Celebrate the Olympics with '90s Britpop

I'm a regular listener of Grantland.com's "Hollywood Prospectus" podcast, so I wasn't too surprised when hosts Andy Greenwald and Chris Ryan busted out a Britpop reference when discussing the London Olympics. 

Only, in typically creative Grantland fashion, Greenwald and Ryan -- using the news that Blur would close the Games -- took that news 10 steps further and shared separate Spotify playlists.

Their lists -- titled "Lorries, Torches and Flats" and "Handbags and the Lad Mags" -- highlight a very ripe period in British pop-rock history (and one that's a weak spot for me). You get the usual suspects like Radiohead, Blur, Oasis, New Order and Stone Roses, but there are lesser-known gems that hold their own. Greenwald even dips his toes into mainstream over-produced pop like Take That and Everything But The Girl, but their inclusion actually works. 

It's great fun, and I think will make for a nice backing track to the Games themselves. I mean, how much blather from the announcers can one take anyway?

You can find links to both playlists here (scroll to the bottom). 

Quick review: 'Cronkite'

Douglas Brinkley's "Cronkite" is an exhaustive biography of America's most celebrated newscaster, Walter Cronkite. Most celebrated, most trusted, most loved, blah, blah, blah. The accolades -- both from Brinkley and the dozens of sources cited in the book -- get tiresome after awhile, no matter how deserved. But there's no arguing that for a quarter-century at least, Cronkite walked on water with much of the American public. 

The book is at its best before Cronkite becomes the No. 1 nightly TV news anchor, and that took nearly a decade amid infighting with the legendary Edward R. Murrow and others at CBS. Did you know Cronkite was just weeks from getting replaced in the early 1960s because his CBS bosses were tired of being mired in second place behind NBC's Huntley & Brinkley? 

Once Cronkite stays atop the ratings, the story stalls, as TV becomes more commonplace and accepted as a force of change. But for about 400 pages, "Cronkite" is a gripping history of the first 50 years of radio and TV broadcasting. 

Brinkley is thorough in his research -- the acknowledgements, , glossary, note and list of interviews total 110 pages alone -- yet he glosses over several key dark moments in Cronkite's story. 

These include:

• Cronkite's knowing involvement in unethical video editing of an interview with former President Lyndon Johnson. This is a shocking bit of information to which Brinkley gives little space. To me, such a reprehensible act warrants a closer look, including comment from peers or media observers. 
• Cronkite's acceptance of free airline travel for his family, a huge no-no for a working journalist, particularly one like Cronkite who publicly held himself as above other journalists. 

For a 670-page biography to gloss over those and several other queasy backstories seems strange to me. Perhaps, as a journalist, I'm too close to those kinds of things. But seems to me a book described as an authoritative biography could devote a few pages to a few severe shortcomings amid the endless stream of positives.

Watershed refuses to give up the dream

 

I'm always a fan of the underdog, particularly when it comes to musicians and all the moreso when it's good-hearted musicians who have been slugging away for 20 years with only a fleeting moment in the limelight. 

Say hey to Watershed, an Ohio band that's been chasing the dream for nearly 20 years. Outside of a short-lived cup of coffee with a major label in the early 1990s, Watershed has been playing dive bars and releasing solid power pop on little-known labels every few years.

I had never heard of the band until NPR highlighted a new book titled "Hitless Wonder: A Life in Minor League Rock and Roll" by band member Joe Oestreich. Hitless Wonder" profiles a band that like the more famous Anvil, just won't let their elusive dreams of fame and fortune go. 

The band's enthusiasm, tireless commitment and penchant for decent hooks has won me over. The band's latest album "Brick and Mortar" (stream it above) is a steady stream of good to sometimes great power pop. That's not to say there aren't warts. There are -- strained vocals here and spotty lyrics there -- but those are minor blemishes in what is a fun listen that I've had on regular rotation over the past three weeks.

"Brick And Mortar's" fierce energy and tight arrangements are a testament that good things can come when one never gives in.