‘Vinyl’ puts compelling spin on ’70s music scene

The subjects of Martin Scorsese’s films over the years have ranged from boxers to taxi-driving sociopaths, goodfellas and Wall Street wolves, but what so many of his films have in common is an almost operatic sensibility, raw emotions emanating from a mythic worldview, where good and evil are easily defined at first, and then disassembled with masterful dexterity.

“Vinyl,” the big, noisy and crazy-brilliant HBO series co-created by Scorsese and premiering on Sunday, Feb. 14, extends the filmmaker’s playbook to the pop music industry in the 1970s, that most curious and often misunderstood decade of the past century.

Heeding the siren call of a group called the New York Dolls, he makes his way into the Mercer Arts Center and is transfixed by what he sees and hears.

To be sure, the music business was always just that, a business, but the series’ depiction of how creativity becomes a commodity is a significant theme throughout the five episodes sent to critics for review.

Richie is blown away by Lester’s vocal skills, but just as Aesop’s scorpion must be true to his nature, Richie lures Lester into becoming a trendy R&B singer with the promise that someday he’ll be able to record his own music with American Century, and Lester falls for it.

[...] that she’s married, instead of hanging out with Warhol’s assortment of drag queens, druggies, and artists like Nico and Lou Reed, she’s driving kids around suburbia in an SUV.

No doubt the subject would have worked for a film, but the series format enables the writers to better develop the complexity of the characters and plumb the mythology of 1970s New York, teeming with sex, drugs, money and music.

The performances are masterful on every level, beginning with Cannavale’s Richie Finestra, who is only occasionally capable of keeping his inner turmoil of rage, ambition and fear of failure from exploding to the surface.

Romano (“Everybody Loves Raymond”) and Max Casella (“Doogie Howser, M.D.”) may have sitcoms on their resumes, but perhaps their understanding of comedy is what makes their respective dramatic performances so effective.

Wilde displays enviable range as Richie’s wife, embodying both Devon’s carefree younger days at the Factory and her steely resolve to forge a solid life for her family from the chaos of Richie’s career.

Jagger is magnetic, even if his physical resemblance and mannerism make us think too often of his father (as we are meant to, to be sure), and Juno Temple is terrific as an ambitious underling at American Century who hungers for power and status.

Essandoh also creates a convincing character arc in portraying Lester Grimes, from a trusting young artist who is exploited by Richie to a hardened cynic who finds a way to exact payback, and in so doing, becomes an exploiter himself.