Soundtrack

Every minute, 6.5 boxsets are uploaded onto Netflix (probably).  As soon as you think you’re on top of your consumption, there’ll be a new season of that thing you like, or an unseen weekly instalment of that other show that person at work said you should watch.  It’s easy to feel you’re falling behind with a lifetime ambition to complete the platform as if it were a video game, sacrificing your other civic duties of staying at home and ordering stuff online.  But don’t worry, this blog is here to support you in your boxset choice fatigue.  You don’t look at the BBC schedule and despair that you’ll never get round to sitting through everything.  So it should be the same for the online streamers – you only need to watch what you want.  And, to help, I have another hidden gem that might appeal to you.

It has been freely acknowledged that previous hidden gems (un)covered here may not be to everyone’s taste.  As an unregulated, practically unedited, weekly stream of my own opinions, all that matters here is what I think, but all healthy debate is invited.  I was one of the few who thought The Get Down was pretty much a masterpiece.  I would still recommend Friends From College to anyone with a sense of humour.  Everyone should watch Dark, as the wondrous complexity of its plots is only one of its many virtues.  I could go on.  This week, after a recommendation from a dear friend, I have been uncovering Soundtrack.

The trailer ticked a lot of my boxes, mostly because the presence of singing and dancing indicated that this was probably a musical.  Finally, something to come along and meet the unreasonable expectations that I had of Glee.  But this is the first point of difference to cover with Soundtrack.  The cast don’t actually sing the songs.  They lip-synch to the soundtrack.  This is best illustrated by one of the opening scenes.  Nellie, our female lead, is getting ditched by her self-centred boyfriend in a busy restaurant.  As the emotion hits home, the opening sirens and beats of Sia’s Elastic Heart are played to us, the audience.  But it also becomes clear that these aural indications of mood and theme are perceptible to Nellie.  She mouths the words.  She dances choreography.  The background artists, masquerading as waiters, join in as if her subconscious has expanded to include those around her.  You’ll either run a mile at this point or find it to be stirring stuff.

I was hooked.  Throughout the ten episodes, the soundtrack of, lol, Soundtrack, bleeds into the characters’ actions and stories, often culminating in a quite aggressive mash up in some episodes’ climaxes.  While today’s hit parade is often the source of these tunes, later instalments raid Broadway and beyond.  Gender, race and age of recording artist are irrelevant.  It’s all about the sentiment.  Some performances play out as dream sequences, others are more naturalistic, but the whole piece has an experimental feel.  And that’s why I laud Soundtrack: it’s trying something new.  We could easily dismiss this as a gimmick, and some clanging moments (blocking!) in the earlier episodes nearly saw me switch off, but its second strength comes from its story.

Set in LA, Soundtrack at first appears to be a generic love story, documenting the relationship of Sam and Nellie.  Paul James and Callie Hernandez prove so charismatic in these roles that you’re almost disappointed that Soundtrack turns out to be an ensemble piece, with most episodes structured around two other characters and their interplay, drawing focus to Sam and Nellie’s family members, friends and social workers.  That said, the episode Gigi/Jean is carried solely by Megan Ferguson as Nellie’s best friend, though with Nellie herself almost entirely absent, and I found it one of the most compelling instalments.  Sure, this is part La La Land, so everyone is trying to make it in art or music or dance, or has made it in acting.  This is also Netflix, therefore some elements do take their time in order to fill the ten hour-long instalments, but this also somehow doesn’t feel like the kind of fluff that this characteristically flippant write-up would otherwise have you believe.  It’s more affecting, though this might be down to my own (and all of our) emotional vulnerability in lockdown.

So why not watch something that hardly anybody else is?  Soundtrack is not as derivative as it first appears.  It has devastating drama alongside banging choreography that is filmed in a way that really lets you appreciate the movement.  Some of the cast are better at lip-synching than others, but this is part of its style.  It’s a great injustice that I don’t think we’re going to be treated to any more of it, but let that reassure you that this won’t become something that burdens your to-watch list with constant additional instalments.  Soundtrack is the most hiddenest of gems, but if you believe people should burst into spontaneous song and dance in real life then let this single item in your Netflix algorithm offer some diversion from reality.

