Spoiler Alert: Breaking Bad Plot Details May Be Revealed In This Article!
Undoubtedly if you own an internet connection, or have bought a newspaper in the last week you would have heard about the finale of Breaking Bad. Truly an internet phenomenon as far as us Brits are concerned due to the fact TV channels this side of the Atlantic didn’t really pick up on it (with the exception of a poorly advertised 1st season run on Five) until it was too late. Breaking Bad was perhaps the first TV show to gather millions of Brits around a computer screen with the same purpose (if you don’t count pornography of course).
It is then that Breaking Bad’s finale is perhaps the biggest TV ending of the last decade and the producers knew it and the pressure was on to make the best ending possible. By the critics reviews it seems they did it.
Breaking Bad, if you didn’t somehow know, is a dark comedy drama about Walter White, a chemistry teacher who decides to move into the crystal meth trade to support his family after being diagnosed with terminal cancer, as the seasons go on Walter gets more and more caught up in the meth business and essentially loses grasp of the important reason he started in the first place, his family.
The final scene shows Walter going out a broken man, however he does it on his own terms, getting the money to his children and mowing down a neo-nazi gang Tarantino style. As Walter bows out, dying the song ‘Baby Blue’ by Badfinger plays, it’s lyrics almost hitting the metaphorical nail of Walter’s journey on it’s head. “Guess I got what i deserved…My baby blue”.
However for me the best part of the brilliant Breaking Bad series was the use of ‘Baby Blue’, in one fell dying swoop the show has shone the limelight back on perhaps the best power pop band ever. Criminally forgotten now, Badfinger were The Beatles first signing to Apple Records and scored their first hit with ‘Come And Get It’, penned by Paul McCartney himself. However it was with their own material that the band really showed their talents, Pete Ham‘s amazing melody teamed with kickass guitar action (check out the solo on ‘Timeless’) and the fun of Tom Evans and Joey Molland (who could write a tune themselves) made for some amazing songs. In weird tandem with Walter White, Badfinger also had a tragic end, with both Ham and Evans committing suicide amidst the financial turmoil that manager Stan Polley had left them in after pocketing all their takings.
Streams of ‘Baby Blue’ have risen 9000% in the first 24 hours after broadcast and the song looks set to “do a Journey” and chart high in the Billboard and potentially the UK charts. As Joey Molland put it “People getting interested in the band and the music is just great. Who knows, maybe people will start looking at Badfinger records again”. The potential for a whole new generation of fans just via one use of the song in TV is an overwhelming concept.
So with that i should probably divulge to introduce you to a few other classic Badfinger moments.
Without You
Otherwise known as the song that bitch Maria Carey took to the top of the charts at some point in the nineties when we forgot that good artists existed. It is however the undeniable songwriting skill that made this song amazing (not the overzealous warbling of an over pampered fame whore, here’s looking at you Miss Carey). Often credited to Harry Nilson, who scored a major hit with the song in the 70’s.
Day After Day
It’s got George blooming Harrison of The Beatles on slide guitar, what more is there to say? Well if you must this is the most uplifting yet heart wrenching song your likely to hear in a good while. It’s perfectly crafted and expertly executed melancholy that even The Beatles themselves would be proud off.
No Matter What
No, it’s NOT THAT BOYZONE SONG! ‘No Matter What’ is actually a perfect rocker, with a glam style punch of guitar this is a straight up rocker from ironically enough the ‘Straight Up’ album. Good enough for Def Leppard to cover, so it can’t be awful now can it?
Timeless
OK, now i want you to turn off Facebook. Twitter and any other rubbish medium of distraction that you have sitting on your computing machine, sorry to sound like your grandpa but you really need to listen to this amazing song without outside influence. Just close your eyes and take in 7 mins of intense riffing and soloing from one of the most underrated guitarists of all time.
