Your Sunday afternoon viewing, or of whenever you see this link, is a BBC Scotland documentary made in 1999 on Belle & Sebastian. Making a documentary about a band who by and large still wanted to exist in the shadows is something of an undertaking so it ends up quite piecemeal, here a Ray Brooks-voiced, Duglas T Stewart from BMX Bandits-penned cartoon strip of their backstory, there the interviews with whichever members that would come forwards (none of whom are Stuart. Or Isobel. Or Stevie) and associates. Literally, in Alan Rankine's case. Directorial quirks include extreme close-ups of Mark Radcliffe's face. Archive recordings contain Isobel attempting a joke.
And if you've still got time after that, for as long as it's up on iPlayer you must see Friday's BBC4 documentary Bird On The Wireless, Annie Nightingale reflecting on 40 years on Radio 1 and the pop culture that ran parallel.
Showing posts with label did you see?. Show all posts
Showing posts with label did you see?. Show all posts
Sunday, June 05, 2011
Thursday, December 16, 2010
Moving pictures
Consider this our annual What's On TV for hipsters service, as we count down the most notable - one hesitates to say 'best', we just got the Radio Times and Digiguide out and cherrypicked - music-related output on telly and radio over the next two weeks.
SATURDAY 18th
10:50 C4 Koko Pop
Don't you get the impression that this series was commissioned so they could use that title?
11:20 C4 T4 Movie Special: Burlesque
This is a new film starring Mail-baiting Christina Aguilera, a woman who fails to 'get it' on an increasingly regular basis, and Cher, who's been building up to this for years and years. The word 'campy' turns up in a lot of its American reviews, which is all the dire warning you need.
12:20 Sky Arts 1 Led Zeppelin
From limited clues and Googling we think this is a four song set (Communication Breakdown, Dazed And Confused, Babe I'm Gonna Leave You, How Many More Times) recorded for Danish telly in 1969 while touring their debut album.
13:00 Radio 2 Pick Of The Pops
Firstly 1974, a vintage year for Christmas hits with Showaddywaddy's Hey Mister Christmas, Gilbert O'Sullivan's Christmas Song, the Goodies' Father Christmas Do Not Touch Me, Wombling Merry Christmas and Mud at number one. Vintage as in Christmas songs, not for quality. The Rubettes at 3 too. Then 1990, which with Ice Ice Baby at number one and two Righteous Brothers re-releases in the top ten isn't a vintage year for anything.
19:00 Sky Arts 1 Classic Albums: The Number Of The Beast
Sky Arts have the rights to show a few of these Classic Albums documentaries looking back at the making and impact of assorted albums, with their somewhat scattershot picks. Says here this one was directed by Tim Kirkby, who usually works overseeing comedy (Look Around You, Stewart Lee's Comedy Vehicle). There's a joke there somewhere.
20:00 BBC4 The Christmas Session
A trad folk super-line-up of Bellowhead, the Unthanks, Thea Gilmore, Jim Moray, Jon Boden, Lisa Knapp and some other people gathered at the not exactly consecrated sounding Shoreditch Town Hall last year to do Christmas songs amid Victoriana.
21:00 ITV2 The Xtra Factor: Winner's Story 2010
The first ITV reality pop show, Popstars, ended with the only live programme of the series in which Hear'Say found out on the spot (though doubtless they could have guessed) that they had a number one single. Funnily enough, they're not doing it with X Factor winners these days after last year. The market seems horribly split for the official voice of anti-Cowell protest, which might be why at time of writing Cardle is pissing it, with the 4'33" remake getting the newspaper coverage and Surfin' Bird the DJ support and Facebook under the radar numbers. The Family Guy apologists held a rally on Brighton pier on the day the Cage Against The Machine recording took place, and we were hoping the latter might have sent a deputation down to stage a surrealist reimagining of the mods vs rockers fights.
21:00 Sky Arts 1 Status Quo Live in Montreux
Back in the 80s a Mike Smith/Gary Davies-level Radio 1 name would be sent by BBC TV to Montreux to link coverage of the festival at which all the day's big names played. Whether this, recorded last year, is another part of the decade's ongoing renaissance we can't say for sure.
23:20 ITV1 Sting Live In Berlin
In September on the horribly named Symphonicity tour, Sting and Police songs rewritten for philharmonic orchestra.
23:55 ITV2 Celebrity Juice: JLS Special
Keith Lemon, a character Leigh Francis has been running primarily with for some years now with plenty of TV slots and series and yet still isn't anywhere near as popular as at least four of his earlier creations, hosts a show that features Fearne Cotton and Holly Willoughby taking jokes about body parts and sex for half an hour at a time, here joined by all the members of JLS for same. Meanwhile, libraries close.
SUNDAY 19th
10:00 BBC1 Fern Britton Meets...Sir Cliff Richard
Cliff's been in the business for five decades now, we're pretty used to the idea of him being a clean living Christian by now, yet synopses for appearances such as this always feel it worth highlighting.
11:00 Radio 2 Weekend Wogan
And speaking of Gilbert O'Sullivan, here he is as a guest. Is there a revival pending?
16:00 Radio 1 The Official Chart
It's deliberately forgotten that Joe McElderry's The Climb ended up selling more than three quarters of a million copies/downloads, a figure only one track released in 2010 has managed. So no, you won't 'win' as such.
16:00 6 Music Sir Peter Blake
Could only ever be a Jarvis stand-in.
17:15 Sky Arts 1 Made in Sheffield
Well received 2002 documentary about Sheffield's emergence as the central city for electronic pop. Phil Oakey and his girls, Heaven 17, lesser members of ABC and Cabaret Voltaire, Jarvis and Peel all contribute.
18:10 Sky Arts 1 Iconoclasts
Not a word most would use to describe either Eddie Vedder or a surfer, Laird Hamilton. They're here together.
19:00 Sky Arts 1 Classic Albums: Electric Ladyland
19:40 Watch Top Of The Pops Christmas 2009
The concept of instant nostagia is just taking the piss these days.
20:00 6 Music 6 Mix
A shared takeover by Arcade Fire's Richard Reed Parry and some people whose current album he guests on, The National's Aaron and Bryce Dessner.
21:00 BBC4 Soul Noel
Beverley Knight, Carleen Anderson, Soweto Kinch, Ola Onabule, the Golden Gate Quartet, Bryn Christopher and the ever present London Community Gospel Choir give the carol book a gospel, soul and reggae going over.
23:15 ITV2 Kerry Katona - The Next Chapter
What? Does she actually not understand life without a documentary camera crew around any more?
23:30 Sky Movies Family Spice World: The Movie
The slow disappearance of the Spice Girls from pop culture - so when was the last time you heard them on the radio? - has redeemed this as 'a bit of fun', from its previous position of 'a lot of people you like embarrassing themselves'.
23:45 BBC4 Festivals Britannia
First shown tomorrow night, a ninety minute walk through the development of the great British musical gathering from jazz festivals through counter-culture happenings, Isle Of Wight, Donington and rave culture through to Festival Republic.
MONDAY 20th
01:15 BBC4 Radiohead At Glastonbury 1997
A classic, of course, and very rarely seen in full. Funny thing is, in the immediate wake of that famously muddy festival - probably the one that inspired the annual jibes, actually - it was widely reported that Beck was the star turn of Glasto '97, turning up halfway through a wet Friday and, all then agreed, bringing a hyperkinetic glow to the day. And this year, what did the NME claim was one of the ten worst Glastonbury sets of all time, in a list that featured Primal Scream's petulance, booed off 2005 set among the best five? Got it in one. (It was because he wore a white suit for part of the set, you understand).
19:00 Radio 1 Festive Festival
Tremendously alliterative title for Zane Lowe and Nick Grimshaw's get together, this year featuring sets from Adele, Bullet For My Valentine, James Blake, Katy B, The Vaccines, Yuck, Wretch 32 and DJ sets from Toddla T, Benji B and Jaymo and Andy George.
19:00 6 Music Marc Riley
All week except Tuesday, as you'll see, and Friday, when he's not on, the best sessions of the year.
22:00 Radio 2 Kirsty Maccoll: A Tribute
Kirsty was killed ten years ago on the 18th. Billy Bragg hosts a celebration of her life, including part of a Radio 2 documentary she made about Cuba and comments from Johnny Marr, David Byrne, Holly Johnson, Tom Robinson, Janice Long and Johnnie Walker.
22:30 Sky Arts 1 London Rock
Thought wiped until earlier this year, a rare 1970 documentary about the pop counter-culture featuring insights into T-Rex, the Faces, Fairport Convention, Linda Lewis and Matthew's Southern Comfort.
23:00 GOLD The Tony Ferrino Phenomenon
1996. Steve Coogan is comedy's biggest thing off the back of Knowing Me Knowing You, Coogan's Run and Paul Calf vehicles. So he decides to next do a Portuguese ex-Eurovision lothario lounge singer character, releasing a cover of Tom Jones' Help Yourself well before the show makes the screens. It doesn't go down well. Some say it's aged better.
23:00 Radio 1 Story Of 2010
Like it says.
23:20 Sky Arts 1 T-Rex: Born To Boogie
1972 Wembley concert film, directed by Ringo Starr, guesting Elton John, nodding in inserts to Magical Mystery Tour.
TUESDAY 21st
13:30 Radio 4 Billy Preston: That's the Way God Planned It
The only man given full featured credit on a proper Beatles song, and he basically collaborated with everybody, but ended up in a string of arrests and addictions before a second wind. Rick Wakeman presents an examination of his importance.
17:20 BBC2 Celebrity Eggheads
Is this what we want in 2010? A team of Tony Blackburn, Mike Read, David Hamilton, Ed Stewart and David Jensen taking on quiz experts at slow moving general knowledge?
18:30 BBC2 TOTP2 Christmas 2010
The spinoff's revival is now only as annual as the main programme, and while Mark Radcliffe for Steve Wright seems an excellent swap on paper the production team get round the lack of idiocy by cutting his voiceovers right over the entry of the vocals and making the captions even more asinine. Well done, everyone.
19:00 6 Music Marc Riley
The annual Christmas party welcomes by Elbow, I Am Kloot, Everything Everything, Jesca Hoop, Delphic, Liz Green, Liam Frost and Seal Cub Clubbing Club, all backed by the Earlies, a band who only seem now to exist for this.
20:00 Sky Movies Christmas Michael Jackson's This Is It
The film of the show that never happened. Wiki: "Despite originally being set for October 30, the film's release date was rescheduled for October 28, 2009, due to a strong demand by Jackson's fans." That's a whole new dimension to impatience.
20:00 Sky Arts 1 Classic Albums: Ace Of Spades
22:00 Sky Arts 1 Frank Zappa - The Torture Never Stops
A 1981 Halloween show at the New York Palladium, with Steve Vai on guitar.
22:00 Radio 2 A Jazz Odyssey
Jazz is comfortably outside the STN radar, of course, but David Quantick bringing his Blagger's Guide To Jazz to the stage with an actual jazz backing band isn't.
22:35 BBC1 Imagine: Ray Davies - Imaginary Man
22:35 BBC2 Never Mind The Buzzcocks
You wouldn't normally think of Josh Groban as the most obvious host for something like this, but... well, no, you wouldn't. In keeping with the recent booking policy of nobody interesting or amusing but someone who the same jokes can be made about for twenty minutes, Tinchy Stryder guests with KT Tunstall, Michael Ball and Charlie Baker, whoever he is.
WEDNESDAY 22nd
00:05 C4 Little Noise Sessions
A roundelay of the Whiley-curated Union Chapel stripped down sessions, including input from Tom Jones, Example, the Ting Tings, Paolo Nutini, Rumer and Hurts.
11:30 Sky Movies Indie Taking Woodstock
Ang Lee's curious film about everything around Woodstock except the music.
14:50 Sky Arts 1 Black Wax: Gil Scott-Heron
Considerate 1982 documentary with live footage about the great political wordsmith.
18:55 Sky Arts 1 Good Copy, Bad Copy
File sharing moves so fast this 2007 documentary about the state of copyright and peer-to-peer culture might be well out of date already, though it does catch Danger Mouse and Girl Talk from what we might now call the golden age of the mashup.
20:00 Sky Arts 1 Classic Albums: Reasonable Doubt
Not many people's idea of the great Jay-Z statement, but here it is.
20:00 Radio 2 Mark Radcliffe & Stuart Maconie
The annual traditions of their last show before Christmas - Noddy Holder and a female singer-songwriter, this year Hafdis Huld.
21:00 Sky Arts 1 Classic Albums: Nevermind
22:00 Sky Arts 1 Strummerville
23:00 Sky Arts 1 The History Of The Clash
A Don Letts look at everything the charity and support network gets up to followed by the definitive Clash biog. No, not Westway To The World, the other one.
22:00 Radio 2 The Best Bette - Bette Midler Christmas Show
It's lateral thinking, we'll grant Radio 2 that.
THURSDAY 23rd
17:00 Sky Arts 1 Morrissey Live at Eurockeennes
Just under your Eurothighhes.
18:10 Sky Arts 1 Iconoclasts
Paul Simon chats with Saturday Night Live ubergrupenfuehrer Lorne Michaels.
20:00 BBC4 The Andy Williams Christmas Show
Oh blimey. The American Val Doonican is joined in this compilation of thirteen festive singalongs by the Osmonds.
20:00 Sky Movies Family The Rocker
Rainn Wilson is a former metal drummer trying to make a second go of it. As a tie-in Kerrang! held an unsigned band competition for which the winners "dressed and posed as characters from the film in the Kerrang! photo shoot." Given the film made less than half its budget back we wonder if they mention this much.
20:00 Sky Arts 1 Classic Albums: Plastic Ono Band
21:00 Sky Arts 1 Classic Albums: Dark Side Of The Moon
21:00 C4 The House That Made Me
There's a heartening ongoing belief that Jamelia is a huge name despite not having released anything for nearly four years, which is why she turns up on every series of 8 Out Of 10 Cats just to laugh a lot. She was on First Time Voters' Question Time in March! What sort of agent does she have? Here she revisits the Birmingham council estate home she grew up in and talks about her family and stuff.
22:00 Sky Arts 1 David Gilmour - Remember That Night: Live At The Royal Albert Hall
Three nights, actually, from 2006 and featuring guest spots for David Bowie (his last onstage appearance in Britain to date), David Crosby, Graham Nash and Robert Wyatt.
23:30 Sky Arts 1 Robyn Hitchcock: I Often Dream of Trains
Revisiting his 1984 album in 2008 in New York, interspersed with banter the internal logic of which will never be made apparent to anybody else.
23:35 Sky Movies Comedy The Boat That Rocked
Why a proper documentary about the fascinating evolvement of pirate radio will never be made.
CHRISTMAS EVE
07:00 Radio 1 Top 10 Of 2010
An hour each for James Corden, Matt Smith & Karen Gillan, and Tinie Tempah.
10:15 Sky Arts 1 Johnny Cash Day
Endless documentaries, Folsom Prison, Christmas specials and a 1994 Montreux appearance.
19:00 Radio 2 Wireless Kenny Everett
Cuddly Ken was one of the true radio originals, blowing apart playlists and technical possibilities, painstakingly cutting up tape and multitracking his jingles, and getting fired from the BBC on at least one occasion. Someone should revive the Bottom Thirty.
21:00 6 Music Tom Ravenscroft
A Christmas special. Who knows what could turn up, frankly.
22:00 Sky Arts 1 Good Rockin' Tonight: The Legacy of Sun Records
The story of rock'n'roll's house label, alongside modern acts covering the label's standards. And by modern acts we mean Kid Rock, Live and Third Eye Blind. (And Paul McCartney and Page & Plant, in fairness)
23:00 Radio 2 Mark Lamarr
Lamarr's last show for the station after twelve years, claiming "over the last year the station has become much less interested in non-mainstream music, and my position there has been extremely uncomfortable." Shame.
23:50 Sky Arts 1 Swinging UK
Followed by UK Swings Again at 00:20, two sets of live recorded-in-colour performances from 1964 including the Hollies, The Animals, Lulu, the Tremeloes, the Merseybeats, the Swinging Blue Jeans and the Tornados.
CHRISTMAS DAY
Various times until the end of January Dandelion Radio 2010 Festive 50
The official medium taking up where Radio 1 and more directly Peel left off, a five hour special collating listener's votes to see who follows on from Los Campesinos!, The Fall and Battles from the last three years as the majority verdict will be repeated from here for the following 37 days. Check the station schedule nearer the event for full time details.
08:00 Radio 2 Junior Choice Christmas Special
Should be a great idea especially given our wayward idea of nostalgia, Ed Stewart reviving this old family favourite format once a year. We mean, look at that playlist! Unfortunately Stewpot somewhat drags it down by taking hours to read each dedication.
10:00 Radio 1 The Tinsel Takeover
As last year, a listener per quarter hour for nine hours gets to play a meagre amount of favoured records within certain criteria.
10:00 6 Music Adam and Joe's Christmas Special
Back! Back! Back! Rumoured to be for the last time, but even so.
13:00 1Xtra N-Dubz Takeover
There is no worse name for anything than the Braaap Pack, agreed?
13:00 6 Music Christmas With Hawley And Friends
Richard's friends being... oh, Jarvis, you guessed. But also Billy Bragg, John Cooper Clarke, the Smoke Fairies, Eliza Carthy and Pete Molinari.
13:00 Planet Rock Black Christmas With Tommy Iommi
Because sometimes you see a billing and you know it has to go in.
14:00 BBC1 Top Of The Pops Christmas 2010
Except this year nobody will recognise half the performers!
14:35 Sky Arts 1 Queen For Christmas
Mildly inevitable branding foir selection from Montreal 1986, the Freddie tribute concert, a Paul Rodgers gig and a Classic Albums on A Night At The Opera.
15:05 Radio 2 Kylie Minogue - Line Of Enquiry
Kylie gets tickled into submission by Kate Thornton's line of questioning.
16:00 6 Music Don Letts' Reggae Christmas
The new Up All Night All Day. (Look, we're deep into week two now, you don't mind if we just end up amusing ourselves with injokes, do you?)
16:45 Radio 4 Profile
Lady Gaga's not even done anything for a while, and yet Radio 4 still give over fifteen minutes to talk about her. That's some sort of power.
17:00 Radio 2 Kenny Everett's Christmas Selection Box
Following yesterday's documentary, an edited together compilation of bits of his work, including contributions from his mates the Beatles and Harry Nilsson and, it says here, "some recent records that Kenny would have liked for their jolliness and tunefulness". Whose idea was that?
18:00 BBC1 Doctor Who
Katherine Jenkins is prominently in it. For some reason.
21:00 Sky Arts 1 Ladies and Gentlemen: The Rolling Stones
Recently reissued after many years of bootlegging, a recording over four Texan nights of the 1972 Exile On Main Street tour although heavier on earlier material.
21:00 Radio 2 The Radio 2 Christmas Quiz
Chris Evans hosts two teams of Radio 2 DJs taking on the station's own rounds and variants of its shows.
21:00 5 Live The Sound of 2010
That celebrated music station 5 Live re-runs interviews with Dave Grohl, Jack White, Cee-Lo Green, Tinie Tempah, all those.
21:20 BBC2 Swingin' Christmas
The sort of musical programming Michael Parkinson has longed to host, it's 2001 all over again with a festive run through the swing era. Curtis Stigers is on it. Seth MacFarlane, who might yet have a greater hand in Christmas 2010 music, is on it.
22:00 Radio 2 When Jools Holland Met Eric Clapton
Jools gets to utilise that unique interview style that's served him so well on telly.
22:00 6 Music Roxy Music - The Thrill Of It All
Two hours of this documentary too, with new interviews and the omnipresent Jarvis linking all.
22:15 Sky Arts 1 Chuck Berry Plays Avo Sessions
Chuck records some songs in Switzerland in 2007. Maybe for money.
BOXING DAY
09:00 Radio 1 Top 10 Of 2010
In hour long each order: Corden again, Nicole Scherzinger, Jack Black, Tinie Tempah again, Lewis Hamilton, the Who duo again, N-Dubz.
10:00 6 Music Cerys on 6
Promising "a very special session track from Florence and Billy Bragg". A big voiced female singer and a grizzled, accented bloke duetting on a Christmas song? Whatever could that be?
10:15 Sky Arts 1 Soul Power
Alongside the Rumble In The Jungle in Zaire (in Zai-ear) in 1974 was a three day festival headlined by James Brown and BB King and featuring Manu Dibango, the (Detroit) Spinners and Bill Withers. Many years later some cinema verite footage was found, and here it is.
11:15 Radio 4 Desert Island Discs
Sandie Shaw, recently returned to music on a strictly part time basis and now set adrift with her arbitary records and sole book.
13:00 Sky Arts 1 Eric Clapton Day
Assorted star turn-festooned extravaganzas and Royal Albert Hall residencies, plus a Disraeli Gears Classic Albums at 8.
18:00 6 Music Slash's Guitar Heroes
Sounds like the very worst type of Kerrang! TV filler which Slash had no say in the playlisting of, doesn't it? We're sure it won't be as compromised as that.
18:00 Absolute Elton John
Highlights of a gig at Union Chapel two months ago as Elton continues a well overdue back to basics approach.
18:40 Five Top Of The Pops Christmas 1985
Woo! Shown as part of Five's usual purloining of old Christmas entertainment from other channels, though this one might have been routed through the German channel that's picked up a load of old TOTPs for broadcast recently. Not a classic, though, with studio guests Colonel Abrams, Baltimora, Dead Or Alive, King, Alison Moyet, Billy Ocean, Feargal Sharkey and Paul Young mostly some distance away from the 80s of revival reinterpretation, not to mention Dixie Peach among the presenters (let alone Jonathan King).
20:00 6 Music 6 Mix
It's a favourite factoid of the terminally retentive that the first voice you hear on It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back is Dangerous Dave Pearce, introducing a broadcast of Public Enemy's first London gig for BBC Radio London having been the first person to play them on UK radio. Pearce and Chuck D are now reunited to discuss the birth of rap, its politics and gradual acceptance with influential music and tracks from that gig unheard for more than two decades.