Glee

Well it’s taken 141 posts to reach Glee.  Not bad going really, considering my tempestuous relationship with this show.  Don’t worry, we’ll soon be onto a painstaking account of how it entered my life, but since that moment I have veered between love and hate for the show choir members of William McKinley High in Lima, Ohio.  Oh look, we’re already at the moment I first came across Glee.  It was in the early days of my career in a media agency.  I still couldn’t believe my job involved needing to know what was on TV (easy).  Everyone was nice, everyone was fun, and I had a genuine interest in the work.  Compared to my previous role in the world of financial headhunting, it was like I had died and gone to heaven.  In fact, I’ve recently had an anxiety dream where, 12 years later, I have to return to that old position for some reason, and I just cannot go through the door.  But no, as a media grad, my evenings were spent at free drinks events, and my days were spent meeting with the channels about what shows they had coming up.  Enter Channel 4, with our rep dropping by for a schedule update.  All I now remember about this meeting is that we were played the trailer to Glee’s first series.  It was a pivotal moment.  Whether or not this content was relevant to my clients was irrelevant, here was a show that ticked more of my boxes than anything ever had before.

High school setting?  Yes.  Fast-paced, wit-laden dialogue?  Yes.  Silliness?  Yes.  And finally, people breaking out into song and dance as if real life really were a musical?  Heck, yes.  I counted down the months, weeks and days till its broadcast on e4, gathering my four housemates round our 2009 TV to drink in its magic.  There was so much to love.  What songs would they do next?  How would they change them for each performance?  What outrageous lines would be uttered?  But also, more music and singing and dancing please.  This was before the days of streaming or live TV recording, so each episode was an unmissable appointment to view, and each second of its broadcast was a transient moment that was gone as quickly as it had come.  And so commenced the torture.  While episode one, season one is a masterpiece, there then began the inconsistency which routinely frayed my nerves and disappointed my unreasonably high expectations.  The plot would deviate from the main thrust about the characters in the glee club, with unnecessary guest actors hogging the limelight.  Or they would choose songs I had never heard before, tarnishing each performance with a big cup of FOMO while I failed to see the relevance or experience the joy of recognition.  Worse still, an instalment would contain hardly any songs and omit to finish with a choral climax.  Sure, making 22 episodes of a show whose basic premise requires rights-clearing, rearranging, recording and choreographing of countless musical performances, with the added pressure of keeping things fresh each time, is a gargantuan undertaking.  But I didn’t care.  I’d had one sweet taste of how good it could be, and I deserved more.

Despite some close calls, after six seasons, Glee never again reaches the beauty of its first episode.  This is acceptable, as it’s still a better watch than many things out there, but it’s also naturally disappointing.  High expectations are a restrictive creative criterion, so I’m not here to troll proceedings on that basis, but my theory is proven by the penultimate episode of season six, which returns to that climactic moment of the pilot (Don’t Stop Believing – belted out many times since both totally off key, and also once getting 100% on a Korean karaoke machine, despite being told in Year 9 that I couldn’t sing in tune (I still can’t)), investigating the other angles and backstories behind its origins before finishing with a straight-out repeat of that iconic performance.  This wobbliness made re-watching all six seasons of Glee a slightly tiresome undertaking, but you can be safe in the knowledge my preparation for this post spans a period of over six months.  After first moving into my new flat, with little by way of evening entertainment beyond a camping chair and my work laptop, I spotted Glee nestled among the choices on Netflix.  Over those early weekday nights as a homeowner, I relived my youth diving back into Glee’s first jaunts to sectionals, regionals and nationals.  But series to series, my enthusiasm waned, and it’s only been during the current lockdown that I’ve finally reached the end of the New Directions’ story.

You may now be wondering what the hell I am talking about.  Glee is a musical comedy drama about a high school show choir team.  We don’t have show choir in the UK; we have smoking round the back of the bike sheds.  It’s singing, in a group, with movement.  What makes this glee club special is that it survives in the face of adversity.  Firstly, its own members are constantly at odds with each other, succumbing to jealousy over solos, or lacking talent.  Secondly, rival schools’ glee clubs are often better.  And, thirdly, there is a cheerleading coach whose life’s mission is to annihilate the glee club.  Most series arc around our bunch of diversity-embracing misfits competing in various stages of national competitions, all while coming to terms with modern life and society’s reactions to them.  They burst into song constantly (though not as much as I would apparently like) and that’s pretty much it.  Glee is gloriously ambitious, but far from perfect.  Below are my top reasons why it didn’t reach its potential (as defined by my personal tastes).

