"The Wire is not your average drama," says the Guardian, and "like every other element of The Wire, the music never lets you down." Music plays an integral role in The Wire's realistic look at inner-city life in an ever-struggling Baltimore. This leads the soundtrack to be "as real, or at least as electrifyingly lifelike, as anything else in the show." Advertising Age names the soundtrack the current "pop pick."
"The Wire is not your average drama," says writer Jon Wilde on the Guardian's music blog, and "like every other element of The Wire, the music never lets you down."
Wilde writes that over the years, the series "has prevailed as a masterpiece that, more than any other show (Sopranos included), has been responsible for establishing television as the pre-eminent storytelling medium of our times." That includes film and literature, which, for him, "haven't even begun to rise to The Wire's challenge."
Music plays an integral role in The Wire's realistic look at inner-city life in an ever-struggling Baltimore. This leads the soundtrack to be "as real, or at least as electrifyingly lifelike, as anything else in the show." Wilde continues:
Listening to the songs and snatches of dialogue that make up ... and all the pieces matter inevitably prompts an excitable, Proustian rush of Wire memories ... Like all truly great soundtracks, ... and all the pieces matter amounts to a riveting listen in its own right. As does its companion CD, Beyond Hamsterdam, which gathers up 11 tracks from the Baltimore club and hip-hop scene.
To read Wilde's complete entry, visit blogs.guardian.co.uk.
Advertising Age's "Media Guy," Simon Dumenco, names ... and all the pieces matter his current "pop pick." He writes that this "compilation of gritty, soulful music ... reminds me that The Wire has gotten damn near every detail pretty much pitch-perfect." To celebrate the long-awaited soundtrack's release, he's giving away a copy to one lucky Ad Age reader; he's also giving away a complete set of the series's first four seasons on DVD. The offer expires January 31. For more information, visit adage.com.
And speaking of the interplay between advertising and media, The Wire's creator, David Simon, has written an op-ed piece in the Washington Post exploring the dangerous impact of the commodification of news, particularly the widespread consolidation of newspapers under bottom-line-obsessed conglomerates. It's an issue that's close to Simon's heart: he was a reporter at the Baltimore Sun for more than a decade and has made the newsmedia the main focus of The Wire in this, its fifth and final season. To read the op-ed, visit washingtonpost.com.