21:00 Sky Arts 1 Under Heavy Fire: Phil Collins
If only.
21:15 BBC2 When Harvey Met Bob
22:45 BBC2 Live Aid: Rockin' All Over The World
One odd idea, this, as the meeting of Bob Geldof and Harvey Goldsmith to put on and plan Live Aid is spun out into a 90 minute drama, Goldsmith played by Ian Hart, Geldof by Tony Award-nominated Domhnall Gleeson. Followed by a more linear documentary.
23:35 Sky Arts 1 The Pixies Acoustic
MONDAY 27th
08:00 Sky Arts 1 2010 Festivals
Cambridge Folk Festival, Cropredy, Hard Rock Calling and Lovebox, to be precise.
10:00 6 Music The Sound Of The 70s
19:00 6 Music The Real 70s with Bob Harris
So the big wheeze for this stasis period between Christmas and the new year is to take a decade every day and see how it evolved and what it all meant. Or something. Marc Riley hosts the morning shift every day, Gideon Coe from 9 will also be joining in with session tracks.
12:00 Radio 2 Best Of Tracks Of My Years
Brandon Flowers, Bob Harris, Sir Jackie Stewart, Katherine Jenkins, Nanci Griffith, Phil Collins, Ozzy Osbourne, Meatloaf and more pick their favourite records.
16:00 Radio 1 Reggie Yates' Top 40 Of 2010
And Radio 1's big idea for the week is to get four DJs to sort through the mess of the year and choose their favourite tracks, presumably within careful time of day and audience parameters.
21:00 Sky Arts 1 Ian Dury and the Blockheads: Hang On To Your Structure
A day to do something else, all told - it's a bank holiday, after all - but this Hammersmith Odeon concert should be worth a look even if it was recorded well after his prime in 1985. And that's the title Sky have given, even though it's actually called Hold On To Your Structure.
TUESDAY 28th
08:30 Sky Arts 1 2010 Festivals
A wander round Camp Bestival, High Voltage, 80s Rewind and Sonisphere. We're guessing nobody went to all four.
10:00 6 Music The Sound Of The 80s
13:30 Radio 4 The British Reggae Revolution
From lover's rock to Steel Pulse, the first generation British black bands and singers had a politicised voice that ran parallel with punk in all sorts of ways. Presented by Rishi Persad. Ho-ho, no, not really. Don Letts again.
16:00 Radio 1 Fearne Cotton's Top 40 Of 2010
18:00 Living Robbie Williams' Crazy 2010
Wasn't strictly "crazy", was it? And this whole 'Crazy 2010' strand continues in this slot for the rest of the week with the wacky out-there antics of the Beckhams, Cheryl Cole and the decidedly sensible Simon Cowell.
19:00 6 Music The Real 80s with Stuart Maconie
20:00 Radio 2 Jarvis Cocker
Highlights of his 6 Music show for that annual 6 On 2 thing, in particular contributions from Michael Palin, Peter Blake and John Hillcoat.
22:00 Radio 2 At Home With Keith Richards
Someone called Paul Sexton pops by Keith's to talk about the life he's just got through talking about in hardback.
23:30 Bravo Towers Of London
This channel's closing down on New Year's Day, and nobody will miss it if in its last days it digs out one programme from the series that was meant to make Donny Tourette the punk hero of a new generation, an aim that ended in nationwide laughter and that bit on Celebrity Big Brother when he ruined his credibility within minutes of arrival by warmly greeting Leo Sayer.
23:50 Sky Movies Comedy It's All Gone Pete Tong
The only film to date to be named after a Mark and Lard catchphrase, although our gritty gangland thriller Cod Fish Battered Balls Ho-Ho! is on third draft.
WEDNESDAY 29th
10:00 6 Music The Sound Of The 90s
12:00 Radio 2 Jagger's Jukebox
And where Keith goes, Mick must go. It's that Paul Sexton again, talking to Jagger about his primary influences.
16:00 Radio 1 Greg James' Top 40 Of 2010
19:00 6 Music The Real 90s with Shaun Keaveney
20:00 Five Cheryl Cole: Where Did it All Go Right... And Wrong?
21:00 Five Most Shocking Celebrity Moments 2010
You'd never guess Five is owned by the same person who runs the Daily Express and Daily Star, would you?
21:00 Sky Arts 1 Duran Duran - Arena (An Absurd Notion)
Not us passing comment, but the actual overly fussy title of their 1984 concert film. And by film, we mean it has a storyline around the live footage starring Milo O'Shea reprising his Barbarella role as the character who gave the band their name.
22:00 Bio Pictures Of Status Quo
Film and audio too.
22:00 Radio 2 Sally Boazman: In Search of a British Route 66
Lordy, here's a concept. Sally Traffic goes on a journey to find the history of British roads in song, from the Radio Ballads to It's Immaterial and Malcolm Middleton. Malcolm Middleton! On a big Radio 2 documentary!
23:00 Radio 2 Trevor Nelson's Soul Show
Cee-Lo Green co-presents.
23:30 Sky Arts 1 New Order Live In Finsbury Park
From 2002, meaning Barney circumnavigates being in tune and punches the air like a dancing dad during Joy Division songs.
THURSDAY 30th
10:00 6 Music The Sound Of The 00s
12:00 Radio 2 Johnnie Walker With The Kinks - We're Not Like Everybody Else
It's often said that Ray and Dave Davies don't speak any more, but they're supposedly being jointly interviewed here by Johnnie Walker about their back catalogue.
16:00 Radio 1 Jo Whiley's Top 40 Of 2010
19:00 6 Music The Real 00s with Lauren Laverne
20:00 Sky Arts 1 The Who - Tommy and Quadrophenia Live
The former in 1989, the latter in 1996, disjointedly enough.
21:00 More4 Michael Jackson's Secret Hollywood
We found an old edition of Danny Baker's failed 1993 chat show After All the other day in which, having fruitlessly been sent to a shop supposedly selling Gulf War memorabilia, he calls out the researcher responsible for the misinformation on air, one Jacques Peretti. These days he's a renowned investigative showbiz reporter and may not have needed to trawl London high streets for odd stuff in years. Here the pitch is that Jacko was no more fruitloop than any Hollywood star, but that seems to translate to 'he had an entourage'.
21:30 BBC2 Never Mind the Buzzcocks
Robert Webb tosses airballs to Example, Cee-Lo Green, Chris Packham (go on, wear that Jesus & Mary Chain T-shirt again, the writers will only be prepared for Smiths gags) and Andi Osho.
21:30 Sky Arts 1 The Who Live at the Isle of Wight
From the classic 1970 festival, taking the stage at 2am. Couldn't do that now. And quite rightly.
22:00 BBC2 Shooting Stars Christmas Special 2010
Here because Ronnie Wood's on, but also we must mention that an appearance from Mulligan and O'Hare is promised.
22:30 Sky Arts 1 John Entwistle: An Ox's Tale
That whole bit about dying of a heart attack induced by cocaine while in bed with a stripper groupie will need to be treated with extreme sensitivity, but Entwistle was one of the great bassists who virtually played it as lead instrument, this in a band also featuring Pete Townshend and Keith Moon. Quiet, reserved bloke, so everyone says, who didn't do much on stage, so a lot of this might be padding.
NEW YEAR'S EVE
00:40 C4 The Album Chart Show Spotlight
A tips for 2010 special including Clare Maguire, Jessie J, Sunday Girl and Katy B. James Blake and the Vaccines are away.
12:00 Bio Kaiser Chiefs Live: Main Square Festival in Arras
13:00 Bio Lily Allen Live: Main Square Festival in Arras
French festival sets from 2009. We're amused by the Arras tourism site's reference to a 2007 show by "Radiohead, the mythical group of Thom Yorke". No, we think they exist.
13:00 Planet Rock Marquee
An extended reminiscence about the titular, important once London club.
16:00 Radio 1 Scott Mills' Top 40 Floor Fillers Of 2010
16:00 6 Music Lamacq's Top 40 Of 2010
All taken from listener's votes, which was sent wildly awry when Depeche Mode ended up winning last year.
18:00 Sky Arts 1 Prince's Trust Rock Gala 2010: The Highlights
19:30 Sky Arts 1 Prince's Trust Rock Gala 2010: By Appointment
A Rock Gala. Keane's Tom Chaplin with the active half of Queen, Alison Moyet with Jamie Cullum, Eric Clapton, Phil Collins, Jools Holland, Tom Jones, Paloma Faith, Midge Ure, Mike & The Mechanics, Mark King and Status Quo play in front of Charles and Camilla. That's what we fought for in 1976!
18:00 Radio 2 Friday Night Is Music Night - Bare Feet And Beehives
Jazz singer Liane Carroll reconstructs the story and music of the female pop singers of the 60s, replicating "the journey and emotions of love". Nothing too full on, then.
19:00 all MTV channels Non Stop New Year's Eve
Except it never is non stop because they keep the adverts in, and those things are regular.
19:00 Radio 2 Tony Blackburn
Of course he's a playing to the gallery cariacture but Blackburn's always made a point of his love of soul music and Motown, presenting Britain's first legal soul radio show, and now the whole I'm A Celebrity postmodernism has died down and he has a party audience at his hand (though his former assistant Dave Pearce gets the midnight gig) it could be more fun than you'd imagine.
20:00 Sky Arts 1 Roy Orbison: the Anthology
Live clips and testimonials. Bono's involved, as he generally is.
21:00 Bio Take That: The Ultimate Tour
The first reunion stadium tour arrives at their adoptive home Manchester. Do you think Take That have an exit strategy?
They can't just dissolve again, not at this stage and fame.
22:00 6 Music New Year's Eve 6 Mix Superstar DJs
Mixes from Andrew Weatherall, Orbital and that hard house Ibiza superstar regular Dan Snaith of Caribou.
22:30 Bio Madonna: The Confessions Tour Live From London
"Directed by Jonas Åkerlund". WARGH.
23:00 BBC2 Jools' Annual Hootenanny
And we end the year as we should, sitting through Jools and his Rhythm and Blues Orchestra and waiting for Rowland Rivron to appear. Confirmed: Kylie, Toots Hibbert, Vampire Weekend, Cee-Lo Green, Roger Daltrey, Wanda Jackson, Plan B, Rumer, Ruby Turner, Bellowhead and Jack White's new Nashville progeny Secret Sisters.
SATURDAY 18th
10:50 C4 Koko Pop
Don't you get the impression that this series was commissioned so they could use that title?
11:20 C4 T4 Movie Special: Burlesque
This is a new film starring Mail-baiting Christina Aguilera, a woman who fails to 'get it' on an increasingly regular basis, and Cher, who's been building up to this for years and years. The word 'campy' turns up in a lot of its American reviews, which is all the dire warning you need.
12:20 Sky Arts 1 Led Zeppelin
From limited clues and Googling we think this is a four song set (Communication Breakdown, Dazed And Confused, Babe I'm Gonna Leave You, How Many More Times) recorded for Danish telly in 1969 while touring their debut album.
13:00 Radio 2 Pick Of The Pops
Firstly 1974, a vintage year for Christmas hits with Showaddywaddy's Hey Mister Christmas, Gilbert O'Sullivan's Christmas Song, the Goodies' Father Christmas Do Not Touch Me, Wombling Merry Christmas and Mud at number one. Vintage as in Christmas songs, not for quality. The Rubettes at 3 too. Then 1990, which with Ice Ice Baby at number one and two Righteous Brothers re-releases in the top ten isn't a vintage year for anything.
19:00 Sky Arts 1 Classic Albums: The Number Of The Beast
Sky Arts have the rights to show a few of these Classic Albums documentaries looking back at the making and impact of assorted albums, with their somewhat scattershot picks. Says here this one was directed by Tim Kirkby, who usually works overseeing comedy (Look Around You, Stewart Lee's Comedy Vehicle). There's a joke there somewhere.
20:00 BBC4 The Christmas Session
A trad folk super-line-up of Bellowhead, the Unthanks, Thea Gilmore, Jim Moray, Jon Boden, Lisa Knapp and some other people gathered at the not exactly consecrated sounding Shoreditch Town Hall last year to do Christmas songs amid Victoriana.
21:00 ITV2 The Xtra Factor: Winner's Story 2010
The first ITV reality pop show, Popstars, ended with the only live programme of the series in which Hear'Say found out on the spot (though doubtless they could have guessed) that they had a number one single. Funnily enough, they're not doing it with X Factor winners these days after last year. The market seems horribly split for the official voice of anti-Cowell protest, which might be why at time of writing Cardle is pissing it, with the 4'33" remake getting the newspaper coverage and Surfin' Bird the DJ support and Facebook under the radar numbers. The Family Guy apologists held a rally on Brighton pier on the day the Cage Against The Machine recording took place, and we were hoping the latter might have sent a deputation down to stage a surrealist reimagining of the mods vs rockers fights.
21:00 Sky Arts 1 Status Quo Live in Montreux
Back in the 80s a Mike Smith/Gary Davies-level Radio 1 name would be sent by BBC TV to Montreux to link coverage of the festival at which all the day's big names played. Whether this, recorded last year, is another part of the decade's ongoing renaissance we can't say for sure.
23:20 ITV1 Sting Live In Berlin
In September on the horribly named Symphonicity tour, Sting and Police songs rewritten for philharmonic orchestra.
23:55 ITV2 Celebrity Juice: JLS Special
Keith Lemon, a character Leigh Francis has been running primarily with for some years now with plenty of TV slots and series and yet still isn't anywhere near as popular as at least four of his earlier creations, hosts a show that features Fearne Cotton and Holly Willoughby taking jokes about body parts and sex for half an hour at a time, here joined by all the members of JLS for same. Meanwhile, libraries close.
SUNDAY 19th
10:00 BBC1 Fern Britton Meets...Sir Cliff Richard
Cliff's been in the business for five decades now, we're pretty used to the idea of him being a clean living Christian by now, yet synopses for appearances such as this always feel it worth highlighting.
11:00 Radio 2 Weekend Wogan
And speaking of Gilbert O'Sullivan, here he is as a guest. Is there a revival pending?
16:00 Radio 1 The Official Chart
It's deliberately forgotten that Joe McElderry's The Climb ended up selling more than three quarters of a million copies/downloads, a figure only one track released in 2010 has managed. So no, you won't 'win' as such.
16:00 6 Music Sir Peter Blake
Could only ever be a Jarvis stand-in.
17:15 Sky Arts 1 Made in Sheffield
Well received 2002 documentary about Sheffield's emergence as the central city for electronic pop. Phil Oakey and his girls, Heaven 17, lesser members of ABC and Cabaret Voltaire, Jarvis and Peel all contribute.
18:10 Sky Arts 1 Iconoclasts
Not a word most would use to describe either Eddie Vedder or a surfer, Laird Hamilton. They're here together.
19:00 Sky Arts 1 Classic Albums: Electric Ladyland
19:40 Watch Top Of The Pops Christmas 2009
The concept of instant nostagia is just taking the piss these days.
20:00 6 Music 6 Mix
A shared takeover by Arcade Fire's Richard Reed Parry and some people whose current album he guests on, The National's Aaron and Bryce Dessner.
21:00 BBC4 Soul Noel
Beverley Knight, Carleen Anderson, Soweto Kinch, Ola Onabule, the Golden Gate Quartet, Bryn Christopher and the ever present London Community Gospel Choir give the carol book a gospel, soul and reggae going over.
23:15 ITV2 Kerry Katona - The Next Chapter
What? Does she actually not understand life without a documentary camera crew around any more?
23:30 Sky Movies Family Spice World: The Movie
The slow disappearance of the Spice Girls from pop culture - so when was the last time you heard them on the radio? - has redeemed this as 'a bit of fun', from its previous position of 'a lot of people you like embarrassing themselves'.
23:45 BBC4 Festivals Britannia
First shown tomorrow night, a ninety minute walk through the development of the great British musical gathering from jazz festivals through counter-culture happenings, Isle Of Wight, Donington and rave culture through to Festival Republic.
MONDAY 20th
01:15 BBC4 Radiohead At Glastonbury 1997
A classic, of course, and very rarely seen in full. Funny thing is, in the immediate wake of that famously muddy festival - probably the one that inspired the annual jibes, actually - it was widely reported that Beck was the star turn of Glasto '97, turning up halfway through a wet Friday and, all then agreed, bringing a hyperkinetic glow to the day. And this year, what did the NME claim was one of the ten worst Glastonbury sets of all time, in a list that featured Primal Scream's petulance, booed off 2005 set among the best five? Got it in one. (It was because he wore a white suit for part of the set, you understand).
19:00 Radio 1 Festive Festival
Tremendously alliterative title for Zane Lowe and Nick Grimshaw's get together, this year featuring sets from Adele, Bullet For My Valentine, James Blake, Katy B, The Vaccines, Yuck, Wretch 32 and DJ sets from Toddla T, Benji B and Jaymo and Andy George.
19:00 6 Music Marc Riley
All week except Tuesday, as you'll see, and Friday, when he's not on, the best sessions of the year.
22:00 Radio 2 Kirsty Maccoll: A Tribute
Kirsty was killed ten years ago on the 18th. Billy Bragg hosts a celebration of her life, including part of a Radio 2 documentary she made about Cuba and comments from Johnny Marr, David Byrne, Holly Johnson, Tom Robinson, Janice Long and Johnnie Walker.
22:30 Sky Arts 1 London Rock
Thought wiped until earlier this year, a rare 1970 documentary about the pop counter-culture featuring insights into T-Rex, the Faces, Fairport Convention, Linda Lewis and Matthew's Southern Comfort.
23:00 GOLD The Tony Ferrino Phenomenon
1996. Steve Coogan is comedy's biggest thing off the back of Knowing Me Knowing You, Coogan's Run and Paul Calf vehicles. So he decides to next do a Portuguese ex-Eurovision lothario lounge singer character, releasing a cover of Tom Jones' Help Yourself well before the show makes the screens. It doesn't go down well. Some say it's aged better.
23:00 Radio 1 Story Of 2010
Like it says.
23:20 Sky Arts 1 T-Rex: Born To Boogie
1972 Wembley concert film, directed by Ringo Starr, guesting Elton John, nodding in inserts to Magical Mystery Tour.
TUESDAY 21st
13:30 Radio 4 Billy Preston: That's the Way God Planned It
The only man given full featured credit on a proper Beatles song, and he basically collaborated with everybody, but ended up in a string of arrests and addictions before a second wind. Rick Wakeman presents an examination of his importance.
17:20 BBC2 Celebrity Eggheads
Is this what we want in 2010? A team of Tony Blackburn, Mike Read, David Hamilton, Ed Stewart and David Jensen taking on quiz experts at slow moving general knowledge?
18:30 BBC2 TOTP2 Christmas 2010
The spinoff's revival is now only as annual as the main programme, and while Mark Radcliffe for Steve Wright seems an excellent swap on paper the production team get round the lack of idiocy by cutting his voiceovers right over the entry of the vocals and making the captions even more asinine. Well done, everyone.
19:00 6 Music Marc Riley
The annual Christmas party welcomes by Elbow, I Am Kloot, Everything Everything, Jesca Hoop, Delphic, Liz Green, Liam Frost and Seal Cub Clubbing Club, all backed by the Earlies, a band who only seem now to exist for this.
20:00 Sky Movies Christmas Michael Jackson's This Is It
The film of the show that never happened. Wiki: "Despite originally being set for October 30, the film's release date was rescheduled for October 28, 2009, due to a strong demand by Jackson's fans." That's a whole new dimension to impatience.
20:00 Sky Arts 1 Classic Albums: Ace Of Spades
22:00 Sky Arts 1 Frank Zappa - The Torture Never Stops
A 1981 Halloween show at the New York Palladium, with Steve Vai on guitar.
22:00 Radio 2 A Jazz Odyssey
Jazz is comfortably outside the STN radar, of course, but David Quantick bringing his Blagger's Guide To Jazz to the stage with an actual jazz backing band isn't.
22:35 BBC1 Imagine: Ray Davies - Imaginary Man
22:35 BBC2 Never Mind The Buzzcocks
You wouldn't normally think of Josh Groban as the most obvious host for something like this, but... well, no, you wouldn't. In keeping with the recent booking policy of nobody interesting or amusing but someone who the same jokes can be made about for twenty minutes, Tinchy Stryder guests with KT Tunstall, Michael Ball and Charlie Baker, whoever he is.
WEDNESDAY 22nd
00:05 C4 Little Noise Sessions
A roundelay of the Whiley-curated Union Chapel stripped down sessions, including input from Tom Jones, Example, the Ting Tings, Paolo Nutini, Rumer and Hurts.
11:30 Sky Movies Indie Taking Woodstock
Ang Lee's curious film about everything around Woodstock except the music.
14:50 Sky Arts 1 Black Wax: Gil Scott-Heron
Considerate 1982 documentary with live footage about the great political wordsmith.
18:55 Sky Arts 1 Good Copy, Bad Copy
File sharing moves so fast this 2007 documentary about the state of copyright and peer-to-peer culture might be well out of date already, though it does catch Danger Mouse and Girl Talk from what we might now call the golden age of the mashup.
20:00 Sky Arts 1 Classic Albums: Reasonable Doubt
Not many people's idea of the great Jay-Z statement, but here it is.
20:00 Radio 2 Mark Radcliffe & Stuart Maconie
The annual traditions of their last show before Christmas - Noddy Holder and a female singer-songwriter, this year Hafdis Huld.
21:00 Sky Arts 1 Classic Albums: Nevermind
22:00 Sky Arts 1 Strummerville
23:00 Sky Arts 1 The History Of The Clash
A Don Letts look at everything the charity and support network gets up to followed by the definitive Clash biog. No, not Westway To The World, the other one.
22:00 Radio 2 The Best Bette - Bette Midler Christmas Show
It's lateral thinking, we'll grant Radio 2 that.
