And/or

I finished watching Andor last week and then went straight on, as many have done, to rewatching Rogue One.

Amongst the universally glowing official reviews, there's been a significant thread of media/TV/artsy middle-aged British Bluesky which has ostentatiously shrugged and said "what's going on/it's a bit boring/it's all procedure/Star Wars for grown-ups is pointless, the whole fun of Star Wars is that it's for kids".

The point is worth considering, especially as it echoes one made by this blog's regular reader. Is Andor a bit overhyped? Is its adult tone a considered shield against an absence of the kind of thrills which are and have always been the lifeblood of Star Wars?

Well, obviously, it's a big no from me. I did pay heed, while watching the first half of the second series, to the notion that maybe I was buying too heavily into it, that there were longeurs which may not pay off. But they did pay off..

The first thing I'd say about Andor is that, to me, this is the story. The main story. Andor, Rogue One, Star Wars. How the rebel alliance was formed, what kind of people they were, how tyranny operates, how people operate against tyranny, how they got the plans for the Deathstar, how the Deathstar got blown up. This direct line. A perfect story.

Of course, Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi may also be "the story", but the line from Cassian Andor being recruited to the first Deathstar blowing up is a straight line, and all of it is "important".

That is not true of most of the other spin-offs, even when they try to connect to the main story. They're just dipping in, even Obi-wan Kenobi, a fun show that didn't really add any depth or understanding. 

So, to the counter the notion that Star Wars is best when it's for kids, well, they've tried that. Almost everything else since The Phantom Menace has been, very much, for kids, and it's been patchy at best. I could enjoy something like The Mandalorian for a while, but after a while, people who grew up with the original films but now prefer ... different ... types of films, will ask for good people who do bad things, bad people who are human, things going unspoken, some things that aren't completely explained, resonance with the real world, levity, pathos, that kind of stuff. That's what Andor went for, and what it achieved.

Needless to say, it tied up with Rogue One pretty well. You'd hope so, since the whole series had that to aim at. Rogue One I liked very much at the time, and still do, though it is an uneven film, where the compromises between being more grown-up and traditionally Star Warsy are pretty evident. Some of it is just ok, but is elevated by the "I'm afraid everyone dies" ending, which really is, for me, one of the best and most moving bits in all of Star Wars.

Anyway, there we go, Andor was excellent, particularly the third quarter of the second series. I don't really know if Star Wars has much more to give me, after that. but you never know. 

The Commitments

I watched half an hour of The Commitments recently. It is certainly one of that handful of films that I've happily rewatched or dipped into, and will never tire of.

I watched the film near the start of the 90s, read the book near the start of the 2000s, and watched the musical near the start of the 2010s. The film is best.

First, the book, though. Roddy Doyle's debut novel, written in 1987. It would be the first of a trilogy. I bought the trilogy in, I think, early 2002, when I was working at Blackwell's. It was on 3 for 2 "Irish Literature" deal and I got my 30% staff discount so, by my reckoning, The Commitments cost me about a pound. The other books I bought as part of that deal were Borstal Boy by Brendan Behan and Tony Cascarino's autobiography Full Time (the big reveal of Cascarino's fine book being, ironically, that the grandmother he, and everyone else, thought qualified him for Ireland was not actually Irish, so he gained 88 international caps on a false premise).

This was part of a period of general engagement with my "Irishness". I remember reading an article about The Commitments which tied it together with Van Morrison and Dexys and the idea of Celtic Soul, and I think I was disappointed a little, when I read the book, that Doyle doesn't actually go very deep on that, nor on the idea of the Irish as "the blacks of Europe" (in-famously, in the book but not, wisely, the film, he uses a stronger, less acceptable term).

It's a short, sweet, funny novel, but didn't really give me that much that the film (co-written by Doyle) hadn't already.

As for the stage show, that was very enjoyable too, but smoothed out plenty of the edges, of course. I remember that the focus was more on the lead singer Deco than the manager Jimmy, particularly because the guy playing Deco had a spectacularly good voice.

Which brings me to a thing that has long interested/perplexed me about the film. The lead character is the band's manager Jimmy Rabbitte. played by Robert Arkins. Arkins really carries the film, is on screen most of the time, has most of the memorable lines, does most of the acting that the film requires.

He'd never acted before. In fact, he was a singer who was lined up to play Deco, before the director Alan Parker heard Andrew Strong's spectacular voice, and cast him as Deco. So Arkins switched to Jimmy, who doesn't sing in the film, though he does over the opening and closing credits.

What perplexes me somewhat is that Arkins has never really acted again. I mean, he wasn't perfect -  watching it back, you can see there's plenty of happy amateurism from many of the young musicians - but he was good, charming, pulled off some memorable lines.

Many of the cast members of the film have gone on to great careers, but not the lead. I've always wondered why.

Anyway, what else about the Commitments? It did more than almost anything I can think of to defang swearing. It paved the way for a billion terrible versions of Mustang Sally. It has one of the two great "pretending to be interviewed while sitting in the bath" scenes of the late 80s/early 90s, along with Emilio Estevez in Young Guns, and what greater legacy is there than that?

