IT'S 1973, and American pop music has lost its way. Tony Orlando and Dawn, Elton John’s “Crocodile Rock” and Carly Simon are topping the charts; palatable commodification can be found in Donnie Osmond and the likes of England Dan and John Ford Coley. It wasn’t all quite that bland—we did have Slade—but in “Vinyl”, HBO’s new series from creators Martin Scorsese, Terence Winter, Mick Jagger and Rich Cohen, 1973 represents a plateau for rock and pop. Neither is shaking culture as it did in the sixties. By the early 1970s, all the raw potential of rock, folk, soul and blues has been bled out by a corrupt business. Mr Scorsese (who has previously made concert films of The Band and the Rolling Stones) revels in the chance to point the camera backstage and pull us through the dark alleys of the music business, where “musicians ain’t your friends, they’re products.” Naturally he dwells on the streets of an anarchic, insolvent, early-1970s New York. Violence and greed hold the whole system together, and, with Mr Scorsese directing, “Vinyl” cuts striking parallels with his gangster film “Goodfellas”. Viewers might wonder if the music business is just the mafia with guitars.

Richie Finestra (played by Bobby Cannavale), an American Century record executive and the protagonist of “Vinyl”, is symbolic of the fallen state of the music industry. His former Warhol-Factory-girl wife (Olivia Wilde), family, mansion in Connecticut and sober lifestyle look like a dream, and he’s about to sell his unhip record label to a German conglomerate for a lot more than it’s worth. But he yearns for more—or, as he tells his A&R team at the office—“I want what’s next.” By the pilot’s close Finestra’s in a fix, but also reborn in rock’s purifying fire. He wants to go back and make amends.

Asking us to consider the influence of the ever-cool music-business executive rather than the artist (Danny Fields, who worked with the Doors and the Ramones, or Andrew Loog Oldham, an early manager of the Rolling Stones, spring to mind) is a bold choice. But Richie Finestra hasn’t yet emerged as a fleshed-out antihero. His ear for talent is oversold, too; he berates his A&R staff for not signing ABBA after he has heard just three bars of “Ring Ring”, the Swedish pop group’s single. “Vinyl” must convince us that he’s more than a mid-life crisis with great stereo speakers, or that his crisis has wider implications.

Those implications are hinted at in the second episode as Richie scuttles the deal with the Germans and rededicates himself and his A&R team to finding rock’s new raison d’être. In case any viewer is wondering what it is, the ghosts of Bo Diddley and Jerry Lee Lewis appear to him at crucial moments. With the Nasty Bits toning up to get signed, the series sets us up to confront rock’s perpetually-uncomfortable relationship with commerce. Perhaps there’s no returning to Eden.

So far, “Vinyl” has artfully struck a balance between rendering the era in detail and taking liberties for impact. The pilot’s finale fudges history to spectacularly bring together the collapse of Greenwich Village’s University Hotel building and the New York Dolls’ residency at the Mercer Arts Centre. Both happened, just not on the same day. The series largely steers clear of the anachronisms that can mar rock-history dramas (the too-loose denim in “Almost Famous”, for example) and it fusses over the real business practices of sleazy labels, such as dumping returned stock in waterways and bribing broadcasters for airplay. It has clearly been meticulously researched; everything from the all-important music (recreations of period songs alongside original recordings) to the wide lapels and gas-guzzling autos has been considered. And some compromises are based in fact—Led Zeppelin used to warm up their sets with an Eddie Cochran tune, for example, though they didn’t play it at Madison Square Garden in 1973. Yet music obsessives will notice some inaccuracies; Led Zeppelin’s legendary manager Peter Grant (pictured scowling above) is rather undersized, and the New York Dolls’ drummer was actually left-handed. These are small details to which many will be oblivious, but “Vinyl”’s world is more convincing when it gets these things right.

The first episodes have stumbled in places. Couldn’t Finestra rediscover his love of music without a descent into booze and blow? How exactly is cocaine helping him find rock’s true path? And the proto-punk band Nasty Bits (with its frontman played by James Jagger, Mick’s son) appear to be hatched from Brixton, not the Bowery. Their major talent—being so terrible that the audience physically attacks them—suggests a late night comedy skit, not a musical revolt.

“Vinyl” is at its best when it conjures a moment from the era and places us within it—when the camera soars over the New York Dolls' David Johansen, for example, or Warhol’s “Exploding Plastic Inevitable”. It’s a thrill seeing HBO tackle pop music’s sordid underbelly with an unheard-of seriousness. We’re teased that punk, hip-hop and disco are just around the corner. At least we hope so; this Helen Reddy record is wearing thin.