THURSDAY 23rd
17:00 Sky Arts 1 Morrissey Live at Eurockeennes
Just under your Eurothighhes.
18:10 Sky Arts 1 Iconoclasts
Paul Simon chats with Saturday Night Live ubergrupenfuehrer Lorne Michaels.
20:00 BBC4 The Andy Williams Christmas Show
Oh blimey. The American Val Doonican is joined in this compilation of thirteen festive singalongs by the Osmonds.
20:00 Sky Movies Family The Rocker
Rainn Wilson is a former metal drummer trying to make a second go of it. As a tie-in Kerrang! held an unsigned band competition for which the winners "dressed and posed as characters from the film in the Kerrang! photo shoot." Given the film made less than half its budget back we wonder if they mention this much.
20:00 Sky Arts 1 Classic Albums: Plastic Ono Band
21:00 Sky Arts 1 Classic Albums: Dark Side Of The Moon
21:00 C4 The House That Made Me
There's a heartening ongoing belief that Jamelia is a huge name despite not having released anything for nearly four years, which is why she turns up on every series of 8 Out Of 10 Cats just to laugh a lot. She was on First Time Voters' Question Time in March! What sort of agent does she have? Here she revisits the Birmingham council estate home she grew up in and talks about her family and stuff.
22:00 Sky Arts 1 David Gilmour - Remember That Night: Live At The Royal Albert Hall
Three nights, actually, from 2006 and featuring guest spots for David Bowie (his last onstage appearance in Britain to date), David Crosby, Graham Nash and Robert Wyatt.
23:30 Sky Arts 1 Robyn Hitchcock: I Often Dream of Trains
Revisiting his 1984 album in 2008 in New York, interspersed with banter the internal logic of which will never be made apparent to anybody else.
23:35 Sky Movies Comedy The Boat That Rocked
Why a proper documentary about the fascinating evolvement of pirate radio will never be made.
CHRISTMAS EVE
07:00 Radio 1 Top 10 Of 2010
An hour each for James Corden, Matt Smith & Karen Gillan, and Tinie Tempah.
10:15 Sky Arts 1 Johnny Cash Day
Endless documentaries, Folsom Prison, Christmas specials and a 1994 Montreux appearance.
19:00 Radio 2 Wireless Kenny Everett
Cuddly Ken was one of the true radio originals, blowing apart playlists and technical possibilities, painstakingly cutting up tape and multitracking his jingles, and getting fired from the BBC on at least one occasion. Someone should revive the Bottom Thirty.
21:00 6 Music Tom Ravenscroft
A Christmas special. Who knows what could turn up, frankly.
22:00 Sky Arts 1 Good Rockin' Tonight: The Legacy of Sun Records
The story of rock'n'roll's house label, alongside modern acts covering the label's standards. And by modern acts we mean Kid Rock, Live and Third Eye Blind. (And Paul McCartney and Page & Plant, in fairness)
23:00 Radio 2 Mark Lamarr
Lamarr's last show for the station after twelve years, claiming "over the last year the station has become much less interested in non-mainstream music, and my position there has been extremely uncomfortable." Shame.
23:50 Sky Arts 1 Swinging UK
Followed by UK Swings Again at 00:20, two sets of live recorded-in-colour performances from 1964 including the Hollies, The Animals, Lulu, the Tremeloes, the Merseybeats, the Swinging Blue Jeans and the Tornados.
CHRISTMAS DAY
Various times until the end of January Dandelion Radio 2010 Festive 50
The official medium taking up where Radio 1 and more directly Peel left off, a five hour special collating listener's votes to see who follows on from Los Campesinos!, The Fall and Battles from the last three years as the majority verdict will be repeated from here for the following 37 days. Check the station schedule nearer the event for full time details.
08:00 Radio 2 Junior Choice Christmas Special
Should be a great idea especially given our wayward idea of nostalgia, Ed Stewart reviving this old family favourite format once a year. We mean, look at that playlist! Unfortunately Stewpot somewhat drags it down by taking hours to read each dedication.
10:00 Radio 1 The Tinsel Takeover
As last year, a listener per quarter hour for nine hours gets to play a meagre amount of favoured records within certain criteria.
10:00 6 Music Adam and Joe's Christmas Special
Back! Back! Back! Rumoured to be for the last time, but even so.
13:00 1Xtra N-Dubz Takeover
There is no worse name for anything than the Braaap Pack, agreed?
13:00 6 Music Christmas With Hawley And Friends
Richard's friends being... oh, Jarvis, you guessed. But also Billy Bragg, John Cooper Clarke, the Smoke Fairies, Eliza Carthy and Pete Molinari.
13:00 Planet Rock Black Christmas With Tommy Iommi
Because sometimes you see a billing and you know it has to go in.
14:00 BBC1 Top Of The Pops Christmas 2010
Except this year nobody will recognise half the performers!
14:35 Sky Arts 1 Queen For Christmas
Mildly inevitable branding foir selection from Montreal 1986, the Freddie tribute concert, a Paul Rodgers gig and a Classic Albums on A Night At The Opera.
15:05 Radio 2 Kylie Minogue - Line Of Enquiry
Kylie gets tickled into submission by Kate Thornton's line of questioning.
16:00 6 Music Don Letts' Reggae Christmas
The new Up All Night All Day. (Look, we're deep into week two now, you don't mind if we just end up amusing ourselves with injokes, do you?)
16:45 Radio 4 Profile
Lady Gaga's not even done anything for a while, and yet Radio 4 still give over fifteen minutes to talk about her. That's some sort of power.
17:00 Radio 2 Kenny Everett's Christmas Selection Box
Following yesterday's documentary, an edited together compilation of bits of his work, including contributions from his mates the Beatles and Harry Nilsson and, it says here, "some recent records that Kenny would have liked for their jolliness and tunefulness". Whose idea was that?
18:00 BBC1 Doctor Who
Katherine Jenkins is prominently in it. For some reason.
21:00 Sky Arts 1 Ladies and Gentlemen: The Rolling Stones
Recently reissued after many years of bootlegging, a recording over four Texan nights of the 1972 Exile On Main Street tour although heavier on earlier material.
21:00 Radio 2 The Radio 2 Christmas Quiz
Chris Evans hosts two teams of Radio 2 DJs taking on the station's own rounds and variants of its shows.
21:00 5 Live The Sound of 2010
That celebrated music station 5 Live re-runs interviews with Dave Grohl, Jack White, Cee-Lo Green, Tinie Tempah, all those.
21:20 BBC2 Swingin' Christmas
The sort of musical programming Michael Parkinson has longed to host, it's 2001 all over again with a festive run through the swing era. Curtis Stigers is on it. Seth MacFarlane, who might yet have a greater hand in Christmas 2010 music, is on it.
22:00 Radio 2 When Jools Holland Met Eric Clapton
Jools gets to utilise that unique interview style that's served him so well on telly.
22:00 6 Music Roxy Music - The Thrill Of It All
Two hours of this documentary too, with new interviews and the omnipresent Jarvis linking all.
22:15 Sky Arts 1 Chuck Berry Plays Avo Sessions
Chuck records some songs in Switzerland in 2007. Maybe for money.
BOXING DAY
09:00 Radio 1 Top 10 Of 2010
In hour long each order: Corden again, Nicole Scherzinger, Jack Black, Tinie Tempah again, Lewis Hamilton, the Who duo again, N-Dubz.
10:00 6 Music Cerys on 6
Promising "a very special session track from Florence and Billy Bragg". A big voiced female singer and a grizzled, accented bloke duetting on a Christmas song? Whatever could that be?
10:15 Sky Arts 1 Soul Power
Alongside the Rumble In The Jungle in Zaire (in Zai-ear) in 1974 was a three day festival headlined by James Brown and BB King and featuring Manu Dibango, the (Detroit) Spinners and Bill Withers. Many years later some cinema verite footage was found, and here it is.
11:15 Radio 4 Desert Island Discs
Sandie Shaw, recently returned to music on a strictly part time basis and now set adrift with her arbitary records and sole book.
13:00 Sky Arts 1 Eric Clapton Day
Assorted star turn-festooned extravaganzas and Royal Albert Hall residencies, plus a Disraeli Gears Classic Albums at 8.
18:00 6 Music Slash's Guitar Heroes
Sounds like the very worst type of Kerrang! TV filler which Slash had no say in the playlisting of, doesn't it? We're sure it won't be as compromised as that.
18:00 Absolute Elton John
Highlights of a gig at Union Chapel two months ago as Elton continues a well overdue back to basics approach.
18:40 Five Top Of The Pops Christmas 1985
Woo! Shown as part of Five's usual purloining of old Christmas entertainment from other channels, though this one might have been routed through the German channel that's picked up a load of old TOTPs for broadcast recently. Not a classic, though, with studio guests Colonel Abrams, Baltimora, Dead Or Alive, King, Alison Moyet, Billy Ocean, Feargal Sharkey and Paul Young mostly some distance away from the 80s of revival reinterpretation, not to mention Dixie Peach among the presenters (let alone Jonathan King).
20:00 6 Music 6 Mix
It's a favourite factoid of the terminally retentive that the first voice you hear on It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back is Dangerous Dave Pearce, introducing a broadcast of Public Enemy's first London gig for BBC Radio London having been the first person to play them on UK radio. Pearce and Chuck D are now reunited to discuss the birth of rap, its politics and gradual acceptance with influential music and tracks from that gig unheard for more than two decades.
21:00 Sky Arts 1 Under Heavy Fire: Phil Collins
If only.
21:15 BBC2 When Harvey Met Bob
22:45 BBC2 Live Aid: Rockin' All Over The World
One odd idea, this, as the meeting of Bob Geldof and Harvey Goldsmith to put on and plan Live Aid is spun out into a 90 minute drama, Goldsmith played by Ian Hart, Geldof by Tony Award-nominated Domhnall Gleeson. Followed by a more linear documentary.
23:35 Sky Arts 1 The Pixies Acoustic
MONDAY 27th
08:00 Sky Arts 1 2010 Festivals
Cambridge Folk Festival, Cropredy, Hard Rock Calling and Lovebox, to be precise.
10:00 6 Music The Sound Of The 70s
19:00 6 Music The Real 70s with Bob Harris
So the big wheeze for this stasis period between Christmas and the new year is to take a decade every day and see how it evolved and what it all meant. Or something. Marc Riley hosts the morning shift every day, Gideon Coe from 9 will also be joining in with session tracks.
12:00 Radio 2 Best Of Tracks Of My Years
Brandon Flowers, Bob Harris, Sir Jackie Stewart, Katherine Jenkins, Nanci Griffith, Phil Collins, Ozzy Osbourne, Meatloaf and more pick their favourite records.
16:00 Radio 1 Reggie Yates' Top 40 Of 2010
And Radio 1's big idea for the week is to get four DJs to sort through the mess of the year and choose their favourite tracks, presumably within careful time of day and audience parameters.
21:00 Sky Arts 1 Ian Dury and the Blockheads: Hang On To Your Structure
A day to do something else, all told - it's a bank holiday, after all - but this Hammersmith Odeon concert should be worth a look even if it was recorded well after his prime in 1985. And that's the title Sky have given, even though it's actually called Hold On To Your Structure.
TUESDAY 28th
08:30 Sky Arts 1 2010 Festivals
A wander round Camp Bestival, High Voltage, 80s Rewind and Sonisphere. We're guessing nobody went to all four.
10:00 6 Music The Sound Of The 80s
13:30 Radio 4 The British Reggae Revolution
From lover's rock to Steel Pulse, the first generation British black bands and singers had a politicised voice that ran parallel with punk in all sorts of ways. Presented by Rishi Persad. Ho-ho, no, not really. Don Letts again.
16:00 Radio 1 Fearne Cotton's Top 40 Of 2010
18:00 Living Robbie Williams' Crazy 2010
Wasn't strictly "crazy", was it? And this whole 'Crazy 2010' strand continues in this slot for the rest of the week with the wacky out-there antics of the Beckhams, Cheryl Cole and the decidedly sensible Simon Cowell.
19:00 6 Music The Real 80s with Stuart Maconie
20:00 Radio 2 Jarvis Cocker
Highlights of his 6 Music show for that annual 6 On 2 thing, in particular contributions from Michael Palin, Peter Blake and John Hillcoat.
22:00 Radio 2 At Home With Keith Richards
Someone called Paul Sexton pops by Keith's to talk about the life he's just got through talking about in hardback.
23:30 Bravo Towers Of London
This channel's closing down on New Year's Day, and nobody will miss it if in its last days it digs out one programme from the series that was meant to make Donny Tourette the punk hero of a new generation, an aim that ended in nationwide laughter and that bit on Celebrity Big Brother when he ruined his credibility within minutes of arrival by warmly greeting Leo Sayer.
23:50 Sky Movies Comedy It's All Gone Pete Tong
The only film to date to be named after a Mark and Lard catchphrase, although our gritty gangland thriller Cod Fish Battered Balls Ho-Ho! is on third draft.
WEDNESDAY 29th
10:00 6 Music The Sound Of The 90s
12:00 Radio 2 Jagger's Jukebox
And where Keith goes, Mick must go. It's that Paul Sexton again, talking to Jagger about his primary influences.
16:00 Radio 1 Greg James' Top 40 Of 2010
19:00 6 Music The Real 90s with Shaun Keaveney
20:00 Five Cheryl Cole: Where Did it All Go Right... And Wrong?
21:00 Five Most Shocking Celebrity Moments 2010
You'd never guess Five is owned by the same person who runs the Daily Express and Daily Star, would you?
21:00 Sky Arts 1 Duran Duran - Arena (An Absurd Notion)
Not us passing comment, but the actual overly fussy title of their 1984 concert film. And by film, we mean it has a storyline around the live footage starring Milo O'Shea reprising his Barbarella role as the character who gave the band their name.
22:00 Bio Pictures Of Status Quo
Film and audio too.
22:00 Radio 2 Sally Boazman: In Search of a British Route 66
Lordy, here's a concept. Sally Traffic goes on a journey to find the history of British roads in song, from the Radio Ballads to It's Immaterial and Malcolm Middleton. Malcolm Middleton! On a big Radio 2 documentary!
23:00 Radio 2 Trevor Nelson's Soul Show
Cee-Lo Green co-presents.
23:30 Sky Arts 1 New Order Live In Finsbury Park
From 2002, meaning Barney circumnavigates being in tune and punches the air like a dancing dad during Joy Division songs.
THURSDAY 30th
10:00 6 Music The Sound Of The 00s
12:00 Radio 2 Johnnie Walker With The Kinks - We're Not Like Everybody Else
It's often said that Ray and Dave Davies don't speak any more, but they're supposedly being jointly interviewed here by Johnnie Walker about their back catalogue.
16:00 Radio 1 Jo Whiley's Top 40 Of 2010
19:00 6 Music The Real 00s with Lauren Laverne
20:00 Sky Arts 1 The Who - Tommy and Quadrophenia Live
The former in 1989, the latter in 1996, disjointedly enough.
21:00 More4 Michael Jackson's Secret Hollywood
We found an old edition of Danny Baker's failed 1993 chat show After All the other day in which, having fruitlessly been sent to a shop supposedly selling Gulf War memorabilia, he calls out the researcher responsible for the misinformation on air, one Jacques Peretti. These days he's a renowned investigative showbiz reporter and may not have needed to trawl London high streets for odd stuff in years. Here the pitch is that Jacko was no more fruitloop than any Hollywood star, but that seems to translate to 'he had an entourage'.
21:30 BBC2 Never Mind the Buzzcocks
Robert Webb tosses airballs to Example, Cee-Lo Green, Chris Packham (go on, wear that Jesus & Mary Chain T-shirt again, the writers will only be prepared for Smiths gags) and Andi Osho.
21:30 Sky Arts 1 The Who Live at the Isle of Wight
From the classic 1970 festival, taking the stage at 2am. Couldn't do that now. And quite rightly.
22:00 BBC2 Shooting Stars Christmas Special 2010
Here because Ronnie Wood's on, but also we must mention that an appearance from Mulligan and O'Hare is promised.
22:30 Sky Arts 1 John Entwistle: An Ox's Tale
That whole bit about dying of a heart attack induced by cocaine while in bed with a stripper groupie will need to be treated with extreme sensitivity, but Entwistle was one of the great bassists who virtually played it as lead instrument, this in a band also featuring Pete Townshend and Keith Moon. Quiet, reserved bloke, so everyone says, who didn't do much on stage, so a lot of this might be padding.
NEW YEAR'S EVE
00:40 C4 The Album Chart Show Spotlight
A tips for 2010 special including Clare Maguire, Jessie J, Sunday Girl and Katy B. James Blake and the Vaccines are away.
12:00 Bio Kaiser Chiefs Live: Main Square Festival in Arras
13:00 Bio Lily Allen Live: Main Square Festival in Arras
French festival sets from 2009. We're amused by the Arras tourism site's reference to a 2007 show by "Radiohead, the mythical group of Thom Yorke". No, we think they exist.
13:00 Planet Rock Marquee
An extended reminiscence about the titular, important once London club.
16:00 Radio 1 Scott Mills' Top 40 Floor Fillers Of 2010
16:00 6 Music Lamacq's Top 40 Of 2010
All taken from listener's votes, which was sent wildly awry when Depeche Mode ended up winning last year.
18:00 Sky Arts 1 Prince's Trust Rock Gala 2010: The Highlights
19:30 Sky Arts 1 Prince's Trust Rock Gala 2010: By Appointment
A Rock Gala. Keane's Tom Chaplin with the active half of Queen, Alison Moyet with Jamie Cullum, Eric Clapton, Phil Collins, Jools Holland, Tom Jones, Paloma Faith, Midge Ure, Mike & The Mechanics, Mark King and Status Quo play in front of Charles and Camilla. That's what we fought for in 1976!
18:00 Radio 2 Friday Night Is Music Night - Bare Feet And Beehives
Jazz singer Liane Carroll reconstructs the story and music of the female pop singers of the 60s, replicating "the journey and emotions of love". Nothing too full on, then.
19:00 all MTV channels Non Stop New Year's Eve
Except it never is non stop because they keep the adverts in, and those things are regular.
19:00 Radio 2 Tony Blackburn
Of course he's a playing to the gallery cariacture but Blackburn's always made a point of his love of soul music and Motown, presenting Britain's first legal soul radio show, and now the whole I'm A Celebrity postmodernism has died down and he has a party audience at his hand (though his former assistant Dave Pearce gets the midnight gig) it could be more fun than you'd imagine.
20:00 Sky Arts 1 Roy Orbison: the Anthology
Live clips and testimonials. Bono's involved, as he generally is.
21:00 Bio Take That: The Ultimate Tour
The first reunion stadium tour arrives at their adoptive home Manchester. Do you think Take That have an exit strategy?
They can't just dissolve again, not at this stage and fame.
22:00 6 Music New Year's Eve 6 Mix Superstar DJs
Mixes from Andrew Weatherall, Orbital and that hard house Ibiza superstar regular Dan Snaith of Caribou.
22:30 Bio Madonna: The Confessions Tour Live From London
"Directed by Jonas Åkerlund". WARGH.
23:00 BBC2 Jools' Annual Hootenanny
And we end the year as we should, sitting through Jools and his Rhythm and Blues Orchestra and waiting for Rowland Rivron to appear. Confirmed: Kylie, Toots Hibbert, Vampire Weekend, Cee-Lo Green, Roger Daltrey, Wanda Jackson, Plan B, Rumer, Ruby Turner, Bellowhead and Jack White's new Nashville progeny Secret Sisters.
Friday, March 05, 2010
Get your Rocks off
We appreciate this isn't the most pressing matter concerning British music broadcasting at this present moment, but it cannot pass without comment.
MTV2, bludgeoned over the years as it has been from heavily eclectic see-what-stickathon to Viewer's Choice adorned brouhaha to, oh, put some guitars on it and see what happens, has been renamed.
MTV ROCKS.
Yeah.
Of course MTV2's not been worth bothering with at all for a while, since 120 Minutes was taken off air apparently as a cost cutting measure, because cueing up two hours of videos at 1am was singlehandedly ruining the balance of trade. Zane Lowe's Gonzo, already long passed into for the sake of it cutting and editing with bells and whistles, is also going to be Loweless after its current run, so now you have the same channel as every other guitar-based slot. (Not counting the moment when NME TV seemingly thinks Mini Viva are as alternative as they come)
They might as well have called it MTV REAL MUSIC.
MTV2, bludgeoned over the years as it has been from heavily eclectic see-what-stickathon to Viewer's Choice adorned brouhaha to, oh, put some guitars on it and see what happens, has been renamed.
MTV ROCKS.
Yeah.
Of course MTV2's not been worth bothering with at all for a while, since 120 Minutes was taken off air apparently as a cost cutting measure, because cueing up two hours of videos at 1am was singlehandedly ruining the balance of trade. Zane Lowe's Gonzo, already long passed into for the sake of it cutting and editing with bells and whistles, is also going to be Loweless after its current run, so now you have the same channel as every other guitar-based slot. (Not counting the moment when NME TV seemingly thinks Mini Viva are as alternative as they come)
They might as well have called it MTV REAL MUSIC.
Thursday, December 17, 2009
Vision on
It's a tradition of Decembers on STN that, no matter how bad the overall output, we're committed to listing the best (ie not "plus a special guest appearance by JLS") of the music based broadcasting over the period covered by the Christmas listings magazines. Radio in red.
SATURDAY 19th DECEMBER
10:30 Radio 4 Here We Come
They were the first manufactured boy band, you know, although that they didn't play their given instruments on recordings didn't become common knowledge until after they'd started doing so. By then they'd overthrown their founder, who formed the Archies on the basis that cartoon figures couldn't rebel. Then they made Head. Then Michael Nesmith was instrumental in the formation of MTV. It's a fascinating tale, one we hope is gone into deeply on this documentary, featuring a now rare Davy Jones interview. Oh, and it's not Tipp-Ex, it's Liquid Paper.
