Vinyl

Vinyl is the new glossy HBO series about the music industry in New York in the 1970s, produced by Martin Scorsese and Mick Jagger, and currently showing in the UK on Sky Atlantic.

The 1970s was a very interesting time in music.  You had the big beasts like Led Zeppelin and The Eagles still selling shed loads, you had lots of classic pop, big disco hits and the nascent twin forces of punk and hip hop starting to bubble up. 

You'd think that Jagger and Scorsese, having lived through and been involved in this era would know a good few stories and be able to bring this to life (just change the names and some details and it's not libelous...), but apparently not, and this is sadly pretty dull as a result.

Characters seem pretty much straight out of central casting, with a drug-taking maverick as the record company boss, a pretty secretary trying to break through the glass ceiling, rock stars sleeping with groupies and so on.  'Real people' appear in each episode - Robert Plant, Lou Reed, Alice Cooper - but they're more an annoying wink at the camera than there for any reason.  Scorsese's brought some of his tropes to the party - an accidental murder, gangsters and so on, and Jagger's brought his son James, who plays the leader of the punk band, but seems much too well-fed and clean to be authentic. 

We'll keep watching as it's now half way through, but if there is a second series can it be closer to what we all hoped it would be like?