Glee’s deadly sins:

Favouring the wrong characters

This is by far my biggest problem with the whole thing.  Just as subsequent seasons can’t get over that first episode, the casting can’t get over its opening line up, specifically Rachel Berry and Kurt Hummel.  While both these characters define the Glee experience, with their talent and team helping them survive constant unwarranted high school abuse, they run their natural course and graduate.  But we never get rid of them.  In season four, we’ve moved to New York with them.  And in season six, they’re back in Lima and back at the centre of attention.  While their friendships with other members and each other occasionally enlighten them to their own flaws, they never really learn or change, with Rachel’s self-obsession only ever escalating and Kurt’s development always fully forgotten by the next episode.  I also don’t like the fact that his teeth disappear while he sings.  They alternate wisdom: dispensing sage advice one episode and ignoring it in the next.  Other New Directioners are so much more interesting, yet don’t get as much attention: Tina, especially Santana, and even Mike Chang.  Peripheral members come and go without explanation.  What’s more, the new generation of glee club members (Jake, Marley, Ryder, Unique and Kitty) while being slightly altered copies of their predecessors, effortlessly establish themselves as a more likeable bunch, only to be written out suddenly for no apparent reason in season five.  Come season six, a new glee club is being built from likeable-enough new members (with at least Kitty returning) but why rebuild twice and discard, all while keeping Rachel and Kurt and their tedious lives at the heart?  Had Glee been up to me, I would have cycled old members out into oblivion, and constantly rejuvenated the talent with new freshmen members, thereby keeping things going forever.

The stupid contrivances

Linked to the above point is the fact that it’s dramatic tension enough to see how the gang fare in each year’s show choir competitions.  But the powers that glee wanted more jeopardy and so Sue Sylvester was born.  She said outrageous words and did outrageous things, all while clad in an adidas tracksuit and barking into a megaphone.  Jane Lynch nails her performance and rightfully earned household-name recognition from it, but keeping her character opposed to the arts required more storyline flipflopping than anyone could be arsed to keep up with.  Rather than rendering things whimsical, it gave everything an air of pointlessness.  Full episodes and arcs would pivot on the slightest uncharacteristic prejudice.  Sylvester is a champion of the disabled and a supporter of Kurt and Blaine’s relationship, but she’s also the nastiest piece of work whenever it suits.  And this is just one character.  Maybe you can’t have singing and dancing and consistent characterisation, or maybe you should just take things a bit more seriously.

The awful choreography and even worse editing

Everything is better with dancing, and, occasionally, the sight of twenty or so performers perfectly synchronised is the most exhilarating part of Glee.  Vocal Adrenaline and the Warblers (the New Directions’ local, and better, rivals) are proper dancers.  But that doesn’t matter, because you never really see any of it properly, as the editing betrays a severe lack of attention span so that you never see anything (apart from that one fat Warbler’s smug face constantly distracting your vision).  Worse still, where there is the chance to take things in, it’s the New Direction’s own terrible steps we’re forced to witness, more often than not going up and down the different levels of steps that ascend at the back of the stage.  If people aren’t great dancers or lack rhythm, it’s easy to pick steps that make everyone look as decent as possible.  Unless you’re Glee.  They constantly run about into different positions until all you can see is them almost bumping into each other.

The outfits

Like Sex Education, Glee has its own style rules.  But, over time, the outfits grow to be as distracting as the choreography.  From Blaine’s bowties to Kurt’s hats, neckerchiefs and yet more hats, the onslaught of garish colours and impractical choir-gear takes its toll.

But I’ll stop now as I’m just getting nasty.  It must sound like I’m no fan at all when I would still claim this is one of my favourite shows, so I’ll balance things out with two key positives that easily outweigh all of the above:

1.      Glee didn’t just push for tolerance at a time (during the 2010s) when attitudes to minority groups were slowly improving.  Glee demands celebration.  Its message is that any form of difference needs more than simple acceptance, it should be front and centre.  Time and again, Glee pushes a welcome agenda of inclusivity.

2.      Glee has heart.  Because of the above, the show’s message is ultimately one of love.  The New Directions only ever triumph over their more talented, more rehearsed and more impressive rivals because their heart shines through.