11:00 C4 Hollyoaks Music Show
'Unsigned band' is a horrible nebulous concept these days, and if you remind us in January we'll explain why. This thing, which seems to be the only idea television has for putting music in its own show now, has been running an unsigned band competition, presumably because MobileAct Unsigned never worked, and the winner is declared here.
13:00 Radio 2 Pick Of The Pops
1977, with Jonathan Richman's Egyptian Reggae, and 1985, with the debuts of Last Christmas and Walking In The Air.
14:30 Sky Arts 1 Donovan: Sunshine Superman
15:00 Radio 2 Dermot O'Leary
Featuring carols by Dermot's Choir Of Angels, listed as "three indie female stars". If one of them is Pixie Lott, we're going to the IBA.
18:30 ITV1 Take That: The Circus Live
Wonder if they have an exit strategy at all, given this idea of "coming back to claim what wasn't rightfully theirs but their original audience need something to be excited about" can't last forever. The fastest selling tour in UK history gets ninety minutes of prime-time, followed by a behind the scenes account on ITV2.
19:00 Sky Arts 1 Everyone Stares: The Police Inside Out
Stewart Copeland unearths his Super 8 collection.
20:00 Radio 2 Even Better Than The Real Thing - The Top Of The Pops Albums
Not actually connected with the telly show, because the Beeb forgot to patent the title and Pickwick Records picked it up. Doing a documentary on them is therefore big of them. Noddy Holder voices, and discussion of the Pretty Vacant cover is promised, which isn't that audacious as the chords and vocal style are quite easy to replicate. Cover volume 45's version of Autobahn, at least!
21:00 Sky Arts 1 Gary Moore: One Night In Dublin
A 2005 one-off tribute to Phil Lynott, Moore joined by a number of ex-Thin Lizzy members. Followed at 22:20 by Thin Lizzy Live And Dangerous at the Rainbow Theatre.
21:55 BBC3 Move Like Michael Jackson
Yeah, cos everyone remembers that Mitchell Brothers track. Parts three and four, so they're shoving this out ASAP, of the dancing competition kind of given away in the title, with judges Jamelia, Jermaine Jackson and the alliteration buggering Mark Summers. That's the dancing casting agent to the stars, not the bloke behind Magic Roundabout sampling novelty rave hit Summer's Magic. But imagine if it was. Final Sunday at 21:00, the finalists' (oh christ) journey at 21:00 Monday.
00:15 C4 Live From Abbey Road
This seemed such a good idea when Channel 4 launched it, but the lineups consistently fail to impress. Tonight Michael sodding Buble, Little Boots and bane of Amelia Fletcher's life the Temper Trap.
SUNDAY 20th DECEMBER
10:40 Sky Movies Indie Shine A Light
Scorsese's 2008 Stones documentary, Jack White, Buddy Guy and Christina Aguilera propping up - literally, perhaps - two dates from their last world tour.
14:30 Sky Movies Indie Control
Chin up!
15:30 6 Music A Month of Matinees
6 Music has been filling this slot with guests while they wait for Stephen Merchant to come back. December's theme is people in films, ergo Edgar Wright gets a turn.
16:00 Radio 1 Radio 1's Chart Show
Fuck you, they won't do what they tell you.
20:00 Absolute Geoff Lloyd
Substantial chat with Trevor Horn.
20:00 6 Music Dave Pearce
Substantial chat, as well as DJ selections, with Horn's mates the Pet Shop Boys.
21:00 Sky 1 George Michael Live In London
If he doesn't fall asleep backstage.
21:10 BBC4 Cardigans At Christmas
We're being far from ironic when we say that when the Tories get rid of BBC4 next year this is the sort of thing we'll miss. This is actually a repeat documentary about light entertainment festive specials, followed by the best of The Andy Williams Christmas Show, a Val Doonican Show special from 1976 and the recentish Queens Of British Pop documentary.
MONDAY 21st DECEMBER
16:00 6 Music Hamish & Andy
With over two million listeners, Hamish Blake and Andy Lee's unique comedic style has made them Australia's most popular DJs. This is the first time they've broadcast in Brit... wait, is this some sort of injoke? (checks) No, apparently not. Why on earth are they doing this, then? "The show finds its humour in everyday stories and situations", apparently, but then so does Andy Parsons'. Jamie Oliver and Ricky Gervais guest.
17:30 Sky Movies Indie High Fidelity
Avant fact: Ian Williams of Don Caballero and Battles is in the celebrated Beta Band scene.
19:00 Five Studio Five's Jacko Tribute
God, Ian Wright's tribute to Michael Jackson, can you imagine?
19:00 Radio 1 Festive Festival
Now they've got shot of Lamacq, it's Nick Grimshaw's turn to host an all-eveninger at Maida Vala, featuring Simian Mobile Disco, Mumford & Sons, Plan B, The XX (or, as the original press release said, XX Teens), Enter Shikari and Marina & The Diamonds.
20:00 BBC2 University Challenge
Featuring the University of Manchester team, one of whom runs Cherryade Records and another is one of our co-contributors to The Line Of Best Fit.
20:00 ITV4 Freddie Mercury: Magic Remixed
Another favourite obsession of documentary commissioners with no ideas, Robbie Williams, McFly and Mike Myers discuss Freddie's legacy alongside home video footage and rare interviews.
20:00 Sky 1 Michael Jackson's Private Home Movies
Actually from 2003, part of Fox's damage limitation following the Bashir interview.
20:00 Sky Arts 1 My Music: Seth Lakeman
Overambitious push as 'the folk James Blunt' long gone, Lakeman discusses his influences.
21:00 Five Michael Jackson: The Last Days
22:00 Five Michael Jackson 30th Anniversary Concert
23:50 Five Michael Jackson Not For Sale
First and last here won't be tawdry in the slightest, being a reconstruction of his last movements and an examination of belongings recently auditioned off. In the middle is a 2001 concert, the brothers' first reunion in two decades plus the usual selection of appropriately demographic crossing guests.
TUESDAY 22nd DECEMBER
16:30 Radio 4 Great Lives
The station's regular series commemorating the significant dead reaches Vivian Stanshall, with Neil Innes and Viv's widow Ki Longfellow. Pop fact: Viv and Ki found, moored and converted what is now the Thekla in Bristol.
19:00 Radio 1 Review Of The Year
Nihal runs through this year of years.
19:00 6 Music Marc Riley
The annual all-in Christmas bash, also featuring Guy Garvey, Jesca Hoop and Liz Green.
22:00 BBC4 We Need Answers
Mark Watson, Tim Key and the other one's post-post-post-post modern quiz welcomes beKangoled guest Neil Innes.
22:45 BBC2 The Culture Show: Michael Jackson Special
23:45 BBC2 Michael Jackson Live In Budapest: The Dangerous Tour
He died, you know.
WEDNESDAY 23rd DECEMBER
17:00 Radio 2 Chris Evans
Chris' last proper show before he takes over Wogan's seat, from the O2 featuring live Proclaimers, Ting Tings and Scouting For Girls.
19:00 6 Music Marc Riley
Highlights of his 2009 sessions.
19:30 BBC2 TOTP2 Christmas Special
They've given the narration to Mark Radcliffe! Yes! Beyond that, the predictable.
20:00 Radio 2 Radcliffe & Maconie
Thea Gilmore, whose Christmas album Scrawn sings on, does the festive special.
20:00 ITV1 The Nolans: In The Mood For Dancing
It must be like a permanent Loose Women staff night out with Lambrini on tap at those gigs.
20:00 Sky Arts 1 My Music: Kate Rusby
22:45 Sky Arts 1 My Music: Eliza Carthy
23:30 Radio 4 Take Two
In a series about famed double acts, Richard Coles discusses Steely Dan.
00:30 C4 Editors Live At Fabric
Does it really matter where it is?
CHRISTMAS EVE
16:00 6 Music The Best Of Adam & Joe
18:30 6 Music Guy Garvey's Encore
This went out in the lunchtime docu-oddity slot on Radio 4 a few weeks ago, but it was worthwhile just to hear recordings of how Garvey wanted Elbow fans to summon an encore on their last tour. It's about the development and conventions of the tacked on bit of the gig, featuring Everything Everything among others.
20:00 Sky Movies Christmas (wut?) Mamma Mia!
No.
20:00 Sky Arts 1 Songbook: Ray Davies Special
Part one of two, the second at this time on New Year's Eve. The Songbook format is Will Hodgkinson talks to a guest in a makeshift rehearsal studio about influences and songwriting and they then play acoustic versions of some of their songs. It works, actually.
20:00 Radio 2 Robbie Williams' Line Of Enquiry
Kate Thornton puts your questions to him for two hours. You'd run out soon enough.
21:00 Sky Arts 1 Queen Rock Montreal
In 1982.
23:05 Five Simon Cowell: Where Did It All Go Right?
Assuming it did go right for the greater good, there.
23:15 Radio 3 Late Junction
The latest in their series of one-off collaborations brings together excellent Brighton folkie Mary Hampton, storyteller Debs Newbold and theatrical composer Dave Price.
00:40 BBC2 Comedy Songs - The Pop Years
Originally shown on BBC4, it doesn't cover everything it could but is a pretty good effort at tracking how comedy and music have intersected over the last forty years.
04:00 Radio 1 Huw Stephens' Weird And Wonderful Christmas
Weird for that time, certainly. He did something similar to this last year, if memory serves, at about the same timeslot and they didn't even put it on iPlayer for whatever reason.
CHRISTMAS DAY
10:00 Radio 1 The Tinsel Takeover/Radio 1's Christmas Gifts
Helpfully different sources give different titles. Seems a bit of a mutually helpful filler too, giving 24 listeners fifteen minutes' airtime each. According to the station's blurb, that's three whole songs, one of which has to be festive.
10:00 6 Music Derek Smalls
Harry Shearer is a more than capable radio host, as you may know from Le Show on KCRW, and we'd like to hear him transplant that sort of thing to Britain even if just for a one-off. But no, it has to be Tap-related. When they put their album out this year, it was promoted in America with a Guest/McKean/Shearer acoustic Storytellers-style tour of Tap and Folksmen songs, and in Britain with a load of in-character interviews that didn't work. So here's Derek Smalls, with the rest of the band on the phone. Trust us, this won't be as fun as it sounds.
10:35 C4 Beyonce: I Am... Yours
Ambitiously billed as "an acoustic set".
12:00 6 Music Jimmy Page and the BBC Sessions
Not an exciting new supergroup but Page introducing Led Zep session tracks and in conversation with Shaun Keaveny.
13:00 6 Music Beth Ditto
Deepening threat she'll just play a load of bad electro rather than what she actually bred her band's style on.
13:15 Sky Arts 1 Freddie Mercury: The Tribute Concert
The Wembley event from Easter 1992, featuring David Bowie's in no way cloying Lord's Prayer recital. Also, Spinal Tap played.
14:00 BBC1 Top Of The Pops Christmas
Seriously, wouldn't you rather not have this charade than this Sun sop once a year, still presented by the same Cotton/Yates team that took the show under? Diversity are on, and they aren't even a musical group.
14:00 Absolute Christmas With Christian
They value O'Connell enough to give him a prime Christmas Day highlights spot. But then they also let him do a show for 5 Live.
15:00 6 Music Lammo's Mercury Highlights
Pick of winners and nominees, apparently. His Mercury's in retrograde.
16:00 Radio 1 Story Of The Noughties
They've been running this series of instant nostalgia throughout the last ten weeks, and now they're being shoved out back to back.
16:00 6 Music Don Letts' Reggae Christmas
18:05 Sky Arts 1 Roy Orbison Live In Australia
"At the peak of his career", it says in the blurb. Well, he peaked in 1963-64 and this was recorded in 1972, so within the decade.
20:00 Sky Arts 1 ELO Live At Wembley
The huge Out Of The Blue gig, introduced by Tony Curtis. Now there's flash.
20:00 Radio 2 Suzi's Motown
Ms Quatro is American, ergo.
21:00 Sky Arts 1 Soul Power
Alongside the Rumble In The Jungle in Zaire in 1974 was a three day concert starring James Brown, the Detroit Spinners and BB King. The footage has only recently been found and sifted for this recently released documentary.
21:00 Five The Abba Years
22:00 Five Mamma Mia!: Where Did It All Go Right?
23:00 Five Abba The Movie
That's the trouble with Five, they get one idea in their head and they have to chase it down as far as they can go.
00:30 BBC2 Never Mind The Buzzcocks: Where Are They Now?
Like those end of series specials, except without Amstell's ideas. Repeated at a nearly earthly time (11pm) on the 30th.
BOXING DAY
10:00 6 Music Adam & Joe
Their last show for quite a while (pre-recorded, so the last proper show is on the 19th) for a while while Joe Cornish goes and directs a film.
10:00 1Xtra 1Xtra's Chart Of The Decade
100 tracks of ten years stretched out across the day.
13:00 Radio 2 Pick Of The Pops
1962, with Telstar, Chris Montez and Rolf Harris' Sun Arise, and 1981, headed by Don't You Want Me with appearances by Ant Rap and, oh go on Dale, Altered Images' I Could Be Happy.
13:00 6 Music Hail Hail Rock 'N' Roll With John Harris
Harris has just put out a book of historical rock and roll factoids, and here he'll run through some of them with illustration.
15:00 6 Music A Man Like Curtis
Curtis Mayfield died twenty years ago this day, so Lenny Kravitz takes over most of the day, with Craig Charles butting in at one point, with a series of documentaries paying tribute to his life and influence.
17:00 Sky Arts 1 Marvin Gaye: Greatest Hits Live
Recorded in Amsterdam in 1976.
17:00 Radio 2 Bon Jovi's Guide To Rock With Richie Sambora
Ha ha ha ha ha. (Mirthless laughter there)
19:00 Sky Arts 1 Johnny Cash Christmas Special 1979
Last year Sky Arts showed a lot of the Cash family gatherings, and this year they're reshowing them all. This is new to the channel, though, featuring a guest slot for Andy Kaufman.
20:00 Radio 2 The Record Producers
In the latest of Radio 2's seemingly bank holiday only series Smokey Robinson talks about his career, Steve Levine analyses it.
23:00 Radio 1 Most Hip-Hop
Repeated from last year, Westwood and Lowe list hip-hop's thirty most important names.
23:00 Radio 2 Gospel According To The King
Elvis won three Grammys, and they were all for gospel recordings. Jerry Hall - well, the natural choice - opens two weeks of programming leading up to what would have been Presley's 75th birthday by examining his gospel links.
SUNDAY 27th DECEMBER
09:55 C4 Chipmunk T4 Special
Brap Pack. We mean, fucking hell.
11:15 Radio 4 Desert Island Discs
David Tennant, who you may know took his stage name from Neil, takes to the mythical island with an inexhaustible power supply but little cultural materials.
15:00 Radio 2 Pirate Johnnie Walker
Walker actually does pretend he's broadcasting from a pirate ship station, the ambitious fool. The best of the end of 1966 in this one-off, presumably, revival.
17:00 6 Music Stuart Maconie's Freak Zone – 1969
For some reason the next four days on the station are dedicated to the last year of the last four decades. This makes a kind of sense, though.
20:00 6 Music Bob Dylan Changing Times
Part one of a three parter, the others being at 7pm over the following days, on what Dylan was up to in those corresponding themed years. Nashville Skyline, Slow Train Coming and Oh Mercy, if you must know, all changes in their own ways.
00:40 C4 Hits And Headlines: Christmas No. 1s
Not sure what that title's about if it's not a strand, and not sure what they're really going to find new to say about the Spice Girls and Westlife, only taking the top spots from 1995 onwards. Maybe Gary Jules won't just be given passing short shrift.
MONDAY 28th DECEMBER
13:00 Radio 1 The Chart Of The Decade
Nihal takes over this slot for the next four days, covering the decade's top selling albums on this day and singles for the next three. That's no fair slanting.
14:00 Radio 2 The Great British Songbook Of The 60s
Nobody outside Radio 2 seems to be entirely sure what the Great British Songbook entails - isn't it just the same catalogue of Great Songs again? Regardless they're running with it for the next five days in this slot, one for each decade, with relevant hosts. It's the none more stereotypically happy happy 60s sound of Tony Blackburn and Cilla Black today, Noddy Holder and Kiki Dee for the 70s on Tuesday, Chris Tarrant and, wow, Nik Kershaw on Wednesday, Zoe Ball and Melanie C Thursday, Alan Carr and Nadine Coyle Friday.
21:00 C4 The Greatest Songs Of The Noughties
And no deviation will be accepted. Decided, since you ask, by public poll - well, we weren't asked - and critical survey. How do they leverage those two together, then?
21:00 Sky Arts 1 Elvis '56 Special
22:30 C4 The Big Fat Quiz Of The Year 2007
All the Big Fat Quizzes are being reshown during this period, but this one's notable for a truculent Lily Allen and a guest appearance on video from a Muttley-laughing Thom Yorke.
23:30 Radio 2 Elvis – Movie King Or Celluloid Sellout?
Another multi-parter, the second half at the same time on Tuesday. Reliable old Paul Morley is in charge, wondering what Presley's film career did for his reputation.
TUESDAY 29th DECEMBER
12:00 Radio 1 Radio 1 Live - Arctic Monkeys
Recorded for the Beeb in August, repeated here for your convenience.
18:00 Radio 2 The Class Of 2009
Really strange annual event, this, where Paul Gambaccini completely ignores received opinion about who's done best the year just finishing and interviews the people he thinks have achieved the most. This year that means Paloma Faith, Jay Sean, Ingrid Michaelson, Eric Hassle andThe Postal Service Owl City.
22:30 Radio 2 Elvis And Dewey – Red, Hot And Blue
Gambo again, with a profile of Dewey Phillips, the motormouth king of Memphis radio and the first person to play Elvis on the radio.
22:50 BBC1 Sting's Winter Songbook
He's going to do some carols. Lordy.
WEDNESDAY 30th DECEMBER
12:00 Radio 1 Radio 1 Live - Dizzee Rascal
His not great full band set from the Electric Proms. Still, it fills this slow day up.
17:00 Radio 2 The Beatles – Here, There And Everywhere
It's a Gambaccini Christmas! This, again, is the first of a two part special the second of which is the same time tomorrow in which he gives the Beatles corpse another kick by talking about their legacy with, among others, George Martin, Brian Wilson, Cameron Crowe, Grohl, Jeff Lynne, Mika, Tom Petty, Slash, Jackson Browne, Mark Ronson and Rick Rubin.
21:00 Sky Arts 1 Elvis Lives! The 25th Anniversary Concert
In 1997 Elvis' TCB Band toured with a large screen on which was shown footage of Presley singing live. And you thought Queen & Paul Rodgers was unneccesarily ghoulish.
NEW YEAR'S EVE
10:00 6 Music Sound Of 2009
Lauren Laverne's year end review.
20:00 Bio Bryan Ferry
21:00 Bio Amy Winehouse Live: Eurockennes Festival
22:00 Bio Franz Ferdinand Live
For some reason the Biography channel is contravening its basic idea and running a day's worth of concert footage from midday, but this is the very last thing we're writing for this so we can't be arsed to list all the Buble, Cliff, Knopfler and Tina Turner. Check the listings guides.
16:00 6 Music Lamacq's Top 40 Of 2009
As voted for by you. Unless you didn't know about the vote.
18:30 BBC1 Top Of The Pops New Year's Eve
Mopping up the rest of the year's achievers.
20:00 Radio 2 Mika
Promising a "party playlist". Oh, we wonder.
21:20 BBC4 Guitar Heroes At The BBC
A different selection to that from earlier in the year but with a lot of the expected names. "Mick Ronson hardly gets a look-in during Starman" Radio Times sniffs, somehow unaware that that TOTP performance is notable for slightly different reasons.
22:00 6 Music 6 Mix Superstar DJ NYE Special
Andrew Weatherall, Marc Hughes, whoever he is, and Erol Alkan.
22:20 Sky Arts 1 The Story Of The Clash
22:50 Five The Cheryl Cole Factor
There must have been some point at which Five - a terrestrial channel, don't forget - must have decided it couldn't be bothered to attempt to get names of any size on board personally.
23:00 BBC2 Jools' Annual Hootenanny
Sir Tom Jones, Dizzee Rascal, Lily Allen, Kasabian, Boy George, Roger Daltrey, Paolo Nutini, Shingai Shoniwa, Florence Welch, Paloma Faith, Dave Edmunds, Ruby Turner, Rico Rodriguez and the First Battalion of Scots Guards. Jools' Rhythm & Blues Orchestra regulars Edmunds, Turner and Rodriguez aside, all seems fairly unimaginative, doesn't it?
00:00 Radio 1 New Year's Eve Essential Mix Live
Deadmau5, Eric Prydz, Justice and Plump DJs see in 2010 at great expense.
01:10 BBC2 Best Of Glastonbury 2009
Ooh, keep in that impromptu glockenspiel solo Neil Young attempted at the end of his set.
NEW YEAR's DAY
10:50 C4 Mariah Carey: Under The Skin
And you think Rick Edwards is going to get the sort of access and insight that title suggests?
13:00 6 Music Lauren Laverne's Sound Of 2010
16:00 6 Music Lamacq's Almanac
Lots of clued-in DJs looking forward today, as expected.
17:25 Sky Arts 1 Johnny Cash: Half A Mile A Day
It's Johnny Cash and Roy Orbison day on the station - the Big O we'll get back to - and the highlight of the Cash output is this oddly titled documentary featuring Willie Nelson, Billy Bob Thornton, Merle Haggard, Kris Kristofferson, Jerry Lee Lewis and so on.
19:00 Radio 1 Huw Stephens
Can we wish Huw wouldn't use so many sound effects and comedy features in 2010? It's very unbecoming of the new music DJ in a frankly nigh-on DLT style, especially when he puts clip-clopping noises over Pulled Apart By Horses records.
19:30 Radio 2 Friday Night Is Music Night – Ella, Aretha, Dusty & Me
The BBC Concert Orchestra, Guy Barker and his Big Band and singers Madeline Bell, Liane Carroll and Kym Mazelle work through the catalogues of Fitzgerald, Franklin, Springfield and, erm, me. It says here.
