{"id":1823,"date":"2017-05-24T18:37:06","date_gmt":"2017-05-24T22:37:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nickzaino.com\/departmentoftangents\/?p=1823"},"modified":"2017-05-24T18:37:06","modified_gmt":"2017-05-24T22:37:06","slug":"axs-tv-re-airing-classic-albums-series","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nickzaino.com\/departmentoftangents\/2017\/05\/24\/axs-tv-re-airing-classic-albums-series\/","title":{"rendered":"AXS TV Re-Airing \u201cClassic Albums\u201d Series"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Good news for music geeks! My favorite documentary series \u2013 <em>Classic Albums<\/em> \u2013 is back on television, if only for a limited run. What makes this series great is that you get the historical context of a \u201cclassic album,\u201d but you also get to see the musicians and producers who made the music sitting behind a board and fading different tracks up and down, isolating things you might have missed the first time. They debuted the series last week with Fleetwood Mac\u2019s <em>Rumors<\/em>, and continue tonight with Rush\u2019s <em>2112<\/em> and <em>Moving Pictures<\/em>. <\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s a some bonus material from the DVD edition of the Rush edition.<br \/>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/qGTwnIGIp5o\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>I watched the episodes featuring The Band\u2019s second album and Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers <em>Damn the Torpedoes<\/em> obsessively while I was preparing to record my album <a href=\"https:\/\/nickzaino.bandcamp.com\/album\/blue-skies-and-broken-arrows\" target=\"_blank\"><em>Blue Skies and Broken Arrows<\/em><\/a>. It helped me figure out what I wanted (which was admittedly fairly simple) when I sat down with a recording engineer. I wrote about the Petty episode in <a href=\"http:\/\/nickzaino.com\/departmentoftangents\/2016\/03\/18\/perfect-albums-tom-petty-and-the-heartbreakers-damn-the-torpedoes\/\" target=\"_blank\">one of the very first posts on this blog last year<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p>I originally caught the show on VH1 years ago. I remember being amazed as Paul Simon illustrated how the bass solo in \u201cYou Can Call Me Al\u201d from <em>Graceland<\/em> was actually two parts \u2013 one part solo played live and then mirrored with that first part reversed. I would never have known, although it\u2019s obvious now every time I hear it.   <\/p>\n<p>There are a lot of titles in the series, mostly rock albums, but they did also profile Jay Z\u2019s <em>Reasonable Doubt<\/em>. When I reached out to AXS TV, a representative told me they weren\u2019t looking into updating the episodes, and there are no plans for new ones. But I\u2019d love to see them not only return but expand and do more hip hop, jazz, and even musical comedy albums. I\u2019d love to see Flight of the Conchords or Gorillaz or Jason Isbell sit down and break down their music. Who wouldn\u2019t want to see Weird Al working the band through changes in \u201cTrapped At the Drive Thru?\u201d  <\/p>\n<p>Here\u2019s the upcoming lineup: <\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>5\/24 &#8211; Rush: <em>2112<\/em> and <em>Moving Pictures<\/em><\/li>\n<li>5\/31 &#8211; John Lennon: <em>Plastic Ono Band<\/em><\/li>\n<li>6\/7 &#8211; Queen: <em>A Night at the Opera<\/em><\/li>\n<li>6\/14 &#8211; The Doors: <em>The Doors<\/em><\/li>\n<li>6\/21 &#8211; Black Sabbath: <em>Paranoid<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I reached out to AXS TV by e-mail to ask them why they picked up the series, and got this from VP of Programming Acquisitions Lucia McCalmont. &#8220;Classic Albums gives viewers an intimate look at the stories behind some of the most influential albums in music history, as told by the artists themselves,&#8221; she says. &#8220;Putting the spotlight on an eclectic roster of beloved bands ranging from Rush and Black Sabbath, to John Lennon and Fleetwood Mac, Classic Albums truly has something for everyone to enjoy, making this series a perfect fit for our lineup as AXS TV continues to bring viewers the ultimate in top-tier music programming.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019ve built up a collection of these on DVD, but some of them are tough to find. I finally tracked down the Graceland episode at Amoeba Records in Los Angeles, and have yet to find a reasonably-priced copy of Stevie Wonder\u2019s Songs In the Key of Life. If AXS keeps this up, maybe I can end the search. <\/p>\n<p><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Good news for music geeks! My favorite documentary series \u2013 Classic Albums \u2013 is back on television, if only for a limited run&#8230;.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1828,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[7,9],"tags":[405,1318,1317,1319,828,1325,1324,81,1323,430,329,1321,1322,850,250,1320,630],"class_list":["post-1823","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-music","category-perfect-albums","tag-weird-al-yankovic","tag-axs-tv","tag-black-sabbath","tag-classic-albums","tag-fleetwood-mac","tag-flight-of-the-conchords","tag-gorillaz","tag-jason-isbell","tag-jay-z","tag-john-lennon","tag-paul-simon","tag-plastic-ono-band","tag-queen","tag-rush","tag-stevie-wonder","tag-the-doors","tag-tom-petty-and-the-heartbreakers"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/nickzaino.com\/departmentoftangents\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/RUSH-Classic-Albums.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7lGwW-tp","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nickzaino.com\/departmentoftangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1823","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nickzaino.com\/departmentoftangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nickzaino.com\/departmentoftangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nickzaino.com\/departmentoftangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nickzaino.com\/departmentoftangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1823"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/nickzaino.com\/departmentoftangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1823\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1830,"href":"https:\/\/nickzaino.com\/departmentoftangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1823\/revisions\/1830"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nickzaino.com\/departmentoftangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1828"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nickzaino.com\/departmentoftangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1823"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nickzaino.com\/departmentoftangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1823"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nickzaino.com\/departmentoftangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1823"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}