I can't help but compare this show to Mad Men right now, and I suppose in that sense it was smart to START from a shift rather than build to one because if they'd started with the record company on top it'd probably be completely shrugged off as derivative. But I still see the office dynamics as fairly similar so far, and I feel like this show is leaning far more heavily on name dropping bands and throwing cultural touchstones in than Mad Men ever did.

I just don't know what Vinyl's identity is yet; if Boardwalk Empire ever mastered anything, it was that it was pretty clear in its concept of itself. Vinyl so far just seems like an excuse to poorly imitate King Hannibal, Alice Cooper and Robert Plant and show Cannavale doing a lot of drugs. It's decent entertainment but I'd like to think there's a better show here, somewhere.


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"This is the streets, and I am the trap." � Jay Bilas
http://www.popmatters.com/pm/archive/contributor/517
Hip Hop Handbook: http://tinyurl.com/ll4kzz