The Baby-Sitters Club Club lovingly unpacks the stylish BSC reboot (and all of Claudia’s outfits)
Once Upon a Time… in the Valley
T-R-A-C-I/Wanted: Figure Models/We Kinda Made It Hardcore
The first three episodes of this gleefully lascivious podcast, in which Vanity Fair writer Lili Anolik and The Rialto Report host Ashley West document the rise and fall of underaged ’80s porn goddess Traci Lords, dropped last week. And while the show calls itself a “real-life noir,” these eps make it seem more like Rashomon for the trenchcoat crowd. The first episode breaks down how Lords had the sort of textbook traumatic upbringing that would lead her to the porn industry and a sex- and coke-fueled existence, all of which nearly toppled the adult-film world (a world she would later vilify in her 2003 tell-all) when it’s discovered she’s only a teenager. However, the following two episodes include interviews from industry players (including her former agent Jim South, male star/ex-boyfriend Tom Byron, and fellow performers Christy Canyon and Ginger Lynn), who not only insist that the Reagan-era porn industry wasn’t as sleazy as Lords made it out to be, but also that Lords was a wise-beyond-her-years manipulator who knew exactly what she was doing. [Craig D. Lindsey]
Switched On Pop
Rosie: Investigating A Crime At The Heart Of The Music Industry
How did a field recording of a 1940s prison work gang end up in the mix of the 2015 hit “Hey Mama” by David Guetta, Nicki Minaj, Afrojack, and Bebe Rexha? Musicologist Nate Sloan and songwriter Charlie Harding treat the question like a detective story, one that has the fingerprints of ethnomusicologist Alan Lomax smudged all over it. Their journey leads them to reflect on music and the brutal way of life on plantations, which withstands the Civil War to take root in prison work camps. That’s where the mysterious Mr. Lomax shows up and captures the song, tracking it as it resurfaces first during the British Invasion and again during the rise of hip-hop, transferred via Grand Funk Railroad. Equally important to the hosts are meta-questions surrounding appropriation and equity, which manifest in tangible ways in the form of money and credit. [Zach Brooke]
The Baby-Sitters Club Club
BSCTV 002: Claudia And The Phantom Phone Calls
The recent release of the brilliant Baby-Sitters Club reboot on Netflix was overshadowed by the debut of a certain founding-fathers musical over on Disney+. But one could argue there is nothing more American than the feminist entrepreneurial vision showcased in the beloved ’90s YA book series by Ann M. Martin, and no one posits this with more passion than the hosts of The Baby-Sitters Club Club. Jack Shepherd and Tanner Greenring have been reveling in everything Ann M. Martin for a long time, going through the entire BSC canon and series spin-offs—and now, they begin (again) at the beginning with this new chapter. Shepherd and Greenring are a less doleful Statler and Waldorf, giving snaps to Claudia’s aesthetic, locating potential illuminati symbols in the second episode, and lovingly referring to Alicia Silverstone, who plays one of the girls’ moms, as Batgirl. “Claudia And The Phantom Phone Calls” finds the babysitters getting ready for Halloween and a big dance, when the town is suddenly riddled with spooky calls. Are they real? A metaphor for how we ghost others, perhaps? Or a very big mystery, as yet unanswered by Ann M. Martin and show creator Rachel Shukert? [Morgan McNaught]