Month: July 2026

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Blog Esoterica Music

Bring back the variety show.

Disclaimer: This is all from my dim memory, I’m not diving into Wikipedia to fact check this stuff, at least not yet.

Back in the ’70s before “reality tv” became the go-to way to save money on programming, there was the Variety Show.

Arguably the most successful, or perhaps most memorable was the Sonny and Cher show.

Variety shows were fairly cheap to produce: you had a set, you booked musical guests, your headliner was either a comedian, or a singer, and you filled the rest of the space with comedy sketches. Perfect confection to whip up for the Summer season before new shows would debut in the fall, a nice respite from re-runs.

So, the Sonny and Cher show, which I think was called the Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour, was a prime time show that got pretty popular. It proved so popular in its summer replacement spot that it got promoted to the fall schedule.

Variety shows generally had plenty of appeal to all ages, and Sonny and Cher proved to be adept at both the comedy part and the musical part. Cher’s Bob Mackie outfits were an additional selling point. It was a surprisingly hip show for CBS, who had badly fumbled the Smothers Brothers.

I don’t remember a single sketch or even what songs they sung, just that it was entertaining, and my parents would also watch it.

After Sonny and Cher’s marriage came to an end, the show also ended, along with most of Sonny’s career in entertainment. Cher was already racking up hit records as ‘Cher’ and Sonny ran for Mayor of Palm Springs, then Congress. There were solo shows for both, with Sonny’s show lasting just 13 weeks, Cher’s being somewhat successful, and then the two reuniting for a new show.

But networks were definitely excited about this formula, and tried many variations:

  • Tony Orlando and Dawn (Sonny with 2 Chers)
  • Shields and Yarnell (Sonny and Cher, but they’re mimes)
  • Donny and Marie (Sonny and Cher, but they’re siblings)
  • Starland Vocal Band (2 Sonnys, 2 Chers)

Other variety shows from the ’70s include the Tom Jones show, which my mom would protest about. “He’s not all that.” She would make this observation religiously every weekend. That one was kind of a gem — there are numerous You Tube clips of Tom Jones jamming with the other musical guests. Like CSNY and Janis Joplin. I’m sure there are others, but in both cases, what starts out as a cheesy forced duet with the show host ends up with Tom Jones going balls-out with his vocals and making the guests work to keep up.

So, maybe instead of these horrible quasi-game show non-scripted series, we should be bringing back the variety show. The Sabrina Carpenter Hour would be adorable and kick-ass, for example.

Heck, a revival of Hee-Haw with authentic country and bluegrass artists would be an improvement over much of what’s on tv now. Just make it the kind of show Willie and Steve Earle wouldn’t be embarrassed to appear on.

Apple TV+ or Netflix, are you listening? Disney could probably pull this off as well, but ABC gave us Donny and Marie, I’m not sure what you’d get from them.

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Music Tech Culture Uncategorized user experience

I miss liner notes

One of my favorite things about the era of music on vinyl records was the big album covers, and all the information that was included on the sleeve. Content varied, but most had a fair amount of information — producers, guest musicians, songwriters, often lyrics, sometimes dedications.

It was an important part of the hobby — enjoying 12″ x 12″ artwork, looking for familiar musicians and producers across the records you owned. Sorting records by the spine – for some alphabetizing the records by artist. My preference, which annoyed my friends to no end, was to sort the records by the color of the spine. I had a neat little spectrum going on my record shelf.

The transition to CDs gave us way less skipping and mostly better sound, but at the cost of big, beautiful cover art. Of course there are exceptions, like boxed sets, but packaging is an afterthought now.

This is something I really miss in the digital download/streaming era. Now the cover art is a little thumbnail onscreen, only some services provide lyrics, and inconsistently at that. There is a way to look at credits on Apple Music, but it’s kind of buried, is only on the mobile app, and also suffers from inconsistent reporting.

It would be a huge win for a streaming service to stop thinking about music as content with metadata and re-think it as music with lyrics and creators. Create a relationship between listeners and the art, make memories. People remember where they were the first time they heard a song, or what was ‘on the radio’ during key periods in their life. Commodifying music as ‘content’ really cheapens that experience.