21:00 BBC4 Guitar Heroes At The BBC
23:35 BBC4 Guitar Heroes At The BBC
Different selections to the selection with the same name from a couple of months ago but with a lot less of the expected names. The Radio Times gets oddly sniffy about this, moaning that they've picked Starman as Mick Ronson's showcase when he's not on screen much - no, but the moment he is is very, very famous - and for the second part claiming "The New York Dolls are less convincing than Alice Cooper", somehow unaware that they came at rock'n'roll performance from different angles.
21:00 Sky Arts 1 Roy Orbison And Friends: A Black And white Night
While the highlight of half a day's Orbison is a 1988 special in which he played the hits with a band including Bruce Springsteen, Tom Waits, Elvis Costello, Jackson Browne, kd lang, Bonnie Raitt and James Burton.
21:00 6 Music Bruce Dickinson Friday Rock Show – Led Zeppelin Special
22:00 BBC4 Queen: The Legendary 1975 Concert
Did Queen ever just have a bog-standard concert?
22:00 Radio 2 In The Lounge With Justin Lee Collins
Did his album ever come out?
22:50 BBC4 The Faces: Sight And Sound In Concert
00:35 BBC4 Rock Goes To College: Tom Petty
Newly unearthed transporting of American classic rock to the Oxford Polytechnic studes.
01:20 BBC4 Les Paul - Chasing Sound
02:50 BBC4 Peter Green - Man Of The World
SATURDAY 19th DECEMBER
10:30 Radio 4 Here We Come
They were the first manufactured boy band, you know, although that they didn't play their given instruments on recordings didn't become common knowledge until after they'd started doing so. By then they'd overthrown their founder, who formed the Archies on the basis that cartoon figures couldn't rebel. Then they made Head. Then Michael Nesmith was instrumental in the formation of MTV. It's a fascinating tale, one we hope is gone into deeply on this documentary, featuring a now rare Davy Jones interview. Oh, and it's not Tipp-Ex, it's Liquid Paper.
11:00 C4 Hollyoaks Music Show
'Unsigned band' is a horrible nebulous concept these days, and if you remind us in January we'll explain why. This thing, which seems to be the only idea television has for putting music in its own show now, has been running an unsigned band competition, presumably because MobileAct Unsigned never worked, and the winner is declared here.
13:00 Radio 2 Pick Of The Pops
1977, with Jonathan Richman's Egyptian Reggae, and 1985, with the debuts of Last Christmas and Walking In The Air.
14:30 Sky Arts 1 Donovan: Sunshine Superman
15:00 Radio 2 Dermot O'Leary
Featuring carols by Dermot's Choir Of Angels, listed as "three indie female stars". If one of them is Pixie Lott, we're going to the IBA.
18:30 ITV1 Take That: The Circus Live
Wonder if they have an exit strategy at all, given this idea of "coming back to claim what wasn't rightfully theirs but their original audience need something to be excited about" can't last forever. The fastest selling tour in UK history gets ninety minutes of prime-time, followed by a behind the scenes account on ITV2.
19:00 Sky Arts 1 Everyone Stares: The Police Inside Out
Stewart Copeland unearths his Super 8 collection.
20:00 Radio 2 Even Better Than The Real Thing - The Top Of The Pops Albums
Not actually connected with the telly show, because the Beeb forgot to patent the title and Pickwick Records picked it up. Doing a documentary on them is therefore big of them. Noddy Holder voices, and discussion of the Pretty Vacant cover is promised, which isn't that audacious as the chords and vocal style are quite easy to replicate. Cover volume 45's version of Autobahn, at least!
21:00 Sky Arts 1 Gary Moore: One Night In Dublin
A 2005 one-off tribute to Phil Lynott, Moore joined by a number of ex-Thin Lizzy members. Followed at 22:20 by Thin Lizzy Live And Dangerous at the Rainbow Theatre.
21:55 BBC3 Move Like Michael Jackson
Yeah, cos everyone remembers that Mitchell Brothers track. Parts three and four, so they're shoving this out ASAP, of the dancing competition kind of given away in the title, with judges Jamelia, Jermaine Jackson and the alliteration buggering Mark Summers. That's the dancing casting agent to the stars, not the bloke behind Magic Roundabout sampling novelty rave hit Summer's Magic. But imagine if it was. Final Sunday at 21:00, the finalists' (oh christ) journey at 21:00 Monday.
00:15 C4 Live From Abbey Road
This seemed such a good idea when Channel 4 launched it, but the lineups consistently fail to impress. Tonight Michael sodding Buble, Little Boots and bane of Amelia Fletcher's life the Temper Trap.
SUNDAY 20th DECEMBER
10:40 Sky Movies Indie Shine A Light
Scorsese's 2008 Stones documentary, Jack White, Buddy Guy and Christina Aguilera propping up - literally, perhaps - two dates from their last world tour.
14:30 Sky Movies Indie Control
Chin up!
15:30 6 Music A Month of Matinees
6 Music has been filling this slot with guests while they wait for Stephen Merchant to come back. December's theme is people in films, ergo Edgar Wright gets a turn.
16:00 Radio 1 Radio 1's Chart Show
Fuck you, they won't do what they tell you.
20:00 Absolute Geoff Lloyd
Substantial chat with Trevor Horn.
20:00 6 Music Dave Pearce
Substantial chat, as well as DJ selections, with Horn's mates the Pet Shop Boys.
21:00 Sky 1 George Michael Live In London
If he doesn't fall asleep backstage.
21:10 BBC4 Cardigans At Christmas
We're being far from ironic when we say that when the Tories get rid of BBC4 next year this is the sort of thing we'll miss. This is actually a repeat documentary about light entertainment festive specials, followed by the best of The Andy Williams Christmas Show, a Val Doonican Show special from 1976 and the recentish Queens Of British Pop documentary.
MONDAY 21st DECEMBER
16:00 6 Music Hamish & Andy
With over two million listeners, Hamish Blake and Andy Lee's unique comedic style has made them Australia's most popular DJs. This is the first time they've broadcast in Brit... wait, is this some sort of injoke? (checks) No, apparently not. Why on earth are they doing this, then? "The show finds its humour in everyday stories and situations", apparently, but then so does Andy Parsons'. Jamie Oliver and Ricky Gervais guest.
17:30 Sky Movies Indie High Fidelity
Avant fact: Ian Williams of Don Caballero and Battles is in the celebrated Beta Band scene.
19:00 Five Studio Five's Jacko Tribute
God, Ian Wright's tribute to Michael Jackson, can you imagine?
19:00 Radio 1 Festive Festival
Now they've got shot of Lamacq, it's Nick Grimshaw's turn to host an all-eveninger at Maida Vala, featuring Simian Mobile Disco, Mumford & Sons, Plan B, The XX (or, as the original press release said, XX Teens), Enter Shikari and Marina & The Diamonds.
20:00 BBC2 University Challenge
Featuring the University of Manchester team, one of whom runs Cherryade Records and another is one of our co-contributors to The Line Of Best Fit.
20:00 ITV4 Freddie Mercury: Magic Remixed
Another favourite obsession of documentary commissioners with no ideas, Robbie Williams, McFly and Mike Myers discuss Freddie's legacy alongside home video footage and rare interviews.
20:00 Sky 1 Michael Jackson's Private Home Movies
Actually from 2003, part of Fox's damage limitation following the Bashir interview.
20:00 Sky Arts 1 My Music: Seth Lakeman
Overambitious push as 'the folk James Blunt' long gone, Lakeman discusses his influences.
21:00 Five Michael Jackson: The Last Days
22:00 Five Michael Jackson 30th Anniversary Concert
23:50 Five Michael Jackson Not For Sale
First and last here won't be tawdry in the slightest, being a reconstruction of his last movements and an examination of belongings recently auditioned off. In the middle is a 2001 concert, the brothers' first reunion in two decades plus the usual selection of appropriately demographic crossing guests.
TUESDAY 22nd DECEMBER
16:30 Radio 4 Great Lives
The station's regular series commemorating the significant dead reaches Vivian Stanshall, with Neil Innes and Viv's widow Ki Longfellow. Pop fact: Viv and Ki found, moored and converted what is now the Thekla in Bristol.
19:00 Radio 1 Review Of The Year
Nihal runs through this year of years.
19:00 6 Music Marc Riley
The annual all-in Christmas bash, also featuring Guy Garvey, Jesca Hoop and Liz Green.
22:00 BBC4 We Need Answers
Mark Watson, Tim Key and the other one's post-post-post-post modern quiz welcomes beKangoled guest Neil Innes.
22:45 BBC2 The Culture Show: Michael Jackson Special
23:45 BBC2 Michael Jackson Live In Budapest: The Dangerous Tour
He died, you know.
WEDNESDAY 23rd DECEMBER
17:00 Radio 2 Chris Evans
Chris' last proper show before he takes over Wogan's seat, from the O2 featuring live Proclaimers, Ting Tings and Scouting For Girls.
19:00 6 Music Marc Riley
Highlights of his 2009 sessions.
19:30 BBC2 TOTP2 Christmas Special
They've given the narration to Mark Radcliffe! Yes! Beyond that, the predictable.
20:00 Radio 2 Radcliffe & Maconie
Thea Gilmore, whose Christmas album Scrawn sings on, does the festive special.
20:00 ITV1 The Nolans: In The Mood For Dancing
It must be like a permanent Loose Women staff night out with Lambrini on tap at those gigs.
20:00 Sky Arts 1 My Music: Kate Rusby
22:45 Sky Arts 1 My Music: Eliza Carthy
23:30 Radio 4 Take Two
In a series about famed double acts, Richard Coles discusses Steely Dan.
00:30 C4 Editors Live At Fabric
Does it really matter where it is?
CHRISTMAS EVE
16:00 6 Music The Best Of Adam & Joe
18:30 6 Music Guy Garvey's Encore
This went out in the lunchtime docu-oddity slot on Radio 4 a few weeks ago, but it was worthwhile just to hear recordings of how Garvey wanted Elbow fans to summon an encore on their last tour. It's about the development and conventions of the tacked on bit of the gig, featuring Everything Everything among others.
20:00 Sky Movies Christmas (wut?) Mamma Mia!
No.
20:00 Sky Arts 1 Songbook: Ray Davies Special
Part one of two, the second at this time on New Year's Eve. The Songbook format is Will Hodgkinson talks to a guest in a makeshift rehearsal studio about influences and songwriting and they then play acoustic versions of some of their songs. It works, actually.
20:00 Radio 2 Robbie Williams' Line Of Enquiry
Kate Thornton puts your questions to him for two hours. You'd run out soon enough.
21:00 Sky Arts 1 Queen Rock Montreal
In 1982.
23:05 Five Simon Cowell: Where Did It All Go Right?
Assuming it did go right for the greater good, there.
23:15 Radio 3 Late Junction
The latest in their series of one-off collaborations brings together excellent Brighton folkie Mary Hampton, storyteller Debs Newbold and theatrical composer Dave Price.
00:40 BBC2 Comedy Songs - The Pop Years
Originally shown on BBC4, it doesn't cover everything it could but is a pretty good effort at tracking how comedy and music have intersected over the last forty years.
04:00 Radio 1 Huw Stephens' Weird And Wonderful Christmas
Weird for that time, certainly. He did something similar to this last year, if memory serves, at about the same timeslot and they didn't even put it on iPlayer for whatever reason.
CHRISTMAS DAY
10:00 Radio 1 The Tinsel Takeover/Radio 1's Christmas Gifts
Helpfully different sources give different titles. Seems a bit of a mutually helpful filler too, giving 24 listeners fifteen minutes' airtime each. According to the station's blurb, that's three whole songs, one of which has to be festive.
10:00 6 Music Derek Smalls
Harry Shearer is a more than capable radio host, as you may know from Le Show on KCRW, and we'd like to hear him transplant that sort of thing to Britain even if just for a one-off. But no, it has to be Tap-related. When they put their album out this year, it was promoted in America with a Guest/McKean/Shearer acoustic Storytellers-style tour of Tap and Folksmen songs, and in Britain with a load of in-character interviews that didn't work. So here's Derek Smalls, with the rest of the band on the phone. Trust us, this won't be as fun as it sounds.
10:35 C4 Beyonce: I Am... Yours
Ambitiously billed as "an acoustic set".
12:00 6 Music Jimmy Page and the BBC Sessions
Not an exciting new supergroup but Page introducing Led Zep session tracks and in conversation with Shaun Keaveny.
13:00 6 Music Beth Ditto
Deepening threat she'll just play a load of bad electro rather than what she actually bred her band's style on.
13:15 Sky Arts 1 Freddie Mercury: The Tribute Concert
The Wembley event from Easter 1992, featuring David Bowie's in no way cloying Lord's Prayer recital. Also, Spinal Tap played.
14:00 BBC1 Top Of The Pops Christmas
Seriously, wouldn't you rather not have this charade than this Sun sop once a year, still presented by the same Cotton/Yates team that took the show under? Diversity are on, and they aren't even a musical group.
14:00 Absolute Christmas With Christian
They value O'Connell enough to give him a prime Christmas Day highlights spot. But then they also let him do a show for 5 Live.
15:00 6 Music Lammo's Mercury Highlights
Pick of winners and nominees, apparently. His Mercury's in retrograde.
16:00 Radio 1 Story Of The Noughties
They've been running this series of instant nostalgia throughout the last ten weeks, and now they're being shoved out back to back.
16:00 6 Music Don Letts' Reggae Christmas
18:05 Sky Arts 1 Roy Orbison Live In Australia
"At the peak of his career", it says in the blurb. Well, he peaked in 1963-64 and this was recorded in 1972, so within the decade.
20:00 Sky Arts 1 ELO Live At Wembley
The huge Out Of The Blue gig, introduced by Tony Curtis. Now there's flash.
20:00 Radio 2 Suzi's Motown
Ms Quatro is American, ergo.
21:00 Sky Arts 1 Soul Power
Alongside the Rumble In The Jungle in Zaire in 1974 was a three day concert starring James Brown, the Detroit Spinners and BB King. The footage has only recently been found and sifted for this recently released documentary.
21:00 Five The Abba Years
22:00 Five Mamma Mia!: Where Did It All Go Right?
23:00 Five Abba The Movie
That's the trouble with Five, they get one idea in their head and they have to chase it down as far as they can go.
00:30 BBC2 Never Mind The Buzzcocks: Where Are They Now?
Like those end of series specials, except without Amstell's ideas. Repeated at a nearly earthly time (11pm) on the 30th.
BOXING DAY
10:00 6 Music Adam & Joe
Their last show for quite a while (pre-recorded, so the last proper show is on the 19th) for a while while Joe Cornish goes and directs a film.
10:00 1Xtra 1Xtra's Chart Of The Decade
100 tracks of ten years stretched out across the day.
13:00 Radio 2 Pick Of The Pops
1962, with Telstar, Chris Montez and Rolf Harris' Sun Arise, and 1981, headed by Don't You Want Me with appearances by Ant Rap and, oh go on Dale, Altered Images' I Could Be Happy.
13:00 6 Music Hail Hail Rock 'N' Roll With John Harris
Harris has just put out a book of historical rock and roll factoids, and here he'll run through some of them with illustration.
15:00 6 Music A Man Like Curtis
Curtis Mayfield died twenty years ago this day, so Lenny Kravitz takes over most of the day, with Craig Charles butting in at one point, with a series of documentaries paying tribute to his life and influence.
17:00 Sky Arts 1 Marvin Gaye: Greatest Hits Live
Recorded in Amsterdam in 1976.
17:00 Radio 2 Bon Jovi's Guide To Rock With Richie Sambora
Ha ha ha ha ha. (Mirthless laughter there)
19:00 Sky Arts 1 Johnny Cash Christmas Special 1979
Last year Sky Arts showed a lot of the Cash family gatherings, and this year they're reshowing them all. This is new to the channel, though, featuring a guest slot for Andy Kaufman.
20:00 Radio 2 The Record Producers
In the latest of Radio 2's seemingly bank holiday only series Smokey Robinson talks about his career, Steve Levine analyses it.
23:00 Radio 1 Most Hip-Hop
Repeated from last year, Westwood and Lowe list hip-hop's thirty most important names.
23:00 Radio 2 Gospel According To The King
Elvis won three Grammys, and they were all for gospel recordings. Jerry Hall - well, the natural choice - opens two weeks of programming leading up to what would have been Presley's 75th birthday by examining his gospel links.
SUNDAY 27th DECEMBER
09:55 C4 Chipmunk T4 Special
Brap Pack. We mean, fucking hell.
11:15 Radio 4 Desert Island Discs
David Tennant, who you may know took his stage name from Neil, takes to the mythical island with an inexhaustible power supply but little cultural materials.
15:00 Radio 2 Pirate Johnnie Walker
Walker actually does pretend he's broadcasting from a pirate ship station, the ambitious fool. The best of the end of 1966 in this one-off, presumably, revival.
17:00 6 Music Stuart Maconie's Freak Zone – 1969
For some reason the next four days on the station are dedicated to the last year of the last four decades. This makes a kind of sense, though.
20:00 6 Music Bob Dylan Changing Times
Part one of a three parter, the others being at 7pm over the following days, on what Dylan was up to in those corresponding themed years. Nashville Skyline, Slow Train Coming and Oh Mercy, if you must know, all changes in their own ways.
00:40 C4 Hits And Headlines: Christmas No. 1s
Not sure what that title's about if it's not a strand, and not sure what they're really going to find new to say about the Spice Girls and Westlife, only taking the top spots from 1995 onwards. Maybe Gary Jules won't just be given passing short shrift.
MONDAY 28th DECEMBER
13:00 Radio 1 The Chart Of The Decade
Nihal takes over this slot for the next four days, covering the decade's top selling albums on this day and singles for the next three. That's no fair slanting.
14:00 Radio 2 The Great British Songbook Of The 60s
Nobody outside Radio 2 seems to be entirely sure what the Great British Songbook entails - isn't it just the same catalogue of Great Songs again? Regardless they're running with it for the next five days in this slot, one for each decade, with relevant hosts. It's the none more stereotypically happy happy 60s sound of Tony Blackburn and Cilla Black today, Noddy Holder and Kiki Dee for the 70s on Tuesday, Chris Tarrant and, wow, Nik Kershaw on Wednesday, Zoe Ball and Melanie C Thursday, Alan Carr and Nadine Coyle Friday.
21:00 C4 The Greatest Songs Of The Noughties
And no deviation will be accepted. Decided, since you ask, by public poll - well, we weren't asked - and critical survey. How do they leverage those two together, then?
21:00 Sky Arts 1 Elvis '56 Special
22:30 C4 The Big Fat Quiz Of The Year 2007
All the Big Fat Quizzes are being reshown during this period, but this one's notable for a truculent Lily Allen and a guest appearance on video from a Muttley-laughing Thom Yorke.
23:30 Radio 2 Elvis – Movie King Or Celluloid Sellout?
Another multi-parter, the second half at the same time on Tuesday. Reliable old Paul Morley is in charge, wondering what Presley's film career did for his reputation.
TUESDAY 29th DECEMBER
12:00 Radio 1 Radio 1 Live - Arctic Monkeys
Recorded for the Beeb in August, repeated here for your convenience.
18:00 Radio 2 The Class Of 2009
Really strange annual event, this, where Paul Gambaccini completely ignores received opinion about who's done best the year just finishing and interviews the people he thinks have achieved the most. This year that means Paloma Faith, Jay Sean, Ingrid Michaelson, Eric Hassle and
22:30 Radio 2 Elvis And Dewey – Red, Hot And Blue
Gambo again, with a profile of Dewey Phillips, the motormouth king of Memphis radio and the first person to play Elvis on the radio.
22:50 BBC1 Sting's Winter Songbook
He's going to do some carols. Lordy.
WEDNESDAY 30th DECEMBER
12:00 Radio 1 Radio 1 Live - Dizzee Rascal
His not great full band set from the Electric Proms. Still, it fills this slow day up.
17:00 Radio 2 The Beatles – Here, There And Everywhere
It's a Gambaccini Christmas! This, again, is the first of a two part special the second of which is the same time tomorrow in which he gives the Beatles corpse another kick by talking about their legacy with, among others, George Martin, Brian Wilson, Cameron Crowe, Grohl, Jeff Lynne, Mika, Tom Petty, Slash, Jackson Browne, Mark Ronson and Rick Rubin.
21:00 Sky Arts 1 Elvis Lives! The 25th Anniversary Concert
In 1997 Elvis' TCB Band toured with a large screen on which was shown footage of Presley singing live. And you thought Queen & Paul Rodgers was unneccesarily ghoulish.
NEW YEAR'S EVE
10:00 6 Music Sound Of 2009
Lauren Laverne's year end review.
20:00 Bio Bryan Ferry
21:00 Bio Amy Winehouse Live: Eurockennes Festival
22:00 Bio Franz Ferdinand Live
For some reason the Biography channel is contravening its basic idea and running a day's worth of concert footage from midday, but this is the very last thing we're writing for this so we can't be arsed to list all the Buble, Cliff, Knopfler and Tina Turner. Check the listings guides.
16:00 6 Music Lamacq's Top 40 Of 2009
As voted for by you. Unless you didn't know about the vote.
18:30 BBC1 Top Of The Pops New Year's Eve
Mopping up the rest of the year's achievers.
20:00 Radio 2 Mika
Promising a "party playlist". Oh, we wonder.
21:20 BBC4 Guitar Heroes At The BBC
A different selection to that from earlier in the year but with a lot of the expected names. "Mick Ronson hardly gets a look-in during Starman" Radio Times sniffs, somehow unaware that that TOTP performance is notable for slightly different reasons.
22:00 6 Music 6 Mix Superstar DJ NYE Special
Andrew Weatherall, Marc Hughes, whoever he is, and Erol Alkan.
