The medium is the message

Download.

Remember the '60s? Me neither, but I can't say it was a bad time, so long as you were a White man. For those of you still mourning the loss of The Wire, there are still shows on television that are entertaining and intelligent.

Enter AMC's drama, Mad Men. They were recently annointed with 16 Emmy nominations after their first season, and aside from the fact that The Wire was completely snubbed, these guys really deserved it. With plots thick in symbolism and metaphor, it's like reading Nathaniel Hawthorne, except not as boring. The show is also responsible for my latest white-girl crush, Christina Hendricks.

Mad Men takes place in the early 1960's and follows the lives of men who work at an advertising agency along Madison Avenue. It's a great perspective from which to analyze American culture, a case study of the psychology behind Americans' addiction to conspicuous consumption and materialism.

It also catches the nation in flux, at a time where things are changing rapidly. If you were offended by the "Obama the Terrorist" cover of The New Yorker, you might find the show's liberal strokes of anti-Semitism, sexism, and racism to be an impediment to your enjoyment, but if you understand art, you'll understand it's meant to critique those prejudices and not condone, encourage, or exploit them. (Same goes for that New Yorker cover. It was satire, and it was very intelligent--maybe too intelligent for some of you people, black and white, who just didn't get it.)

But if you're not of the faint of heart and enjoy a good drama, you might wanna jump on the Mad Men bandwagon before it gets full steam. For those still riding the fence, the show's creator last worked on a show you might have heard of that I hear was half-way decent: The Sopranos? If you've got OnDemand, you can still catch the complete first season. The second season premieres July 27.

In the meantime, in between time, download the album above. It features period songs from Ella Fitzgerald and others, along with the full version of the song used as the show's theme.