jan 31, 2025

Salt Of The Earth

This isn’t exactly a controversial take, but IMHO the absolute peak for The Rolling Stones was Beggars Banquet. 10 songs, almost all of which were flat out bangers. Salt Of the Earth was the song that concluded the album. Beginning with some lovely acoustic guitar strumming, we then hear Keith Richards singing lead for only the second time on a Stones record. (That’s only if you count Something Happened To Me Yesterday. On that song Mick sings the verses, Keith does the bridge.) On SOTE, Mick takes over in the second verse, and the two go on to share vocals in the later verses with Mick handling the bridge.

The song is a tribute to the hard working people, the common foot soldier, indeed, the salt of the earth. Or at least on its surface it is. In that bridge, Mick also states that in fact the faceless crowd looks so strange. Is using a different voice on that tangent intentional? Keith’s voice sounds a lot more working class than Mick’s does. Mick has a bit of an aristocratic flair; perhaps he is conveying the idea that he’ll pay lip service to a class of people he can no longer relate to.

The gospel choir that joins in at the end adds an excellent touch to the recording. The track is also well supplemented by Nicky Hopkins playing piano. And it goes without saying that Charlie Watts is an MVP. One of the things that made the Stones so special is that Watts was a jazz drummer who just happened to be playing in a rock band. He provided a swing that few bands have had.

Beggars Banquet came out in the early stages of what would prove to be the Stones’ Golden Era. That run of classic album after classic album would continue for several more years. Raise a drink to this one; you don’t often hear something better than this.

SNL 50: Beyond Saturday Night - The Auditions

The celebration of SNL’s 50th consists of more than just the upcoming gala anniversary special. There are also a series of retrospective specials on both NBC and on Peacock. The challenge is to avoid rehashing too much of the usual material. Earlier milestone anniversaries have come with all sorts of SNL history specials, there’s no real need for another. I suppose they could have produced a new edition of the oral history specials that ran a few years ago that would cover the 2010’s, but other than that, what could NBC do?

It helps to look back on what ESPN did for its 30th anniversary. Rather than compiling the same highlights for the umpteenth time, Bill Simmons came up with the idea of producing a series of 30 documentaries that would cover sports stories from the first 30 years of ESPN that had not been heard much. The result was 30 For 30, a series that still continues to this day.

Similarly, Peacock is running a 4 part series of SNL documentaries called SNL 50: Beyond Saturday Night which look at the show’s history from a slightly different perspective. The first begins at the beginning. According to the Sporcle quiz, there have been 167 members of the cast over the course of 50 years. The vast majority have had to audition for the show, and the first special examines the process.

If the process of young cast members fighting for airtime feels like The Hunger Games, auditioning for the show is even more brutal. The hopefuls are told that they have 5 minutes to introduce 5 characters, now go! It’s even tougher than it sounds because not only is Lorne Michaels famously inscrutable, but the other producers who sit in on the auditions also tend to avoid laughing. Multiple performers have the same story - they will tell a joke, the response is complete silence, they think they’re bombing.

The special shows snippets of some of the auditions and the actors are often horrified to look at their younger selves all these years later. It’s also a treat to see instances in which some of the more well known recurring characters were part of the audition. Kristen Wiig’s audition included the Target Lady, Bill Hader’s had Vinny Vedecci, and Molly Shannon used her Delicious Dish character to name 3.

There were some fun anecdotes heard. Hader and Andy Samberg auditioned on the same day. Samberg brought a bag of props with him. When Hader saw that he thought, oh no, this guy is so prepared, I’m f***ed. Samberg thought, oh no, this guy is so confident that he doesn’t need any help, I’m f***ed. This moment was almost too perfect. What I said about the typical audition lasting 5 minutes? They showed portions of Kenan Thompson’s audition with a timer clock. His lasted more than 11 minutes long. It’s apropos that the cast member who shattered all longevity records held an audition that was more than twice as long as the standard.

The special also briefly showed auditions from some soon to be famous people who did NOT become part of the cast. You can’t help but wonder how differently the show would have looked had someone like Jennifer Coolidge or Donald Glover become cast members, or how differently their career arcs would have gone. It’s also clear how humbling an experience SNL can be. Jason Sudeikis was initially hired as a writer, and sketches that he wrote made it onto the show in his first 2 weeks. He was confident that he had made it, but he was quickly brought back to Earth. He went months before a third sketch made it to air.

The second doc in the series focuses entirely on one legendary sketch. We will discuss on Monday. Two words. More cowbell.

The NBA All-Stars

The NBA announced the reserves for the All-Star game last night. Things could change if any injury replacements are necessary, but here are the 7 per conference who will fill out the rosters. (Keep in mind that the league is changing the format this year, and the 24 stars will be placed in a pool to be divided among 3 8-man teams for the actual festivities.) The East reserves are Jaylen Brown, Cade Cunningham, Darius Garland, Tyler Herro, Damian Lillard, Evan Mobley, and Pascal Siakam. From the West it’s Anthony Davis, Anthony Edwards, James Harden, Jaren Jackson Jr., Alperen Sengun, Victor Wembanyama, and Jalen Williams.