22:20 Sky Arts 1 The Story Of The Clash
22:50 Five The Cheryl Cole Factor
There must have been some point at which Five - a terrestrial channel, don't forget - must have decided it couldn't be bothered to attempt to get names of any size on board personally.
23:00 BBC2 Jools' Annual Hootenanny
Sir Tom Jones, Dizzee Rascal, Lily Allen, Kasabian, Boy George, Roger Daltrey, Paolo Nutini, Shingai Shoniwa, Florence Welch, Paloma Faith, Dave Edmunds, Ruby Turner, Rico Rodriguez and the First Battalion of Scots Guards. Jools' Rhythm & Blues Orchestra regulars Edmunds, Turner and Rodriguez aside, all seems fairly unimaginative, doesn't it?
00:00 Radio 1 New Year's Eve Essential Mix Live
Deadmau5, Eric Prydz, Justice and Plump DJs see in 2010 at great expense.
01:10 BBC2 Best Of Glastonbury 2009
Ooh, keep in that impromptu glockenspiel solo Neil Young attempted at the end of his set.
NEW YEAR's DAY
10:50 C4 Mariah Carey: Under The Skin
And you think Rick Edwards is going to get the sort of access and insight that title suggests?
13:00 6 Music Lauren Laverne's Sound Of 2010
16:00 6 Music Lamacq's Almanac
Lots of clued-in DJs looking forward today, as expected.
17:25 Sky Arts 1 Johnny Cash: Half A Mile A Day
It's Johnny Cash and Roy Orbison day on the station - the Big O we'll get back to - and the highlight of the Cash output is this oddly titled documentary featuring Willie Nelson, Billy Bob Thornton, Merle Haggard, Kris Kristofferson, Jerry Lee Lewis and so on.
19:00 Radio 1 Huw Stephens
Can we wish Huw wouldn't use so many sound effects and comedy features in 2010? It's very unbecoming of the new music DJ in a frankly nigh-on DLT style, especially when he puts clip-clopping noises over Pulled Apart By Horses records.
19:30 Radio 2 Friday Night Is Music Night – Ella, Aretha, Dusty & Me
The BBC Concert Orchestra, Guy Barker and his Big Band and singers Madeline Bell, Liane Carroll and Kym Mazelle work through the catalogues of Fitzgerald, Franklin, Springfield and, erm, me. It says here.
21:00 BBC4 Guitar Heroes At The BBC
23:35 BBC4 Guitar Heroes At The BBC
Different selections to the selection with the same name from a couple of months ago but with a lot less of the expected names. The Radio Times gets oddly sniffy about this, moaning that they've picked Starman as Mick Ronson's showcase when he's not on screen much - no, but the moment he is is very, very famous - and for the second part claiming "The New York Dolls are less convincing than Alice Cooper", somehow unaware that they came at rock'n'roll performance from different angles.
21:00 Sky Arts 1 Roy Orbison And Friends: A Black And white Night
While the highlight of half a day's Orbison is a 1988 special in which he played the hits with a band including Bruce Springsteen, Tom Waits, Elvis Costello, Jackson Browne, kd lang, Bonnie Raitt and James Burton.
21:00 6 Music Bruce Dickinson Friday Rock Show – Led Zeppelin Special
22:00 BBC4 Queen: The Legendary 1975 Concert
Did Queen ever just have a bog-standard concert?
22:00 Radio 2 In The Lounge With Justin Lee Collins
Did his album ever come out?
22:50 BBC4 The Faces: Sight And Sound In Concert
00:35 BBC4 Rock Goes To College: Tom Petty
Newly unearthed transporting of American classic rock to the Oxford Polytechnic studes.
01:20 BBC4 Les Paul - Chasing Sound
02:50 BBC4 Peter Green - Man Of The World
Friday, October 30, 2009
How we became
If you weren't in Leicester for our Jeremy Warmsley soiree on Wednesday night, here's an idea of how it visually transpired. Plenty thanks to Jennifer Anne Simpson for these.
And one of support Peter Wyeth in full concentration:
We have a signed copy of J-Wo's 5 Versions tour EP, and soon we'll work out what to do with it. Our next night out stars 4 Or 5 Magicians and will be on 3rd December, and in a couple of weeks we'll tell you which two recent big favourites round here we're putting on in January.
And one of support Peter Wyeth in full concentration:
We have a signed copy of J-Wo's 5 Versions tour EP, and soon we'll work out what to do with it. Our next night out stars 4 Or 5 Magicians and will be on 3rd December, and in a couple of weeks we'll tell you which two recent big favourites round here we're putting on in January.
Monday, March 16, 2009
Balance of Trade
On Friday night BBC4 devoted two and a half hours to the history of Rough Trade Records in the form of an At The BBC compilation and chiefly a documentary (both links UK only, active until Friday night) 150 minutes? One of their artists managed it in less than two.
Firstly, full credit for the Rough Trade At The BBC programme, which does its job admirably in seclusion, in that it reveals there was once a time when bands who sounded like Young Marble Giants, or the Raincoats, or Delta 5, or the Violent Femmes, or even Ivor Cutler, would get attention and live performance on TV exposure. We'd never even heard Weekend, Alison Statton's post-YMG project, before. The one caveat is that the Strokes performance is Last Nite on Top Of The Pops when the documentary features clips of New York City Cops, recorded on the same set but we're fairly certain never before shown on the BBC. Unlike, say, Australian television.
The documentary opens with that totem of independent thought and the triumph of the will of DIY in music... Duffy. Managed by Geoff Travis' current assistant Jeannette Lee, but as an A&M/Polydor artist not actually part of this story. And this isn't some prime-time for terrestrial dumbing down either, people will have been attracted towards watching this for stories of the shop and the first incarnation of the label. Don't throw us a bone we'll reject. It also makes no sense as the narrative hurtles straight back to the dawn of punk and Marc Warren's voiceover talks of "radical idealists and maverick musicians". So there seems to be your tale - once Rough Trade was a home for the waifs and strays, then they saw sense and started working with musicians who would sell records to a predetermined gap in the mass market ("after three decades of defiant independence (they) finally made it to number one"), and we all lived happily ever after. (They pull the same extension of brand trick in both programmes with Polygram/Island's Pulp)
Obviously it's not like that for the majority, but the story of Rough Trade doesn't have the linear storytelling quality of an Factory or even a Postcard - so many strands have to be pulled together and there's not a media friendly svengali at the back of it, just an idealist who initially got lucky, opening just before punk broke in the middle of the back streets and squats of Ladbroke Grove, although it does cover how the locale in the Jamaican community helped them bridge the gap between punk and reggae (although Don Letts might have something to say about the amount of crossover influence).
Then the documentary lands on The Desperate Bicycles, Green Gartside shows up to refer to its anti-waiting for the man influence, and then some actual documentary footage of squat era Scritti Politti is edited in, and suddenly you feel on safer grounds.
So we get onto the distribution arm and the way it spread the Rough Trade ethos across the country, and then took the leap to forming the label with an open ended, learning as they went along - "we weren't interested in building an empire" - attitude. Time may be against it, but the documentary does give it a good go trying to lump everything into some sort of coherent narrative, with good screen time for the Raincoats and Robert Wyatt discussing the political approach in the face of Thatcher's election, but when trying to uphold the idea of Rough Trade as being the little man against the big corporations it then flakes out and admits most of its artists went off to sign for majors anyway.
The Scritti Politti thing proves to be something of a milestone, as Gartside explains the change from jerky post-punk collective to solitary soul boy and hence from home-made to slick studio. Commercial, then, that the RT collective saw as the great satan. Now we're fully conversant with our favourite bands being licenced to adverts and Skins, which makes the whole "selling out" debate that once raged freely seem distant, especially when the subject is "band on label makes different style of music that ordinary people might like." Richard Scott still calls it "a cancer". (And this, by the way, is about The Sweetest Girl, which as far as pop as commercialism in 1981 goes was hardly Prince Charming) David Thomas of Pere Ubu claims this was when the label were starting to look for hitmakers; Travis counters "I don't think I've ever gone looking for a hit" as Aztec Camera are introduced by Russell Harty. Er, when on a major label. As were Scritti Politti when they finally had proper hits. Their top forty breakthrough turns out to be Wyatt's Shipbuilding. This isn't exactly Creation Records 1996, but things looked different then.
And they looked very different when the Smiths turned up. Things have already changed and there's clearly a lot of residual bitterness between Travis and Scott when the shop has to be sold and distribution and label fall out, third parties suggesting this is when it stops being a bit of fun. Did The Smiths really invent 'indie'? It's an opinion that could only have formed recently - they sold records and had guitars while seeming independent, see. (Bernard Butler states here that the Smiths arrived as an opposition to Wet Wet Wet, whose first hit came three months before Johnny Marr left) Success only breeds more contempt, albeit internal this time around, and Marr notes that the democratic model as it was couldn't survive what was happening with his band. Richard Scott notes with disenchantment that Travis thought that Morrissey could be another Boy George just before it's noted that Scott later secured the lease on a warehouse property that moved the label physically from its beginnings, let alone spiritually. That new structure led to all-out conflict between the two halves of the organisation, and carry on past the end of the Smiths' period on the label. Very unglamorously, the label falls apart due to straight up bad cashflow during a high point for the independent label spirit they commandeered. After managing Pulp to success, they decide to restart the label and go straight up for hitmakers. We finish, again, with Duffy and her "development deal", which is presented as a great achievement for RT despite being common practice for new artists on those dastardly major labels (Which she was actually on, of course.) She gets more screen time than anyone actually on the label since 1991. Although her not being on the label isn't mentioned, and neither is RT's long time position under the Sanctuary arm, it's almost a moral for the industry war written by the winners. Don't get big ideas about independence, kids, you'll fail.
Mind you, this is a documentary that at one point suggests the Woodentops were commercial hitmakers.
Firstly, full credit for the Rough Trade At The BBC programme, which does its job admirably in seclusion, in that it reveals there was once a time when bands who sounded like Young Marble Giants, or the Raincoats, or Delta 5, or the Violent Femmes, or even Ivor Cutler, would get attention and live performance on TV exposure. We'd never even heard Weekend, Alison Statton's post-YMG project, before. The one caveat is that the Strokes performance is Last Nite on Top Of The Pops when the documentary features clips of New York City Cops, recorded on the same set but we're fairly certain never before shown on the BBC. Unlike, say, Australian television.
The documentary opens with that totem of independent thought and the triumph of the will of DIY in music... Duffy. Managed by Geoff Travis' current assistant Jeannette Lee, but as an A&M/Polydor artist not actually part of this story. And this isn't some prime-time for terrestrial dumbing down either, people will have been attracted towards watching this for stories of the shop and the first incarnation of the label. Don't throw us a bone we'll reject. It also makes no sense as the narrative hurtles straight back to the dawn of punk and Marc Warren's voiceover talks of "radical idealists and maverick musicians". So there seems to be your tale - once Rough Trade was a home for the waifs and strays, then they saw sense and started working with musicians who would sell records to a predetermined gap in the mass market ("after three decades of defiant independence (they) finally made it to number one"), and we all lived happily ever after. (They pull the same extension of brand trick in both programmes with Polygram/Island's Pulp)
Obviously it's not like that for the majority, but the story of Rough Trade doesn't have the linear storytelling quality of an Factory or even a Postcard - so many strands have to be pulled together and there's not a media friendly svengali at the back of it, just an idealist who initially got lucky, opening just before punk broke in the middle of the back streets and squats of Ladbroke Grove, although it does cover how the locale in the Jamaican community helped them bridge the gap between punk and reggae (although Don Letts might have something to say about the amount of crossover influence).
Then the documentary lands on The Desperate Bicycles, Green Gartside shows up to refer to its anti-waiting for the man influence, and then some actual documentary footage of squat era Scritti Politti is edited in, and suddenly you feel on safer grounds.
So we get onto the distribution arm and the way it spread the Rough Trade ethos across the country, and then took the leap to forming the label with an open ended, learning as they went along - "we weren't interested in building an empire" - attitude. Time may be against it, but the documentary does give it a good go trying to lump everything into some sort of coherent narrative, with good screen time for the Raincoats and Robert Wyatt discussing the political approach in the face of Thatcher's election, but when trying to uphold the idea of Rough Trade as being the little man against the big corporations it then flakes out and admits most of its artists went off to sign for majors anyway.
The Scritti Politti thing proves to be something of a milestone, as Gartside explains the change from jerky post-punk collective to solitary soul boy and hence from home-made to slick studio. Commercial, then, that the RT collective saw as the great satan. Now we're fully conversant with our favourite bands being licenced to adverts and Skins, which makes the whole "selling out" debate that once raged freely seem distant, especially when the subject is "band on label makes different style of music that ordinary people might like." Richard Scott still calls it "a cancer". (And this, by the way, is about The Sweetest Girl, which as far as pop as commercialism in 1981 goes was hardly Prince Charming) David Thomas of Pere Ubu claims this was when the label were starting to look for hitmakers; Travis counters "I don't think I've ever gone looking for a hit" as Aztec Camera are introduced by Russell Harty. Er, when on a major label. As were Scritti Politti when they finally had proper hits. Their top forty breakthrough turns out to be Wyatt's Shipbuilding. This isn't exactly Creation Records 1996, but things looked different then.
And they looked very different when the Smiths turned up. Things have already changed and there's clearly a lot of residual bitterness between Travis and Scott when the shop has to be sold and distribution and label fall out, third parties suggesting this is when it stops being a bit of fun. Did The Smiths really invent 'indie'? It's an opinion that could only have formed recently - they sold records and had guitars while seeming independent, see. (Bernard Butler states here that the Smiths arrived as an opposition to Wet Wet Wet, whose first hit came three months before Johnny Marr left) Success only breeds more contempt, albeit internal this time around, and Marr notes that the democratic model as it was couldn't survive what was happening with his band. Richard Scott notes with disenchantment that Travis thought that Morrissey could be another Boy George just before it's noted that Scott later secured the lease on a warehouse property that moved the label physically from its beginnings, let alone spiritually. That new structure led to all-out conflict between the two halves of the organisation, and carry on past the end of the Smiths' period on the label. Very unglamorously, the label falls apart due to straight up bad cashflow during a high point for the independent label spirit they commandeered. After managing Pulp to success, they decide to restart the label and go straight up for hitmakers. We finish, again, with Duffy and her "development deal", which is presented as a great achievement for RT despite being common practice for new artists on those dastardly major labels (Which she was actually on, of course.) She gets more screen time than anyone actually on the label since 1991. Although her not being on the label isn't mentioned, and neither is RT's long time position under the Sanctuary arm, it's almost a moral for the industry war written by the winners. Don't get big ideas about independence, kids, you'll fail.
Mind you, this is a documentary that at one point suggests the Woodentops were commercial hitmakers.
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Brit of a do
It's Brit Awards night, and as ever the orgy of self-congratulation is accompanied by its undesirable parent or guardian the Anything Can Happen Night Of The Year motif. Bollocks, of course, but it's a piece of self-mythologising that people genuinely believe in. The Times' "you know that music we've been airily dismissing for the last year? Forget that, it's all wonderful and fine" piece on Saturday contained this quote by Mike Smith, managing director of Columbia Records. “The things that happen at the Brits are major cultural events. Jarvis Cocker undermining Michael Jackson; John Prescott being humiliated by Chumbawamba.” Yeah, except the Prescott water incident was a sixth form common room prank made stupid flesh - Chumbawamba sneaking an anti-Labour pro-striking Liverpool docker message into their performance on the night of Tubthumping was far more direct and connective but nobody thought to follow it up - and as for the thing everyone says was the great leveller of 90s music in Britain... well, until some footage turned up three days later nobody knew what Jarvis had actually done apart from get on stage as the event director missed it, and indeed the story the following day was that he'd been arrested for assaulting a child who was onstage with Jackson, it turning out that several had been knocked over by security men rushing to grab him from well away from Jacko and company. Yeah, an immediate cultural impact there.
Still, if we must we must. So, from just before 8pm we'll be live Twitter commentating on the Brit awards, hopefully not so much in so short a time that we get suspended from the service like Graham Linehan during his Bad Film Club experiment the other night. And yes, you're more than welcome to chip in. Let's get #brits onto the front of Twitter Search at the very least.
Before all the fun commences, we're going to take our semi-legendary 'averaging 5 1/2 at guessing Mercury nominations' talents to bear on who we reckon will win tonight. Put an accumulator on it, why don't you.
Best British group: Coldplay, Elbow, Girls Aloud, Radiohead, Take That
Tough call, this. Elbow aren't going to sneak through and Radiohead won't please, well, anyone essentially, but it's cigarette paper stuff between the bankability of the other three. We can see Girls Aloud getting it so ITV can interview Cheryl at even greater length afterwards, but then Take That and Coldplay seem to be the easy options year after year. They can't genuinely give everything to Take That yet again, can they? Coldplay for the fudge win.
Best British male: Ian Brown, James Morrison, The Streets, Paul Weller, Will Young
God, look at this for a category. Ian Brown is clearly some sort of new Annie Lennox given his album came out in September 2007, while James Morrison returned in December. Problem is there's nobody at their peak here so it's going to look like the path of least resistance whoever it goes to. Skinner should have won it by now and hasn't, Will Young's barely done much... you can see the thinking if as the reported betting scam has it Paul Weller wins, but it doesn't fill you with a great deal of confidence in the range. Plus he's already got a Lifetime Achievement Award off them.
Best British female: Adele, Beth Rowley, Duffy, Estelle, MIA
On the other hand this is three live contenders, one dark horse and Beth Rowley to make up the numbers. We hope she's got nothing planned. With Duffy's success versus the desire to give Adele something for the Brit School promotion it's entirely possible Estelle could sneak through the middle, but Duffy winning would be the red top friendly version of events.
Best British breakthrough act: Adele, Duffy, The Last Shadow Puppets, Scouting For Girls, The Ting Tings
God, Scouting For Girls got three nominations for an event through which the BPI hope to sell the nation's taste internationally. Duffy's probably got it sewn up here, but a little voice at the back of our head is just telling us that the Ting Tings could scrape a compromise win.
Best British single: Adele - Chasing Pavements, Alexandra Burke - Hallelujah, Coldplay - Viva La Vida, Dizzee Rascal/Calvin Harris/Chrome - Dance Wiv Me, Duffy - Mercy, Estelle Ft Kanye West - American Boy, Girls Aloud - The Promise, Leona Lewis - Better in Time, Scouting For Girls - Heartbeat, X Factor Finalists - Hero
Voted for by commercial radio listeners, so the threat of an X Factor winner and a great long closeup of Simon Cowell is still live. Because if it's not Alexandra, it'll be Duffy again, because the only other proper crossover single hit there is American Boy and commercial radio still doesn't trust urban music.
Best British Album: Coldplay - Viva La Vida or Death And All His Friends, Duffy - Rockferry, Elbow - The Seldom Seen Kid, Radiohead - In Rainbows, The Ting Tings - We Started Nothing
Simple, this. Coldplay win, Chris spends his entire speech apologising to Guy.
Best British live act: Coldplay, Elbow, Iron Maiden, Scouting For Girls, The Verve
Voted for by Radio 2 listeners, so you'd imagine a Coldplay-Elbow scrap. Voted for by The People, though, so we're just thinking that a community has got together and decided to bring the metal appreciation to prime time ITV. If this happens, the showbiz columns will be unreadable. No, more so than usual.
Best international group: AC/DC, Fleet Foxes, The Killers, Kings Of Leon, MGMT
Best international album: AC/DC - Black Ice, Fleet Foxes - Fleet Foxes, The Killers - Day & Age, Kings Of Leon - Only By The Night, MGMT - Oracular Spectacular
What a wide range of overseas talent we take into our hearts these days. Still a good number of tiny meatballs in the Meat Feast offer topping here, none of which will concern the phalanx of stagebound Followhills. America shrugs.
Best international male: Beck, Neil Diamond, Jay-Z, Kanye West, Seasick Steve
One of our favourite memories of watching Brits was when Bob Dylan got nominated for this about ten years ago and his turning up in the nominees film was greeted by complete silence from an otherwise constantly screaming audience. Neil Diamond will get this and possibly even less. Seasick Steve is only there for romantic reasons that will not be evident in Kanye's video acceptance.
Best international female: Beyonce, Gabriella Cilmi, Katy Perry, Pink, Santogold
Cilmi is being promoted as a British artist in America, partly on the back of Winehousemania and partly because, we assume, the truth might take too long (ie any time) to explain. Perry would be the obvious choice in a way, which is why the judges will have a loss of composure and trust Beyonce more.
Critics' Choice: Florence And The Machine
Smelling salts will be provided to anyone wanting to take in Ms Welch's acceptance speech without fearing for the future, and possibly all humanity. Thing is, this time last year Adele, who won this one, had already had a number one, whereas with Florence we're still tentatively feeling our way around what we all think of her. Every chance this could be swept under the carpet by mid-February 2010.
Producers Award: Bernard Butler
For what? For big strings, knowing of Martha and the Vandellas' Nowhere To Run in as much detail required to work it into his big hit, and by all concensus ruining Black Kids forever.
Outstanding Contribution To Music: Pet Shop Boys
No further questions, your honour. Just don't let Robbie Williams near the stage.
Still, if we must we must. So, from just before 8pm we'll be live Twitter commentating on the Brit awards, hopefully not so much in so short a time that we get suspended from the service like Graham Linehan during his Bad Film Club experiment the other night. And yes, you're more than welcome to chip in. Let's get #brits onto the front of Twitter Search at the very least.
Before all the fun commences, we're going to take our semi-legendary 'averaging 5 1/2 at guessing Mercury nominations' talents to bear on who we reckon will win tonight. Put an accumulator on it, why don't you.
Best British group: Coldplay, Elbow, Girls Aloud, Radiohead, Take That
Tough call, this. Elbow aren't going to sneak through and Radiohead won't please, well, anyone essentially, but it's cigarette paper stuff between the bankability of the other three. We can see Girls Aloud getting it so ITV can interview Cheryl at even greater length afterwards, but then Take That and Coldplay seem to be the easy options year after year. They can't genuinely give everything to Take That yet again, can they? Coldplay for the fudge win.
