Like many other music and vinyl nerds, one of my favorite novels is Nick Hornby’s High Fidelity, one of my favorite movies is High Fidelity, and one of my favorite TV series is – that’s right – High Fidelity. I feel like most of us nerds (and our 1001 Other Albums project as a whole) would identify somewhere on the spectrum between HF characters Rob, Dick, and Barry:
Rob: Mostly keeps their musical tastes to themselves, recommendations are more references or internal/autobiographical monologues, essentially shared out loud only with those they are (or want to get) close to (or, you know, co-workers).
Dick: Politely makes recommendations (and copies on tape), but only if they think the other person is cool enough to also get it.
Barry: Loudly shares their very strong opinions about the music they think everyone should like, with everyone they meet.
If you’ve followed all three iterations of HF,* perhaps you have already caught this, but (in this essay I will argue that) the HF franchise channels the entire Rob-Dick-Barry spectrum in its slow but steady campaign over the last 30 years to get us all to listen to one particular album: I Can’t Stand The Rain by Ann Peebles, number 772 on The List (submitted by @puffer).
Exhibit A, High Fidelity (1995)
The first instance of HF‘s Peebles campaign is in this description of Barry, working the Saturday crowd at the record store:
“Barry…simply bulldozes customers into submission. He rubbishes them because they don’t own the first Jesus and Mary Chain album, and they buy it, and he laughs at them because they don’t own Blonde on Blonde, so they buy that, and he explodes in disbelief when they tell him that they have never heard of Ann Peebles, and then they buy something of hers, too.”
pg. 97
I will be the first to say you should never automatically equate a fictional character or any particular element of that character with the author (indeed, in my former life, my entire academic output focused on that point). So, since there isn’t a narrator named Nick Hornby breaking the fourth wall or anything in the book, we cannot say that Barry’s musical tastes in HF are necessarily Hornby’s, and we cannot say that Barry’s musical tastes are a key message of HF as a whole. To this extent, with the first iteration of HF, Hornby/HF is channelling the Rob side of the spectrum with the reference. Is Hornby/HF personally recommending Ann Peebles? Maybe, but you’d probably have to be in a relationship with them first to find out.
Exhibit B,High Fidelity(2000)
Cut to the same Saturday scene, in the movie adaptation. Jack Black as Barry doesn’t include Ann Peebles in his tirade on the poor customer, leaving us to wonder if poor Ann has been downgraded for the American audience (the customer is left holding a giant stack of records the Barry throws at him so perhaps we could image she is in there somewhere, but she isn’t mentioned in the script either):
Barry: “[The Jesus and Mary Chain] always seemed what? They always seemed really great is what they always seemed. They picked up where your precious Echo left off and you’re sitting around complaining about no more Echo albums. I can’t believe you don’t own this fucking record, that’s insane! Jesus!…
…You don’t have it? That is perverse! Don’t tell anybody you don’t own fucking Blonde on Blonde. It’s gonna be okay.”
…BUT! Previous to this scene in the movie, playing in the store when Barry is making fun of the customer who wants to buy his daughter a copy of “I Just Called To Say I Love You”, is none other than the title track of I Can’t Stand The Rain. In my mind at least, this bumps up the Ann Peebles nod from a general recommendation coming just from a character to a specific recommendation coming from the movie as a whole, especially when juxtaposed to a song deemed “sentimental tacky crap” that they don’t bother keeping in stock. Even the fact that “I Can’t Stand The Rain” isn’t in the official released soundtrack, “just in the background somewhere”, seems like a very Dick move – if you’re cool enough to have caught it, HF the movie is politely recommending you listen to Ann Peebles.
Exhibit C, High Fidelity (2020)
And THEN, we get to the TV adaptation. First of all, if you’re a fan of the book and/or movie and haven’t yet seen the show, you MUST. It’s absolutely fantastic, and an absolute crime that it was cancelled after one season. For me, the show may even eventually supersede the other two versions, we’ll see.
Anyway, in the show, the character of Barry becomes Cherise, brilliantly played by the comedic genius that is Da’Vine Joy Randolph. And in her version of the Saturday scene (which appears in episode 6), we again don’t get Ann Peebles:
Cherise: “You’re fuckin’ killing me. Like, like, no disrespect but where have you been your entire life. How do you not own Stop Making Sense? That’s crazy! That’s like not owning Blonde or fucking Blonde on Blonde, you know what I’m sayin’?”
Customer: “Uh…”
Cherise: “Damn, man, let me get you right. You got some Fleetwood Mac – one of those. Let’s see what else…let’s see…Ohhhhh, shit! Paul’s Boutique, motherfucker! All right. Now I have taken you on this journey, and I think you done some fine-ass work. No, no, no, thank me later.”
So, where’s Ann at? Well, in fact, in the very first episode. In particular, the episode’s last scene, the scene that really made me fall in love with Zoë Kravitz as Rob and made me certain the rest of the show was going to be awesome. It’s simply Rob, at home, being Rob, listening to music because she was miserable (or, was she miserable because she was listening to music?). She takes a record from a tall stack, says “Thank you, Ann Peebles,” and puts the record on. The first track then plays out the final two minutes of the episode, the camera on Rob as she sits and enjoys the music, credits roll. Perfection.
BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE, for in the show’s https://www.discogs.com/master/2034367-Various-High-Fidelity-A-Hulu-Original, Ann Peebles is right there front and center: side one, track one. HF the show, essentially channelling the Barry end of the spectrum, couldn’t make the recommendation more obvious than that (other than, of course, outright saying “I can’t believe you don’t own this fucking record, that’s insane! Jesus!”). If you missed the quick reference in the book and then also missed the cool background music in the movie, HF the show makes damn sure you don’t miss the Ann Peebles recommendation this time around.
So, y’all, I have taken you on this journey, and I think you done some fine-ass work. Make sure you listen to this record, then thank puffer later. (And, after you do, let us know your top five records to play on a wet Monday morning.)
[Alt text for accompanying image: The album cover artwork is a photo of the artist in profile, with her left hand against the side of her face. The artist’s name and album name are in white font along the top, and the background is dark/black.]
There was a blizzard in New York on February 22, 1963, a night the Dave Brubeck Quartet played Carnegie Hall. It was sold out, and everybody showed up, and were glad they did. Now I I get to hear it whenever I want on #vinyl in #highfidelity because I'm an #audiophile