The talent pool in the league is so deep that snubs are inevitable. I can’t get too outraged because if you scream “A belongs!” that means you have to figure out who then gets bumped. I’ll focus on one snub per conference. I think Trae Young belongs on the team. I would take him over Tyler Herro. The West is tougher. I believe that Domantas Sabonis deserves a spot, but at whose expense? He’s probably having a better year than Jaren Jackson, but with the season the Grizzlies are having I don’t see how you can have an ASG without any players from Memphis. Maybe Anthony Davis’s abdominal injury will keep him out of the game and Sabonis would take his place.

The Grammys

Awards season kicks into full gear with this weekend’s Grammy ceremony. As has been the case for several years the actual awards are only of secondary concern. Sure, there are points of interest. How many more trophies will Beyonce add to her record setting haul? Will Kendrick Lamar finally win Album Of the Year? Will Taylor Swift win her 5th Album Of the Year award?

The awards are largely an excuse for the Academy to produce a 3 1/2 hour long television show that celebrates contemporary music. (Only around 10 of the 90+ awards are actually presented on the televised show.) This year’s ceremony will have a much different tone. It is the first major awards show to air in the wake of the devastating Los Angeles wildfires, a tragedy that is still ongoing and directly affects many of the people being honored. This show will at least partially set the standard for how other shows will handle things. What is the best way to present the celebratory nature of an awards show without being tone deaf? How will show producers incorporate fundraising elements into the evening?

As always, lots of big names have been booked to perform so there should be no shortage of memorable moments. In addition to hearing from some of the leading nominees such as Billie Eilish, Charli XCX, and Chappell Roan, Stevie Wonder is going to lead an all-star tribute to Quincy Jones. St. Vincent is also going to perform, which automatically raises the coolness factor of the evening up a notch. I’ll share my thoughts on the evening in Wednesday’s newsletter.

Non-Peak TV - The Syndicated Dramas Part 2

At its peak Baywatch was supposedly the most popular television show on the planet. Whether that’s true or not, it makes sense. A typical show produced in the United States wouldn’t necessarily translate well internationally. But a show with slow motion shots of swimsuit clad women running on a beach? Talk about the universal language. It stood to reason that every studio wished to strike paydirt with their own twist on the Baywatch formula. Make no mistake, there was a clear formula to the series which emerged from the Baywatch wake. Hire male actors with six pack abs. Hire female actresses with C cups at a minimum. Set the show in a warm weather locale so that the cast could show off their physiques. Stir the ingredients and serve.

One example was Peter Benchley’s Amazon. This one focused on a group of survivors from a plane crash that went down deep in the Amazon jungle. Needless to say they encountered indigenous people, some of whom were cannibals. Among the stars of this show were Carol Alt and C. Thomas Howell. It was pure schlock. A little better was Relic Hunter. This one starred Tia Carrere as a distaff version of Indiana Jones, an archeology professor who travels the globe in search of ancient artifacts, coming into weekly conflicts with all sorts of bad guys seeking to get their hands on those same relics of antiquity.

One of the big hooks for these types of shows would be the casting choices. For example, Thunder In Paradise starred Hulk Hogan as one of a pair of mercenaries who would inevitably find themselves battling all sorts of smugglers or pirates on a weekly basis. If you want to see some amazing casting, look no further than the show that most closely replicated Baywatch. Acapulco H.E.A.T. featured a team of implausibly hot secret agents in Mexico. I’ve gone all these years without knowing, or caring, what the acronym stood for but I decided to look it up. Our heroes worked for the Hemisphere Emergency Action Team. As for the casting, Fabio was in this show! Yes, Fabio! According to IMDB, he was in only 16 of the 22 season 1 episodes and did not return for season 2. I guess the I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter commercials were more lucrative.

I’m saving the best for last; one of the single most ludicrous concepts for a TV series. That would be Baywatch Nights. A spin-off of the original, in this one David Hasselhoff’s Mitch Buchanan was for some reason moonlighting as a private detective. The agency’s office was located in a nightclub, so episodes carved out time for the nightclub owner (Lou Rawls!) to perform a song. And Mitch’s partner was portrayed by a young Angie Harmon.

It was a standard detective show in the first season and it also found a way to make sure that it held a connection to its roots by adding a Baywatch lifeguard (Donna D’Errico) to the cast, complete with the requisite red swimsuit. But boy did the show pivot for its second and final season. In order to capitalize on the success of The X-Files the show suddenly dealt with paranormal and supernatural cases. I had to witness that train wreck so I did actually watch a couple of episodes with that amended premise and it was as exactly WTF as expected.

Shows of this type have not completely disappeared. The CW Network often airs cheaply made Canadian imports on their schedule, but for the most part the niche that they filled has largely vanished. In the 90’s if you had an hour to kill on a Saturday afternoon and you just wanted to watch a mindless action show there were multiple options available. Nowadays one can simply randomly fire up your streaming service of choice to find something. There’s no need to hold your breath for a third season of Acapulco H.E.A.T.

Tending The Herd

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