Best British male: Ian Brown, James Morrison, The Streets, Paul Weller, Will Young
God, look at this for a category. Ian Brown is clearly some sort of new Annie Lennox given his album came out in September 2007, while James Morrison returned in December. Problem is there's nobody at their peak here so it's going to look like the path of least resistance whoever it goes to. Skinner should have won it by now and hasn't, Will Young's barely done much... you can see the thinking if as the reported betting scam has it Paul Weller wins, but it doesn't fill you with a great deal of confidence in the range. Plus he's already got a Lifetime Achievement Award off them.
Best British female: Adele, Beth Rowley, Duffy, Estelle, MIA
On the other hand this is three live contenders, one dark horse and Beth Rowley to make up the numbers. We hope she's got nothing planned. With Duffy's success versus the desire to give Adele something for the Brit School promotion it's entirely possible Estelle could sneak through the middle, but Duffy winning would be the red top friendly version of events.
Best British breakthrough act: Adele, Duffy, The Last Shadow Puppets, Scouting For Girls, The Ting Tings
God, Scouting For Girls got three nominations for an event through which the BPI hope to sell the nation's taste internationally. Duffy's probably got it sewn up here, but a little voice at the back of our head is just telling us that the Ting Tings could scrape a compromise win.
Best British single: Adele - Chasing Pavements, Alexandra Burke - Hallelujah, Coldplay - Viva La Vida, Dizzee Rascal/Calvin Harris/Chrome - Dance Wiv Me, Duffy - Mercy, Estelle Ft Kanye West - American Boy, Girls Aloud - The Promise, Leona Lewis - Better in Time, Scouting For Girls - Heartbeat, X Factor Finalists - Hero
Voted for by commercial radio listeners, so the threat of an X Factor winner and a great long closeup of Simon Cowell is still live. Because if it's not Alexandra, it'll be Duffy again, because the only other proper crossover single hit there is American Boy and commercial radio still doesn't trust urban music.
Best British Album: Coldplay - Viva La Vida or Death And All His Friends, Duffy - Rockferry, Elbow - The Seldom Seen Kid, Radiohead - In Rainbows, The Ting Tings - We Started Nothing
Simple, this. Coldplay win, Chris spends his entire speech apologising to Guy.
Best British live act: Coldplay, Elbow, Iron Maiden, Scouting For Girls, The Verve
Voted for by Radio 2 listeners, so you'd imagine a Coldplay-Elbow scrap. Voted for by The People, though, so we're just thinking that a community has got together and decided to bring the metal appreciation to prime time ITV. If this happens, the showbiz columns will be unreadable. No, more so than usual.
Best international group: AC/DC, Fleet Foxes, The Killers, Kings Of Leon, MGMT
Best international album: AC/DC - Black Ice, Fleet Foxes - Fleet Foxes, The Killers - Day & Age, Kings Of Leon - Only By The Night, MGMT - Oracular Spectacular
What a wide range of overseas talent we take into our hearts these days. Still a good number of tiny meatballs in the Meat Feast offer topping here, none of which will concern the phalanx of stagebound Followhills. America shrugs.
Best international male: Beck, Neil Diamond, Jay-Z, Kanye West, Seasick Steve
One of our favourite memories of watching Brits was when Bob Dylan got nominated for this about ten years ago and his turning up in the nominees film was greeted by complete silence from an otherwise constantly screaming audience. Neil Diamond will get this and possibly even less. Seasick Steve is only there for romantic reasons that will not be evident in Kanye's video acceptance.
Best international female: Beyonce, Gabriella Cilmi, Katy Perry, Pink, Santogold
Cilmi is being promoted as a British artist in America, partly on the back of Winehousemania and partly because, we assume, the truth might take too long (ie any time) to explain. Perry would be the obvious choice in a way, which is why the judges will have a loss of composure and trust Beyonce more.
Critics' Choice: Florence And The Machine
Smelling salts will be provided to anyone wanting to take in Ms Welch's acceptance speech without fearing for the future, and possibly all humanity. Thing is, this time last year Adele, who won this one, had already had a number one, whereas with Florence we're still tentatively feeling our way around what we all think of her. Every chance this could be swept under the carpet by mid-February 2010.
Producers Award: Bernard Butler
For what? For big strings, knowing of Martha and the Vandellas' Nowhere To Run in as much detail required to work it into his big hit, and by all concensus ruining Black Kids forever.
Outstanding Contribution To Music: Pet Shop Boys
No further questions, your honour. Just don't let Robbie Williams near the stage.
Wednesday, July 02, 2008
Not holding his light under Garry Bushell
So we usually pass comment on Glastonbury's TV coverage - the above is from just this weekend - and this year was most notable for a very curious Friday night show which involved Mark Radcliffe not entirely playing ball with the spirit of, well, anything, apart perhaps from spirits, and Lauren Laverne. Now, we'll always love Laverne for fairly obvious reasons if you know us, but, you see, she used to go on television to do sort of thing. Now, while she's still capable of the odd flight of fancy, she seems to spend most of her working life in an advanced state of excitement as if possessed by the spirit (third use of that work in different contexts) of Zoe Ball, even when it sends her judgement awry. Declaring Amy Winehouse's famously scatted and/or slurred and slugging performance "a tour de force" and her musical highlight of the whole three days is one thing. Talking about Kate Nash opening the Friday Pyramid stage as an example of how an artist can have a sudden rise to prominence which belies their place on the bill is another - was Nash really booked before last August, then? And we know plenty of people still picking their dentures up from the floor after her introducing The National as an American Editors.
Still, at least Jamie Theakston was run out of Pilton town years ago.
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Brits in pieces
We don't think you can deny that tonight the ambitions of the UK music scene and its televised output got on like a house on fire.
All its possessions were destroyed and it was forced to escape by jumping out of a top floor window.
There's something very Whileyfied about a ceremony that gives the Foo Fighters two awards when even the Eagles seemed a more cutting edge bet. Even besides that, as a basic television spectacle it suffered engine failure on takeoff. The Osbournes, even for a booking made on the basis of a reality TV show of six years ago which was a success due to its extreme dysfunctionality and involving someone who has had live chat shows on both sides of the Atlantic cancelled, flatlined from the off, and nowhere was it stated in the pre-publicity that Kelly (reusing the short, dark haired look Madonna had for about three weeks in 1993) and Jack (just after finding work as a professional Jack Penate lookalike) would be co-presenting. ITV gracefully helped with the lamest swear filter in television history, slowing the video down for a couple of seconds just in case the edit necessity wasn't obvious. Will Young set new standards for bad autocue reading, while Jonathan Rhys Meyers looked like not so much just out of rehab as still in the centre as withdrawl kicks in. David Tennant presenting an award to Kylie? Who'd have thought. Performance wise, the much anticipated Rihanna vs Klaxons turned out to be a mashup straight outta 2002 where neither seemed to know what the other was really doing. Amy was if not all over the shop then certainly indecisive given a choice of aisles, but you expect that at this stage.
The Arctic Monkeys were the great domestic achievers, come in comedy gear which didn't sit well when they were subject to unironic champagne spraying, and Alex hadn't thought his props through. They did however take a full role in the five minutes when the whole edifice crumbled and slowly collapsed, beginning with Vic Reeves wandering on to finish his TV career by being in a public place many, many sheets to the wind with only a vague idea of what he was doing there. When cut back to from the nomination tape, he was embroiled in a spectacularly undignified commotion with an openly abusive Sharon. On pretty much live TV to the nation of millions. What the situation needed was a calming influence: what it got was an even more pissed Alex Turner extemporising, seemingly to himself, about the Brit School and Blazin' Squad until the emergency DAT cut him off. We'd hate to have been the floor manager reading the script that said Ozzy had the next announcement, and sure enough there he was to, Look Around You style, introduce "Mr Sir Paul McCartney" about three minutes early. Macca did Dance Tonight, like anyone cares, and a participatory Hey Jude, but you knew he would.
So what have we learned? The Brits school is now everything, the summit of British music in 2007 is a band that split up in 1996 and you'll never be able to watch Big Night Out in the same way again. All of which leaves one question: who was the bloke behind Kate Nash as she rose from her table, preparing to attempt to introduce the unappreciative Brit School crowd (and her alumni) to Riot Grrl concepts, wearing a crombie hat with some sort of pipe in his mouth, then?
All its possessions were destroyed and it was forced to escape by jumping out of a top floor window.
There's something very Whileyfied about a ceremony that gives the Foo Fighters two awards when even the Eagles seemed a more cutting edge bet. Even besides that, as a basic television spectacle it suffered engine failure on takeoff. The Osbournes, even for a booking made on the basis of a reality TV show of six years ago which was a success due to its extreme dysfunctionality and involving someone who has had live chat shows on both sides of the Atlantic cancelled, flatlined from the off, and nowhere was it stated in the pre-publicity that Kelly (reusing the short, dark haired look Madonna had for about three weeks in 1993) and Jack (just after finding work as a professional Jack Penate lookalike) would be co-presenting. ITV gracefully helped with the lamest swear filter in television history, slowing the video down for a couple of seconds just in case the edit necessity wasn't obvious. Will Young set new standards for bad autocue reading, while Jonathan Rhys Meyers looked like not so much just out of rehab as still in the centre as withdrawl kicks in. David Tennant presenting an award to Kylie? Who'd have thought. Performance wise, the much anticipated Rihanna vs Klaxons turned out to be a mashup straight outta 2002 where neither seemed to know what the other was really doing. Amy was if not all over the shop then certainly indecisive given a choice of aisles, but you expect that at this stage.
The Arctic Monkeys were the great domestic achievers, come in comedy gear which didn't sit well when they were subject to unironic champagne spraying, and Alex hadn't thought his props through. They did however take a full role in the five minutes when the whole edifice crumbled and slowly collapsed, beginning with Vic Reeves wandering on to finish his TV career by being in a public place many, many sheets to the wind with only a vague idea of what he was doing there. When cut back to from the nomination tape, he was embroiled in a spectacularly undignified commotion with an openly abusive Sharon. On pretty much live TV to the nation of millions. What the situation needed was a calming influence: what it got was an even more pissed Alex Turner extemporising, seemingly to himself, about the Brit School and Blazin' Squad until the emergency DAT cut him off. We'd hate to have been the floor manager reading the script that said Ozzy had the next announcement, and sure enough there he was to, Look Around You style, introduce "Mr Sir Paul McCartney" about three minutes early. Macca did Dance Tonight, like anyone cares, and a participatory Hey Jude, but you knew he would.
So what have we learned? The Brits school is now everything, the summit of British music in 2007 is a band that split up in 1996 and you'll never be able to watch Big Night Out in the same way again. All of which leaves one question: who was the bloke behind Kate Nash as she rose from her table, preparing to attempt to introduce the unappreciative Brit School crowd (and her alumni) to Riot Grrl concepts, wearing a crombie hat with some sort of pipe in his mouth, then?
Thursday, February 14, 2008
The pop cultural world has officially turned inside out and wrapped itself into a Mobius strip
"Victoria reportedly marvelled at Sonic Youth's live performance, saying: "I didn't listen to them before but now I might start.""
Best thing about that? The Mail (sorry) doesn't stop to explain to its celeb couture-obsessed readership who Sonic Youth are.
Elsewhere in zeitgeist land, plenty of hackle-raising here:
YouTube star try to make it in the real world
"Singer Sia Furler who came to prominence after posting footage on YouTube..."
Actually, no. Singer Sia Furler came to prominence with her three major label albums. Or her regular gig with prime Zero 7. Or her Grammy nomination. Or her UK top ten single Taken For Granted. Singer Sia Furler is, essentially, not the Leave Britney Alone bloke.
Best thing about that? The Mail (sorry) doesn't stop to explain to its celeb couture-obsessed readership who Sonic Youth are.
Elsewhere in zeitgeist land, plenty of hackle-raising here:
YouTube star try to make it in the real world
"Singer Sia Furler who came to prominence after posting footage on YouTube..."
Actually, no. Singer Sia Furler came to prominence with her three major label albums. Or her regular gig with prime Zero 7. Or her Grammy nomination. Or her UK top ten single Taken For Granted. Singer Sia Furler is, essentially, not the Leave Britney Alone bloke.
Friday, January 25, 2008
Morley of what you fancy
"It connects you with other people... you put on the jukebox and suddenly everyone knows it, everyone can tap their feet to it. It makes a warm, living thing out of the room" - Robert Wyatt on what the pop song does
Going back to this Pop Britannia series, the supposed centrepoint comes tonight with a debate to find the greatest decade, which won't be a pointless and ill thought out carve up missing the key areas stage by stage at all. This follows a season which incorporated all manner of repeated shows and some business that proves Charles Hazlewood, the Lidl Howard Goodall, is much more comfortable on the radio. Then there was Pop! What Is It Good For? Whether we're supposed to respond "absolutely nothing" we don't know, but it's the sort of title that suggests a thorough sociological and theoretical going over, searching for and isolating the meaning of pop and where it stands in comparison to the rest of music, or indeed the rest of art and culture itself. Kate Thornton was never in the running for this one. In fact, with Ian MacDonald dead and Simon Reynolds never camera friendly, only one man could ever have been asked to expand on the titular question.
Accusing Paul Morley of low art pretentiousness is like accusing Samson of being a follical fashion season behind - he is what he is, and that was never the point anyway. Words And Music, the book this seemed loosely based on, may be a baffling cluster of ideas and ideologies on many fronts with page-long footnotes and an arcing storyline in which Morley hitches a lift in the car Kylie is driving at the start of the Can't Get You Out Of My Head video, but it also effortlessly traces the progression and point of the music he's spent his adult life earning his corn from. And after all that it's really a superannuated list book for all that. It just gets a bit linguistically flowery and dizzy along the way. And you shouldn't trust his sleevenotes work. (This, remember, is someone who's comfortably at home as a cultural commentator for Richard & Judy)
So he's a pop fan - indeed, his opening words are "I love pop music", left there, nothing need be added - but one with an idea that pop goes wherever the hell on the musical scale it wants to go. Clearly, given his back pages, you don't need to be told his opening spiel, a joyously worded personal appreciation of how good pop transcends, grabs hold and changes, along with some postmodern bits. You also don't need to be told that he's going to start with "a song about a song" Can't Get You Out Of My Head, the first of six songs he picks out as demonstration of its special powers (the others, before we go further: Ride A White Swan, Lola, This Charming Man, What Do You Want?, Freak Like Me), at which essentially his big ideas hit the first wall of other people. Rob Davis may know how to construct a pop marvel, but next to Morley making connections with the Stooges and Steve Reich (although Davis does see a Philip Glass comparison in dance trend terms, when he starts invoking the power of minor chords and the "darkness" of the diminished chord you feel he's only millimetres away from declaring D minor the saddest of all the keys) his input doesn't really tell you anything beyond the basic structures, so both end up watching a monitor.
Where the programme really worked was when Morley met people who appreciated his stance and could get where his own memories were planted - on the topic of Lola Suggs, whose band have covered it, made an autobiographical connection with his own mother's singing and work in the sort of Soho clubs Ray Davies wrote, sang and lived about as well as with with the mysteries it brought up in the adolescent mind, while This Charmind Man saw Mike Joyce look on slightly baffled as Morley and Simon Armitage took the lexicographal scalpel to its lyrics, interpreting it as a dashed love and temptation "sort of Withnail And I sketch". Adam Faith's What Do You Want?, which Morley thinks may have been the first song he ever heard, was taken as the first proper British take on an American idea, the original rock'n'roll rebellion, a round table of Peter Blake, Robert Wyatt and writer Johnny Worth evoking a lost era of genuinely new sounds, Worth crediting the song's pizzicato strings to a mix of Buddy Holly's sound and that of raindrops off London's bridge parapets, Wyatt claiming he could still remember the first verse years after he'd last heard it and Blake making connections to his own emergence on the Pop Art scene. Had the scope not been so narrow, BBC4 could eaasily have had an extra programme alone out of the rushes of that meet-up.
Inevitably the youngsters come off less well - Tahita Bulmer made a surprise appearance and pretty much held her own, but for the final piece of the programme Morley tells the Sugababes - one of whom wasn't on the record, of course - in a BBC Children In Need backstage area about his theories of Freak Like Me, chosen as a prime example of pop plundering its own history while retaining ideas and originality (Richard X also shows up, looking a bit like Daniel Bedingfield and turning the tables by asking Morley and Anne Dudley how the Art Of Noise worked, to which Morley reveals Theresa Bazaar of Dollar nearly sang on Close To The Edit). They smile back at him, all talk at once and secretly hope the scary man isn't about to give them a cassette of his demos and a note written in illegible green ink, Morley left to admit that "pop is not what it was".
And another thing - it was called We All Stand Together, not The Frog Chorus.
Early on, Morley posits that the great pop songs, for all their scope, are those "you can imagine them being sung by Elvis". It's not entirely waterproof, as indeed the clips of an impersonator help prove, but it says a lot about Morley's approach - he's seduced at a base level by the glamour and possibility of pop, right through to the all-inclusive producer-led POP! of latter days and technological fair use of 'bastard pop', and how it never truly leaves anyone who chose to get involved in it. Morley excels because he has an advanced awareness of both the transient nature of the business and its Proustian possibilities, passionately talking about Ride A White Swan, the first single he bought, as his gateway into this pop cultural stratosphere, something that "we're all in this together". Everyone reading this, even the spammers, can surely emphasise, and for some it's happening right now.
Going back to this Pop Britannia series, the supposed centrepoint comes tonight with a debate to find the greatest decade, which won't be a pointless and ill thought out carve up missing the key areas stage by stage at all. This follows a season which incorporated all manner of repeated shows and some business that proves Charles Hazlewood, the Lidl Howard Goodall, is much more comfortable on the radio. Then there was Pop! What Is It Good For? Whether we're supposed to respond "absolutely nothing" we don't know, but it's the sort of title that suggests a thorough sociological and theoretical going over, searching for and isolating the meaning of pop and where it stands in comparison to the rest of music, or indeed the rest of art and culture itself. Kate Thornton was never in the running for this one. In fact, with Ian MacDonald dead and Simon Reynolds never camera friendly, only one man could ever have been asked to expand on the titular question.
Accusing Paul Morley of low art pretentiousness is like accusing Samson of being a follical fashion season behind - he is what he is, and that was never the point anyway. Words And Music, the book this seemed loosely based on, may be a baffling cluster of ideas and ideologies on many fronts with page-long footnotes and an arcing storyline in which Morley hitches a lift in the car Kylie is driving at the start of the Can't Get You Out Of My Head video, but it also effortlessly traces the progression and point of the music he's spent his adult life earning his corn from. And after all that it's really a superannuated list book for all that. It just gets a bit linguistically flowery and dizzy along the way. And you shouldn't trust his sleevenotes work. (This, remember, is someone who's comfortably at home as a cultural commentator for Richard & Judy)
So he's a pop fan - indeed, his opening words are "I love pop music", left there, nothing need be added - but one with an idea that pop goes wherever the hell on the musical scale it wants to go. Clearly, given his back pages, you don't need to be told his opening spiel, a joyously worded personal appreciation of how good pop transcends, grabs hold and changes, along with some postmodern bits. You also don't need to be told that he's going to start with "a song about a song" Can't Get You Out Of My Head, the first of six songs he picks out as demonstration of its special powers (the others, before we go further: Ride A White Swan, Lola, This Charming Man, What Do You Want?, Freak Like Me), at which essentially his big ideas hit the first wall of other people. Rob Davis may know how to construct a pop marvel, but next to Morley making connections with the Stooges and Steve Reich (although Davis does see a Philip Glass comparison in dance trend terms, when he starts invoking the power of minor chords and the "darkness" of the diminished chord you feel he's only millimetres away from declaring D minor the saddest of all the keys) his input doesn't really tell you anything beyond the basic structures, so both end up watching a monitor.
Where the programme really worked was when Morley met people who appreciated his stance and could get where his own memories were planted - on the topic of Lola Suggs, whose band have covered it, made an autobiographical connection with his own mother's singing and work in the sort of Soho clubs Ray Davies wrote, sang and lived about as well as with with the mysteries it brought up in the adolescent mind, while This Charmind Man saw Mike Joyce look on slightly baffled as Morley and Simon Armitage took the lexicographal scalpel to its lyrics, interpreting it as a dashed love and temptation "sort of Withnail And I sketch". Adam Faith's What Do You Want?, which Morley thinks may have been the first song he ever heard, was taken as the first proper British take on an American idea, the original rock'n'roll rebellion, a round table of Peter Blake, Robert Wyatt and writer Johnny Worth evoking a lost era of genuinely new sounds, Worth crediting the song's pizzicato strings to a mix of Buddy Holly's sound and that of raindrops off London's bridge parapets, Wyatt claiming he could still remember the first verse years after he'd last heard it and Blake making connections to his own emergence on the Pop Art scene. Had the scope not been so narrow, BBC4 could eaasily have had an extra programme alone out of the rushes of that meet-up.
Inevitably the youngsters come off less well - Tahita Bulmer made a surprise appearance and pretty much held her own, but for the final piece of the programme Morley tells the Sugababes - one of whom wasn't on the record, of course - in a BBC Children In Need backstage area about his theories of Freak Like Me, chosen as a prime example of pop plundering its own history while retaining ideas and originality (Richard X also shows up, looking a bit like Daniel Bedingfield and turning the tables by asking Morley and Anne Dudley how the Art Of Noise worked, to which Morley reveals Theresa Bazaar of Dollar nearly sang on Close To The Edit). They smile back at him, all talk at once and secretly hope the scary man isn't about to give them a cassette of his demos and a note written in illegible green ink, Morley left to admit that "pop is not what it was".
And another thing - it was called We All Stand Together, not The Frog Chorus.
