New HBO series, "Vinyl"

I didn't even make it through half of the Leary show's first season. And I loved "The Job" and "Rescue Me". (But, the daughter was hot.)

 

Leary's show became more of a comedy than a dramedy which was a shame, Rescue Me was a masterful dramedy, it was Leary's baby. That said, I definitely enjoyed it more than Vinyl!

 

Just finished the finale, looking very much forward to season two. Took a few episodes to hit its stride but I'm hanging for more!

 

I do find it kind of funny that some folks seem to take the show's shortcomings as some kind of personal affront.

 

Rolling Stone just called the show a Bomb. Absolutely skewered it.

Also noted the Co Creator and Producer bailed.

 

I would agree that some of it is what the kids might call ' a hot mess'. but its an enjoyable mess.

 

Maybe the extra press due to this court case might give them a few more viewers...DJ Kool Herc is suing HBO

http://exclaim.ca/music/article/dj_...page&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=fbpwall

 

...hopefully not.

 

They offered him 10k to waive all rights, he turned it down. This could get interesting, and the publicity wouldn't hurt a show that could use a little bit of frisson.

 

Not sure if this will go anywhere - do likeness rights cover a living person who's included in a story that's clearly presented as fictional (with all the usual disclaimers at the end)? I thought they only came into play for more explicitly commercial uses.

 

Not sure myself but I have to wonder, if they had to get permission I can't see Plant saying ok to the likeness they had of him on the show.

I noticed there are quite a few unauthorised true story of 90210/Melrose Place/Saved By The Bill shows on tv. I can't see them getting permission from any of the real actors.

 

I finally finished up the series yesterday. All in all I was satusfied with how they wrapped things up and am looking forward to seeing Season 2 under the supervision of the new show runners. I think they worked out some of the faults of this show by the end, fingers crossed that under an enlightened new leadership the show can thrive. But boy oh boy was this one an outright mess for a while!

 

I'm not sure if there's a cause and effect here, but the head of HBO programming just abruptly quit this week...

One of the most important execs at HBO is leaving after 33 years »

The industry trades are pointing out that they were pretty freaked out by the relative failure of Vinyl to find an audience, and the fact that their other big shows (Game of Thrones, Veep, etc.) are kind of getting old and they have no new hits coming up.

I'm not sure how that would work if he's a historical figure and was not actually performing or doing a copyrighted song. If it's just a famous guy walking through a scene with a couple of lines of dialogue, it'd be hard to sue. You'd have to prove damages and all that stuff.

Generally, the way historical music dramas have been able to stop anybody from using likenesses of famous people (particularly Marvin Gaye, Aretha Franklin, Janis Joplin, and a few others) is to withhold the music publishing rights. If you can't use that, a movie is pretty much dead. But if they're just a famous person -- like John Lennon -- who appears for 20 seconds in a scene, they can't justify slander or libel or loss of income any of that stuff.

But this may be one of those things where even though they don't have to get permission, a call might still get made making them aware it's going to happen, sending over the script page, and reassuring them that the character won't be in a negative light. If it were Robert Plant having sex with a 14-year-old groupie and inhaling coke, that might be more of a problem.

 

Oh I think that Executive leaving is definitely due to "Vinyl", and their overall uncertain state of the nation. It's such a classic scenario when the top dog leaves to become a "Creative Producer".

I worked on a Pilot of theirs in the Fall of 2015
for what would have been an interesting limited episode series called "Codes of Conduct" which was written and directed by Steve McQueen. It languished for ages until they officially killed it off last February. With not much going on otherwise for them that decision still baffles me given the caliber of McQueen's work.
Codes of Conduct - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia »

I also disagreed with their dumping "Togetherness". I really enjoyed that show, a smart half hour for grown ups that could have had very interesting 3rd season if they'd let it carry on, oh well, it's their money after all.

 

I had the same reaction to the show as Ray Romano's character's last scene . . walking away with mild disgust and disappointment.

 

I think Romano fulfills a role as the "old school" 1960s-style record exec who wants to do thing in the traditional way, and he's unprepared for the excesses that he sees Bobby Canavale doing in the 1970s, particularly in terms of morality. I think it's interesting that they position Romano as kind of the conscience for the company, and yet they also establish a little sympathy for Canavale, particularly with his reluctant involvement with the mob (and the cops) and so on.

 

I have two episodes left, and I am astonished by how negative SHF members are towards this show, and how seriously everyone is taking it. It's obviously extremely exaggerated, and basically all the characters are jackasses, but it's still very entertaining, at least to me. And sure, sometimes the name drops seem kind of artificial, but there's some great music in the show, and an interesting time period. One thing I don't like is how it seems like they're trying to make it a crime show as well, which is unnecessary. I love Goodfellas, but less Goodfellas and more music-related plot-lines.

 

Vinyl and Mr. Selfridge suffer from the same problem, when the story involves the music or department store business it's interesting. When they leave the main story, both show devolve into soap operas.

 

That's exactly how I felt about High Fidelity.

 

It is huge credit to the writers working on the Sopranos were able to fine a perfect balance between business, family and relationships.

 

The music business was intertwined with mobsters for a long, long time. Can you say Payola? I think it's necessary to show the crime side of the biz. There's plenty of other crimes in the music business to depict. Here's one that they could portray. Fleetwood Mac's label was screwing them back in the 80's when they were hot. The label sent way more LP's out than stores could sell. When the stores sent them back they were listed as defective or destroyed. However, the LP's were going to a warehouse in West Hollywood. So, Fleetwood doesn't get their royalty on these LP's. After the LP's were off the books, they were being sold out of this warehouse that had several hundreds of thousands of copies lying around. The only reason that the caper was uncovered was someone broke into the warehouse and the police came.

There's no shortage of crimes in the music industry!

 

I don't mind the mafia storyline. It fits well, just like Hesh Rabkin on the Sopranos

 

Well, I am an enormous crime film/novel/TV show fan, so it isn't the end of the world to me if there is a crime storyline, I just thought it didn't fit with the show, but maybe you guys are right. I can see how it can work considering organized crime infiltrated the music industry.

 

Organized crime founded the industry. Look for the documentary "The Last Mogul" on Amazon Prime. Netflix - instantwatcher - The Last Mogul »

 

HBO has pulled the plug on Vinyl, even though they previously announced a renewal and hired a new showrunner.

Vinyl Cancelled at HBO, Reversing Earlier Renewal Decision »