It isn’t often that we here at Howl and Echoes cover anything television-related, but this one is simply too good to overlook. Mick Jagger is responsible for some of the most transcendent rock and roll of all time, his legacy including Gimme Shelter, Sympathy For The Devil and (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction. Martin Scorsese is responsible for some of the most transcendent films of all time, his legacy including The Departed, Casino and Goodfellas.
These two absolute titans of their respective industries are now teaming up to bring us Vinyl, a rock and roll drama set around a record label in 1970s New York City. HBO has given a 10 episode first season a resounding green light, because people would have questioned their sanity had they knocked it back.
All the familiar Scorsese tropes seem to be there: the deadly serious main character voice over, copious drugs and violence, a soundtrack just silly with classics. And if anyone knows about the rock and roll industry in the 1970s, it would be Mick Jagger, whose withered features probably owe a lot to the unbridled hedonism of that period.
The cast includes Bobby Cannavale in the lead role as a record executive trying to resurrect a label. You may remember him from such work as Boardwalk Empire and Ant Man but I’ll always remember him as one of the detectives who got Will Ferrell to do a ‘desk pop’ in The Other Guys.
The cast also includes Olivia Wilde as Bobby Cannavale’s (probably long-suffering) wife, Jagger’s son James as the lead singer of a punk band (a role he should have no problem playing with some tips from the old man) and, straight out of left field, Ray goddamn Romano for some reason.
To put it lightly, Jagger, Scorsese and HBO have the Midas Touch with simply everything, so I have incredibly, ludicrously high hopes for this series. We’ll have to wait for an unspecified date in 2016 for Vinyl to air, but it already looks to be well worth the wait.