Amen to these saving graces – a trail was blazed for greater visibility of so many maligned communities in our televisual viewing, and so too did this expand into real life, though you can’t see it as well at the moment as we are all quarantined inside.  But this has given me time to compile my unofficial, subject-to-change countdown of the top ten Glee performances from all six seasons:

10.         I Lived s6e13

This is the final song in the whole of Glee.  Cast members past and present, even characters that normally steer clear of singing, gather in the auditorium for the last time, coordinating their outfits and choreography to wish farewell to this whole chapter in our lives.  The episode is full of moments when you can tell the cast are genuinely crying about things coming to an end, and it wounds me still that the show is over.

9.            Blow Me (One Last Kiss) s4e5

Season four is a very rich territory for my favourite songs, rivalled only by the first, so we can consider these the two musical peaks in proceedings.  Sung with guts by Wade/Unique and Marley, it takes a song I didn’t mind that much before and gives it an aggression and punch that elevate it to anthemic status.

8.            Americano/Dance Again s4e1

Kate Hudson graces us on guest-star duties, stepping in as the NYADA teacher with a grudge against Rachel.  I instantly love her, and this sexy splurge of decent dancing, mashing together two songs to the benefit of each, sets the bar high for what Glee can achieve as a more adult series.

7.            Don’t Rain On My Parade s1e13

I know this is peak Rachel, but it shows off the undeniable fact that her voice is bloody brilliant.  I never really knew the song before, but her solo rendition helps save the New Directions.  I defy anyone not to listen to this song as they enter the office and then proceed to overdeliver throughout the day.

6.            Somebody To Love s1e5

Still in the early days of Glee, this episode climax refreshes a popular old song while playing to the strengths of the whole collective, while the dynamism between Finn and Rachel’s shared lead vocals create endless layers of drama.

5.            Longest Time s4e20

Another song whose origins elude me, this track shows off the potential of the next generation of glee club members in the peak of their season four flow.  Imagine if they hadn’t been cut off.

4.            One Less Bell To Answer/A House Is Not A Home s1e16

Another mash up, and featuring one of the best guest stars (Kristin Chenoweth, the other being Gwyneth Paltrow) this duet with Will Schuester almost never ends, showcasing powerful emotion with flawless vocals.

3.            Somewhere Only We Know s2e18

Teenage Dream is often the most popular Warblers choice, but this slightly unloved Keane song receives a new lease of life when Blaine and his blazered accomplices deliver a heartfelt performance.

2.            Safety Dance s1e19

Artie gets out of his wheelchair for a flashmob – I mean, come on!  Today, there are greater sensitivities about able-bodied actors playing disabled roles, but in this fantasy sequence, we instantly realise how frustrating it must be for talented dancer Kevin McHale to have to sit down throughout so many ensemble performances.  And yes, the choreography here is some of my favourite, and we’re given quite a good chance of seeing a fair amount of it.

1.            The Scientist s4e4

A lowkey Coldplay single becomes an operatic ensemble anthem.  Artfully placed at a time when various relationships are hitting the rocks within their own narratives, the lyrics are divided beautifully between Rachel and Finn, Blaine and Kurt, Santana and Brittany, Will and Emma.  Sure, Rachel overdoes the end, but it builds and builds and delivers genuine sadness that the path to true love never did run smooth.  It’s made all the more powerful by the performers staring blankly ahead, preventing them from slipping into the common habit of over-gurning to camera.

Let’s not mention the lowest common denominator moments when Glee tried to tap into YouTube viral hits or one-hit-wonder trends, nor the cringeably enjoyable rapping of Will Schuester.  But even in my most recent viewing, I uncovered new favourites that I had previously missed, such as Wide Awake or Hand In My Pocket/I Feel The Earth Move.  Sadly, with every new detail I spotted, I uncovered another inconsistency (though Glee is brave enough to poke fun at itself for a lot of these).  It’s haunting that two of the cast are deceased (Cory Monteith and Mark Salling), while attitudes have changed since Glee first aired – in particular, around single-use coffee cups which most characters seem addicted to.  So, yeah, I’ve got major beef with this show.  I would have done things differently, and I have a clear idea about how, but this mustn’t take away from what it achieved.  Whether schmaltzy, or heavy-handed, or too whimsical, Glee takes on all comers in the battle against bigotry.  And who knows, maybe that real-life fight would be going better if we all danced and sang together a bit more often.