James Mercer

I happened to watch a few old clips of The Shins, Broken Bells and James Mercer on youtube recently, and had a few thoughts.

I'm not saying The Shins were underrated, or that they underperformed. Clearly, the commercial boost that Garden State gave them was more than most indie bands receive. They had successive US Top 10 albums and are still very much one of the bands that come up regularly when people write about What was good in that era.

But, nevertheless, I'm still surprised how much I think, as if for the first time, whenever I reintroduce myself to James Mercer at work "Wow, that guy is good ..."

I saw The Shins twice (i think, or maybe it was three times) and really enjoyed them. I do remember, particularly the first time, and maybe the second time, Mercer, the frontman and sole constant member, hardly spoke to the audience, leaving those chores to a jovial sideman. It's not unheard of, but quite unusual.

When I watch clips of him performing on youtube, I'm struck by the seriousness, the concentration - he's not really giving anything, it's all self-contained, apart from the odd slightly self-conscious half-smile. You can describe it as a lack of "charisma" but I'm not saying that negatively. I imagine the songs need a lot of concentration. The voice is strong and supple, the lyrics are many and oblique, the melodies unusual. He's putting care into every syllable.

Because I've been thinking about football in these terms recently, in regard to players who just end up being overrated or underrated due to historical illiteracy and the cult of personality, I wonder if the same can be true about music and songs. Is Mercer actually one of the greatest singer-songwriters of all time, but just not recognised as such because of what should be entirely extraneous factors? It's probably a silly way to look at it, but just that thought, whenever I see him, with a guitar and a mic, singing one of his many songs, is "I do not see many other people doing this so well, so uniquely". His finest songs really seem like they have been put together, successfully, with a concerted effort to use sequences of notes other people don't use and sequences of words other people don't use, but in the service of beauty and coherence rather than ugliness and obscurity. That's pretty rare.

I remember now, I actually watched The Shins and The Decemberists in the same week in 2005. They were seen as pretty similar bands at the time (I enjoyed the fact that Mercer sang backing vocals on The Decemberists' 2024 comeback single). The Decemberists, who I've seen a few times since, were more crowd-pleasing and memorable. Colin Meloy really knows how to play a crowd. Nevertheless, I'd pretty substantially say I prefer Mercer's songs.

Another little thing from that Shins gig, which I'm not sure if I've mentioned before. My favourite "bit" at the time was towards the end of 'Saint Simon' when, having sung the line in a lower register earlier in the song, Mercer takes it up an octave to sing "Mercy's eyes are blue when she places them in front of you, nothing really holds a candle to the solemn warmth you feel inside of you" which I found a very beautiful, brilliant piece of song. I was disappointed because, in that concert, that was the one thing he didn't do. He just sang it again in the lower octave.

That reminded me of seeing Brian Wilson do Pet Sounds at the RFH a year or two earlier where my favourite bit in all of Pet Sounds, where he goes "Oh Caroline you ... break my heart", just a chillingly beautiful piece of melodic singing, but that was the one bit in the almost perfectly recreated album that was not recreated (I can't remember if he just stayed an octave down or he just didn't sing that bit at all).

And, in both cases, that was a good reminder that often, in music or anything, the best bits are the hardest bits to do. Wilson just didn't have the voice for that particular bit anymore. I imagine Mercer sometimes did and sometimes didn't. Better not to miss the note in a horrible way.

Anyway, there we go, that last bit was off-topic a bit. I hope there'll be another Shins album. 

And finally ... my favourite Number 1s

I might as well tie it all together.

Having now listened to all the UK Number 1s, I'll run down my favourite 25.

I made a nice little playlist of my top 5 from each decade and added a few others, to help me decide.

This is very loose, it really is just what I'm feeling this week, but I think it's a good snapshot of the most interesting songs that have achieved popularity over the last 70 years.

The order of things is already a bit different from the individual lists for each decade ...

1. Going Underground - The Jam. I think this must be my favourite, after all.

2. Diamonds - Rihanna. This is a much more transient choice. I just love it at the moment.

3. Why Do Fools Fall in Love? - Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers

4. Brimful of Asha - Cornershop

5. Dancing Queen - ABBA

6. Billie Jean - Michael Jackson

7. Would I Lie to You? - Charles and Eddie

8. Bridge Over Troubled Water - Simon and Garfunkel

9. We Can Work it Out - The Beatles

10. Umbrella - Rihanna

11. With Every Heartbeat - Robyn ft Kleerup

12. There Must Be An Angel - Eurythmics

13. You Don't Have to Say You Love Me - Dusty Springfield

14. Like a Prayer - Madonna

15. Independent Women Pt 1 - Destiny's Child

16. Good Vibrations - The Beach Boys

17. Heart of Glass - Blondie

18. Nothing Compares 2 U - Sinead O'Connor

19. What Was I Made For? - Billie Eilish

20. Mack the Knife - Bobby Darin

21. Uptown Top Ranking - Althea and Donna

22. Concrete and Clay - Unit 4+2

23. Stand and Deliver - Adam and the Ants

24. Geno - Dexys Midnight Runners

25. The Promise - Girls Aloud