Early on, Morley posits that the great pop songs, for all their scope, are those "you can imagine them being sung by Elvis". It's not entirely waterproof, as indeed the clips of an impersonator help prove, but it says a lot about Morley's approach - he's seduced at a base level by the glamour and possibility of pop, right through to the all-inclusive producer-led POP! of latter days and technological fair use of 'bastard pop', and how it never truly leaves anyone who chose to get involved in it. Morley excels because he has an advanced awareness of both the transient nature of the business and its Proustian possibilities, passionately talking about Ride A White Swan, the first single he bought, as his gateway into this pop cultural stratosphere, something that "we're all in this together". Everyone reading this, even the spammers, can surely emphasise, and for some it's happening right now.
Thursday, January 24, 2008
Britannia waives the rules
The idea behind BBC4's Pop Britannia season, the fourth in the Britannia strand after Jazz, Folk and Soul, was always going to be subject to criticism. That's the way of pop music, something the opinions placed upon which are always subject to greater forces of critical debate than normal. It's something a wider span of the public than the first three genres know and care about, and given BBC2's Seven Ages Of Rock failed to make a convincing timeline given seven hours the central three hour concept was bound to leave as many holes as it made connections. The narrative thus chosen was a kind of loose thread about the battle between the industry's commercial instincts and invention from the fringes, art versus artifice (you know, for kids) with broadly the latter, given this is 'Pop' we're dealing with, having things slightly slanted its way - but given BBC4 were selling it as All British Music Ever and the opening voiceover talked of "reinventing the great British pop dream" and how 'we' led the way in world music this seems a slightly disingenuous sell.
When the first of three parts got over its awkward scene-setting, a cursory sweep (no writer is credited, so let's put it down to producer Ben Whalley) that lasted the entire first half attempting to set the whole first half of the 20th century's entertainment business as a "cosy cartel" centring on the Grades and making clumsy sociological grasps at "the birth of the teenager" theory in a way Colin MacInnes wouldn't have recognised (the way Anne-Marie Duff, who has completely the wrong voice for this, declares the early 50s as "old fashioned and middle aged" would do Johnny Rotten proud) - having introduced the waves of American youth rebellion, it then jumped back into presenting placid old skiffle, what the trad jazzers did with their spare time, as the shock to the traditional music business incarnate - it found a truth about the self-sufficient pop business that was essentially novelty, and about novelty. See, you can take the Beatles as your jumpoff point, as it nearly does with the famous footage of the bobby holding back the screaming waves, but the main reason why they were important is what they represented a break from, or as the script sniffily puts it that "Britain's pop revolution nearly never happened at all". which, of course, makes it interesting, being a latterly little documented facet of pop culture's history.
When Rock Around The Clock at the start of Blackboard Jungle in 1955 introduced America to this rock and roll fad, America already had its musical background, from Broadway to jazz to the Tin Pan Alley tradition, through Sinatra and his bobby soxers. Britain didn't: the labels didn't expect rock to last, but what it had was old time entertainment, variety (different to American vaudeville) and music hall. Nobody knew what was expected of them because nobody had drafted the rules yet, so those sold as rock rebels were directed towards what they knew, big shiny family showbusiness, because there was nothing else. Little of this is really laid bare - Tommy Steele is here identified as Britain's first rock and roll star and reference is made to Larry Parnes identifying the teenage charisma dollar with his stable of similar types, but then briefly hands off his co-option into Little White Bull and Flash Bang Wallop territory to spend time on comparatively minor figure Terry Dene, portentiously held up because of mental instability as someone who "struggled to conform to the mould the music industry had allotted him" and who was set in "the straightjacket the music industry was forcing him into". Similarly, Jack Good, who invented both Oh Boy! and Six-Five Special and thus is really quite notable in charting the spread of the stars of the day, is only introduced briefly as the man who made Cliff Richard into more of an Elvis figure. A brief appearance by the reclusive producer, however, does reveal him in full monk's outfit, which is something.
As a whole it seemed confused whether all this devil's music was a rejection of the industry's old fashioned ways or a reinforcement of them, suggesting that it didn't really make all that much difference once the initial wave receded - while inarguably great Joe Meek, held up as a totem of independent thought in a fuddy-duddy atmosphere, was still at heart making records in recognised hit styles for the major labels.
Luckily, then the Beatles arrive and we're on much safer retrospective ground. Part two opens with a declaration that in fact all we've just seen was tightly controlled after all - indeed, we no learn everyone who'd just been talked up as Britain's most loved singers in fact "left Britain's teenagers distinctly unimpressed", because Lulu and Cilla Black preferred the Americans - and it's only in the 60s that we saw "managers and producers who turned the pop world upside down". The Beatles story has been pored over so much so it's forgiveable that, although George Martin contributes, they get put into the background to an extent - they were their own cultural event beyond anything else British pop was doing. This part takes the curious view, in retrospect knowing that this had been built up as the decade in which the creative artist was king, that it was the managers and starmakers who made it happen, taking pop out of the hands of the controlling managerial interests and delivering it to...erm...they've not thought that bit through, clearly. In fairness, though, the story has been raked over so often at least this was a new way of tackling it, even if the introduction to the Beatles via Brian Epstein admiringly refers to his developing "stable of Liverpudlian acts", presumably very difference to Parnes' stable of acts held up as the old guard ten minutes earlier. It tends to get swept up in the moment of the idea of societal change too - the case for the importance of Andrew Loog Oldham's emergence in the way he sold a rhythm and blues band as the most dangerous young men in the country is well made ("he wasn't a manager, he was an extra member"), but there is no connection however you slice it between him and Harold MacMillan's retirement. Passing by the mods and rockers fights, something very difficult to comprehend from this distance, in fifteen seconds flat as decoration for a brief offshoot into mod fashion won't do either. Was it not important in the developing media age that the Who were managed by two film-makers? It doesn't think the issue important to debate beyond reference. There's a lot of holes that the editing doesn't give room to explain either - Mickie Most apparently signed Herman's Hermits because Peter Noone reminded him of a young JFK, but we doubt that was the whole reason why he sold ten million, and we're told With reference to Most helping him take on America that Donovan's style was "hardly the stuff of pop dreams in '65", a statement which would surprise Dylan and the West Coast flower power kids. And then, after heralding this as the men upstairs' own free thinking revolution, it falls back into realising that it didn't really change the industry as much as give them ideas, the programme finding itself surprised that an industry predicated on income and catching the latest wave might be privy to unscrupulous types. You can't help thinking that going on about management to this extent is reinforcing ideas of The Music Establishment rather than acting as its counterbalance.
It's clear before the end that this isn't actually a free flowing tale, pop music and its USPs in Britain. The first era of rock stardom lasted maybe three years; this one, it's claimed, began in 1964 and was over by 1967 when the Beatles left the road and rock music, which was apparently "conceptual, for grown-ups", became king. And then, apparently, Allan Klein splits the Beatles and "British pop seemed to be over", until complete changes of style by Marc Bolan and Slade "reclaim pop from rock". You can see the way this is going - pop, very literally, although the issues of Bowie and Roxy Music being awkward pieces to fit into the jigsaw of the time are addressed by just ignoring the difficult question of helping it hang together and getting onto Chinn & Chapman before anyone notices.
But lo! What archive film sequence over yonder VT suite monitor breaks? See rubbish pile up in the streets and trade unions picket somewhere or other as Rick Wakeman wears a cape (Mud are directly accused of bringing the charts down too, despite glam being a great stopover point in the story last time) and the Queen celebrates the Jubilee... and here comes our saviour, and it's Johnny Rotten with his vintage mike and his small can of beer! It's surely on a special reel in the BBC archive room by now. Giving themselves a good thirty years plus to cover in part three was going to be difficult enough without going the textbook route on how Punk Was A Direct Threat To The Establishment/British Way Of Life (delete as appropriate), and especially so if you're discarding it with the stock shots and rote lines. What it does smartly show is how that anything goes attitude fed itself into what followed, the early 80's odd ideas of dressing up and presenting free-thinking works, a sea change in its own way that the sainted Neil Tennant sums up as "bringing in new references, new subject matters, doing it with glamour... learning the lessons of punk and dressing it up". Phil Oakey, if you're wondering, is the one to declare his very un-punk band were "really a punk band", although with thought at least he could show his working. Then, without spotting the lack of join, we're into Trevor Horn boasting of making records with machines (Holly Johnson is by no means a man with nothing to say, but he gets a relatively oddly lengthy amount of time to say it in given the nature of Frankie's passing show) and the declaration that New Pop was, yes, like punk had never happened. Duran Duran and Band Aid actually weren't what New Pop was, but let that pass. (Where, though, was Simon Napier-Bell, a shining example of the aforementioned PR-led svengali as well as a pawn in the underlying and never fully committed to (passing reference was made in relation to Epstein) pretty boys/gay managers issue?)
Tennant also makes a case for the Pet Shop Boys being the turning point where the Ants-to-Wham! pop boom took in dance music, and although he's probably too diplomatic to say it it's probably also the end of the big shiny stuff's imperceptibly unique nature as here come Stock Aitken & Waterman and their in-house sound blitzing all. The clips played haven't aged well (one hears Bananarama's version of Venus and realises how far they've moved since their initial chart phase, which even they seem to have forgotten now), but that's the point. As Pete Waterman, who's already admitted writing Mel & Kim's Respectable as a kind of meta-pop stating SAW's immoveable position, points out SAW in essence were run on the same lines as Motown, with writing and production taken from a narrow field, but you sense in tone that the producer can't really make a case for this being anything more significant. Waterman does, however, believe that being hated by the NME is punk in itself ("they'd lost their sense of humour!"), which suggests that, like boy bands who make a video in which they wear silly wigs and reckon it's influenced by Spinal Tap, he really wasn't concentrating. (This, by the way, is backed up by the NME's Bad News Of The Year poll results for 1987 in which SAW come in, erm, ninth. The Conservative General Election victory won, since you ask, ahead of the Smiths split, with four tragedies, AIDS and a cancelled Prince gig also ahead).
Again, it's notable that as we go through Stock, Waterman, Louis Walsh (and one more time round for the Late Late Show clip!), Nigel Martin-Smith and Tom Watkins (who can't have been in the public eye for a decade), the programme doesn't think to make a connection between this manager-led era and all the other manager-led eras, on any level, despite the market being so much bigger this time around. Instead it's full speed ahead to Alex James' gaff and another spin round Britpop, introduced as a reaction to boy bands immediately before Damon Albarn labels it a reaction to American rock hegemony. It feels like they've just given up trying to make a linear argument now. Bizarrely, though, then we get a clip of Menswear, because of course bandwagon jumping was invented in 1996, inspired by Alex Kapranos, who seems to be making a play as the Noughties' own Neil Tennant, commenting that the great bands were "swimming in a sea of shit" if not mentioning any by name.
After that it seems to realise that there's not long left so cursorily races through the Spice Girls and the reality shows, spends just as much time on Gorillaz for no good reason, forgets Girls Aloud and the Sugababes school of production advancement and alights on a present day of "arty groups with their finger on the pulse of British life". Nope, us neither, but while we accept it can't just conclude "and today, well, it's transitional, and to be honest mostly shit. Go and listen to Americans. Ta-ta!" going with Franz Ferdinand as some sort of scene leader makes no sense given what the previous 175 minutes have dealt with, even with a tenuous but inevitable Internet connection (Apparently Jamie T is one of our foremost pop achievers. Who knew.) "Tin Pan Alley is no longer a relevant entity" is a key part of the conclusion, this after talking about managers and pre-packaging svengalis in the same spirit for the best part of three hours, "but the spirit...our insatiable desire for pop music, transcends both time and place." Whatever that means. Then it plays out on Foundations, just to create its own comebacks, concluding a statement of belated intent as confused as the focus of the entire series - it's sold to the casual viewer as intelligent pop for a new technological age, but really it's as much about focus artifice. It's as if rock'n'roll barely happened.
When the first of three parts got over its awkward scene-setting, a cursory sweep (no writer is credited, so let's put it down to producer Ben Whalley) that lasted the entire first half attempting to set the whole first half of the 20th century's entertainment business as a "cosy cartel" centring on the Grades and making clumsy sociological grasps at "the birth of the teenager" theory in a way Colin MacInnes wouldn't have recognised (the way Anne-Marie Duff, who has completely the wrong voice for this, declares the early 50s as "old fashioned and middle aged" would do Johnny Rotten proud) - having introduced the waves of American youth rebellion, it then jumped back into presenting placid old skiffle, what the trad jazzers did with their spare time, as the shock to the traditional music business incarnate - it found a truth about the self-sufficient pop business that was essentially novelty, and about novelty. See, you can take the Beatles as your jumpoff point, as it nearly does with the famous footage of the bobby holding back the screaming waves, but the main reason why they were important is what they represented a break from, or as the script sniffily puts it that "Britain's pop revolution nearly never happened at all". which, of course, makes it interesting, being a latterly little documented facet of pop culture's history.
When Rock Around The Clock at the start of Blackboard Jungle in 1955 introduced America to this rock and roll fad, America already had its musical background, from Broadway to jazz to the Tin Pan Alley tradition, through Sinatra and his bobby soxers. Britain didn't: the labels didn't expect rock to last, but what it had was old time entertainment, variety (different to American vaudeville) and music hall. Nobody knew what was expected of them because nobody had drafted the rules yet, so those sold as rock rebels were directed towards what they knew, big shiny family showbusiness, because there was nothing else. Little of this is really laid bare - Tommy Steele is here identified as Britain's first rock and roll star and reference is made to Larry Parnes identifying the teenage charisma dollar with his stable of similar types, but then briefly hands off his co-option into Little White Bull and Flash Bang Wallop territory to spend time on comparatively minor figure Terry Dene, portentiously held up because of mental instability as someone who "struggled to conform to the mould the music industry had allotted him" and who was set in "the straightjacket the music industry was forcing him into". Similarly, Jack Good, who invented both Oh Boy! and Six-Five Special and thus is really quite notable in charting the spread of the stars of the day, is only introduced briefly as the man who made Cliff Richard into more of an Elvis figure. A brief appearance by the reclusive producer, however, does reveal him in full monk's outfit, which is something.
As a whole it seemed confused whether all this devil's music was a rejection of the industry's old fashioned ways or a reinforcement of them, suggesting that it didn't really make all that much difference once the initial wave receded - while inarguably great Joe Meek, held up as a totem of independent thought in a fuddy-duddy atmosphere, was still at heart making records in recognised hit styles for the major labels.
Luckily, then the Beatles arrive and we're on much safer retrospective ground. Part two opens with a declaration that in fact all we've just seen was tightly controlled after all - indeed, we no learn everyone who'd just been talked up as Britain's most loved singers in fact "left Britain's teenagers distinctly unimpressed", because Lulu and Cilla Black preferred the Americans - and it's only in the 60s that we saw "managers and producers who turned the pop world upside down". The Beatles story has been pored over so much so it's forgiveable that, although George Martin contributes, they get put into the background to an extent - they were their own cultural event beyond anything else British pop was doing. This part takes the curious view, in retrospect knowing that this had been built up as the decade in which the creative artist was king, that it was the managers and starmakers who made it happen, taking pop out of the hands of the controlling managerial interests and delivering it to...erm...they've not thought that bit through, clearly. In fairness, though, the story has been raked over so often at least this was a new way of tackling it, even if the introduction to the Beatles via Brian Epstein admiringly refers to his developing "stable of Liverpudlian acts", presumably very difference to Parnes' stable of acts held up as the old guard ten minutes earlier. It tends to get swept up in the moment of the idea of societal change too - the case for the importance of Andrew Loog Oldham's emergence in the way he sold a rhythm and blues band as the most dangerous young men in the country is well made ("he wasn't a manager, he was an extra member"), but there is no connection however you slice it between him and Harold MacMillan's retirement. Passing by the mods and rockers fights, something very difficult to comprehend from this distance, in fifteen seconds flat as decoration for a brief offshoot into mod fashion won't do either. Was it not important in the developing media age that the Who were managed by two film-makers? It doesn't think the issue important to debate beyond reference. There's a lot of holes that the editing doesn't give room to explain either - Mickie Most apparently signed Herman's Hermits because Peter Noone reminded him of a young JFK, but we doubt that was the whole reason why he sold ten million, and we're told With reference to Most helping him take on America that Donovan's style was "hardly the stuff of pop dreams in '65", a statement which would surprise Dylan and the West Coast flower power kids. And then, after heralding this as the men upstairs' own free thinking revolution, it falls back into realising that it didn't really change the industry as much as give them ideas, the programme finding itself surprised that an industry predicated on income and catching the latest wave might be privy to unscrupulous types. You can't help thinking that going on about management to this extent is reinforcing ideas of The Music Establishment rather than acting as its counterbalance.
It's clear before the end that this isn't actually a free flowing tale, pop music and its USPs in Britain. The first era of rock stardom lasted maybe three years; this one, it's claimed, began in 1964 and was over by 1967 when the Beatles left the road and rock music, which was apparently "conceptual, for grown-ups", became king. And then, apparently, Allan Klein splits the Beatles and "British pop seemed to be over", until complete changes of style by Marc Bolan and Slade "reclaim pop from rock". You can see the way this is going - pop, very literally, although the issues of Bowie and Roxy Music being awkward pieces to fit into the jigsaw of the time are addressed by just ignoring the difficult question of helping it hang together and getting onto Chinn & Chapman before anyone notices.
But lo! What archive film sequence over yonder VT suite monitor breaks? See rubbish pile up in the streets and trade unions picket somewhere or other as Rick Wakeman wears a cape (Mud are directly accused of bringing the charts down too, despite glam being a great stopover point in the story last time) and the Queen celebrates the Jubilee... and here comes our saviour, and it's Johnny Rotten with his vintage mike and his small can of beer! It's surely on a special reel in the BBC archive room by now. Giving themselves a good thirty years plus to cover in part three was going to be difficult enough without going the textbook route on how Punk Was A Direct Threat To The Establishment/British Way Of Life (delete as appropriate), and especially so if you're discarding it with the stock shots and rote lines. What it does smartly show is how that anything goes attitude fed itself into what followed, the early 80's odd ideas of dressing up and presenting free-thinking works, a sea change in its own way that the sainted Neil Tennant sums up as "bringing in new references, new subject matters, doing it with glamour... learning the lessons of punk and dressing it up". Phil Oakey, if you're wondering, is the one to declare his very un-punk band were "really a punk band", although with thought at least he could show his working. Then, without spotting the lack of join, we're into Trevor Horn boasting of making records with machines (Holly Johnson is by no means a man with nothing to say, but he gets a relatively oddly lengthy amount of time to say it in given the nature of Frankie's passing show) and the declaration that New Pop was, yes, like punk had never happened. Duran Duran and Band Aid actually weren't what New Pop was, but let that pass. (Where, though, was Simon Napier-Bell, a shining example of the aforementioned PR-led svengali as well as a pawn in the underlying and never fully committed to (passing reference was made in relation to Epstein) pretty boys/gay managers issue?)
Tennant also makes a case for the Pet Shop Boys being the turning point where the Ants-to-Wham! pop boom took in dance music, and although he's probably too diplomatic to say it it's probably also the end of the big shiny stuff's imperceptibly unique nature as here come Stock Aitken & Waterman and their in-house sound blitzing all. The clips played haven't aged well (one hears Bananarama's version of Venus and realises how far they've moved since their initial chart phase, which even they seem to have forgotten now), but that's the point. As Pete Waterman, who's already admitted writing Mel & Kim's Respectable as a kind of meta-pop stating SAW's immoveable position, points out SAW in essence were run on the same lines as Motown, with writing and production taken from a narrow field, but you sense in tone that the producer can't really make a case for this being anything more significant. Waterman does, however, believe that being hated by the NME is punk in itself ("they'd lost their sense of humour!"), which suggests that, like boy bands who make a video in which they wear silly wigs and reckon it's influenced by Spinal Tap, he really wasn't concentrating. (This, by the way, is backed up by the NME's Bad News Of The Year poll results for 1987 in which SAW come in, erm, ninth. The Conservative General Election victory won, since you ask, ahead of the Smiths split, with four tragedies, AIDS and a cancelled Prince gig also ahead).
Again, it's notable that as we go through Stock, Waterman, Louis Walsh (and one more time round for the Late Late Show clip!), Nigel Martin-Smith and Tom Watkins (who can't have been in the public eye for a decade), the programme doesn't think to make a connection between this manager-led era and all the other manager-led eras, on any level, despite the market being so much bigger this time around. Instead it's full speed ahead to Alex James' gaff and another spin round Britpop, introduced as a reaction to boy bands immediately before Damon Albarn labels it a reaction to American rock hegemony. It feels like they've just given up trying to make a linear argument now. Bizarrely, though, then we get a clip of Menswear, because of course bandwagon jumping was invented in 1996, inspired by Alex Kapranos, who seems to be making a play as the Noughties' own Neil Tennant, commenting that the great bands were "swimming in a sea of shit" if not mentioning any by name.
After that it seems to realise that there's not long left so cursorily races through the Spice Girls and the reality shows, spends just as much time on Gorillaz for no good reason, forgets Girls Aloud and the Sugababes school of production advancement and alights on a present day of "arty groups with their finger on the pulse of British life". Nope, us neither, but while we accept it can't just conclude "and today, well, it's transitional, and to be honest mostly shit. Go and listen to Americans. Ta-ta!" going with Franz Ferdinand as some sort of scene leader makes no sense given what the previous 175 minutes have dealt with, even with a tenuous but inevitable Internet connection (Apparently Jamie T is one of our foremost pop achievers. Who knew.) "Tin Pan Alley is no longer a relevant entity" is a key part of the conclusion, this after talking about managers and pre-packaging svengalis in the same spirit for the best part of three hours, "but the spirit...our insatiable desire for pop music, transcends both time and place." Whatever that means. Then it plays out on Foundations, just to create its own comebacks, concluding a statement of belated intent as confused as the focus of the entire series - it's sold to the casual viewer as intelligent pop for a new technological age, but really it's as much about focus artifice. It's as if rock'n'roll barely happened.
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