01. All The Young Dudes - Mott The Hoople
02. Jumpin' Jack Flash - Rolling Stones
03. Make Me Smile (Come Up And See Me) - Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel
04. No More Heroes - Stranglers
05. Virginia Plain - Roxy Music
06. Life On Mars? - David Bowie
07. Metal Guru - T.Rex
08. The Man With The Child In His Eyes - Kate Bush
09. Shot By Both Sides - Magazine
10. I'm Mandy Fly Me - 10cc
11. Now I'm Here - Queen
12. A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall - Bryan Ferry
13. Elected - Alice Cooper
14. This Town Ain't Big Enough For Both Of Us - Sparks
15. Hong Kong Garden - Siouxsie & The Banshees
16. What Do I Get? - Buzzcocks
17. Dead Pop Stars - Altered Images
18. Senses Working Overtime - XTC
19. Delilah - Sensational Alex Harvey Band
20. Airport - Motors
21. Back Off Boogaloo - Ringo Starr
22. Anarchy In The UK - Sex Pistols
23. 10538 Overture - Electric Light Orchestra
24. Lola - Kinks
25. Penny Lane/Strawberry Fields Forever - Beatles
26. Coz I Luv You - Slade
27. Riders On The Storm - Doors
28. Duel - Propaganda
29. Violet - Hole
30. All The Things She Said - t.A.T.u.
31. 22: The Death Of All The Romance - Dears
32. Rebellion (Lies) - Arcade Fire
33. Venus As A Boy - Björk
34. Only Happy When It Rains - Garbage
35. Whiskey In The Jar - Thin Lizzy
36. Happy Xmas (War Is Over) - John & Yoko/Plastic Ono Band/Harlem Community Choir
37. Pipes Of Peace - Paul McCartney
38. Layla - Derek & The Dominos
39. In A Broken Dream - Python Lee Jackson
40. Rocket Man - Elton John
41. 99 Red Balloons - Nena
42. Stop The Cavalry - Jona Lewie
43. Ghosts - Japan
44. 5:15 - Who
45. See Emily Play - Pink Floyd
46. School Days - Runaways
47. Fireball - Deep Purple
48. Satellite Of Love - Lou Reed
49. See My Baby Jive - Wizzard
50. Blinded By The Light - Manfred Mann's Earthband
51. Judy In Disguise (With Glasses) - John Fred & His Playboy Band
52. Hocus Pocus - Focus
53. Flowers In The Rain - Move
54. Fire - Crazy World Of Arthur Brown
55. The Carnival Is Over - Seekers
56. Dreamer - Supertramp
57. Where The Wild Roses Grow - Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds/Kylie Minogue
58. Let's Stay Together - Al Green
59. Naughty Miranda - Indians In Moscow
60. Calling Occupants Of Interplanetary Craft - Carpenters
Showing posts with label The Sex Pistols. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Sex Pistols. Show all posts
Saturday, 17 November 2012
Wednesday, 25 July 2012
As Time Goes… Bye!
What do you think is the ratio between sports programming and music broadcasts on British television? You might think it an unfair question, given that the Olympics is almost upon us and, therefore, a disproportionate amount of time will be spent on the former than is usually the case. This is not so. This year’s season of the greatest music festival in the world, The Proms, has been running nearly a fortnight, of its eight-week duration, with even less airtime devoted to it than in previous years. I have often relied on the late-night repeats and, this time around, they are nowhere to be found! What little there is, and I applaud the Beethoven cycle of Symphonies under Barenboim, even though I haven’t managed to see a single concert, is, as usual, relegated to minority-interest channel BBC Four. Even the simultaneously aggressive-and-tender music of the composer I regard as being the original Sex Pistol, Ludwig van, is deemed not being accessible enough for a mainstream audience on BBC One. Is the corporate world of television seriously trying to hard-sell me the notion that the sight of sweaty athletes, attempting to better one another by nothing more than a few nanoseconds, in a tournament designed to be just one step removed from all-out war, is somehow preferable to some of the most powerful music ever written, and performed, no doubt, with great gusto by the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra?
I don’t want to be sent packing to catch-up on the BBC’s iPlayer either. Why is television constantly trying to rid itself of its audience? Recently, I would like to have seen Christopher Eccleston and MyAnna Buring in the three-part BBC One serial Blackout, on Monday nights. Similarly, I would like to have watched Kenneth Branagh and Sarah Smart in the third series of Wallander, on Sunday evenings. But, one transmission of each episode and it’s done! Why no repeats? Why the lack of broadmindedness of scheduling that assumes we can all be in front of the box at 9pm on those particular days? Conversely, ITV3, and ITV4 to some extent, functions too far in the opposite direction. Everyone must’ve seen every episode of Frost, Foyle and Fogle by now! Many, many times!! Whodunit? We already bloody know, thank you very much for nothing… there ought to be a law against it! ITV have a massive back catalogue, surely, from which to choose? I would like to see the 1999, Survivors-style, six-part serial The Last Train repeated, especially as it isn’t available on DVD, but not repeatedly repeated! It would make a change, even though there aren’t any detectives in it!! It does boast a superlative music score by Poirot composer Christopher Gunning, if that’s any help.
Finally, I come to the scheduling of the next series of Doctor Who. Has anyone in its potential audience questioned why the Seventh Season is being spread across two years? Clearly, it is to save money, cash possibly spent on the Olympic Games. And just as the programme approaches its Fiftieth Anniversary when, maybe, one might expect the BBC to be spending a little more on it, rather than less! Heaven knows, sales of all things Doctor Who-related have helped keep the licence fee as low as possible, even when the show was on its extended extended break between 1989 and 2005!! It really is a crafty way for the BBC to be able to say there were new adventures in both 2012 and 2013 while only spending money on one set of episodes, and without the need to incur any extra expense with “specials”, as in 2009. Perhaps there will be a Series Eight starting in September 2013, a year after Series Seven, but it doesn’t seem likely. So just how, exactly, will BBC One celebrate, come November 2013? I’m curious to know. Drama repeats aren’t really their style, as I’ve previously explained. Episodes from the modern era are oft-repeated, but on BBC Three and always at the same time, never giving a different audience the opportunity to see them. Classic episodes hardly ever, not even to mourn the passing recently of companion Caroline John. Confidential-type documentaries might’ve been plausible if that series hadn’t been axed. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see. Unfortunately, I won’t be here to report on it as… That’s all, folks!!! My taxi is waiting and I’m off to paradise…
I don’t want to be sent packing to catch-up on the BBC’s iPlayer either. Why is television constantly trying to rid itself of its audience? Recently, I would like to have seen Christopher Eccleston and MyAnna Buring in the three-part BBC One serial Blackout, on Monday nights. Similarly, I would like to have watched Kenneth Branagh and Sarah Smart in the third series of Wallander, on Sunday evenings. But, one transmission of each episode and it’s done! Why no repeats? Why the lack of broadmindedness of scheduling that assumes we can all be in front of the box at 9pm on those particular days? Conversely, ITV3, and ITV4 to some extent, functions too far in the opposite direction. Everyone must’ve seen every episode of Frost, Foyle and Fogle by now! Many, many times!! Whodunit? We already bloody know, thank you very much for nothing… there ought to be a law against it! ITV have a massive back catalogue, surely, from which to choose? I would like to see the 1999, Survivors-style, six-part serial The Last Train repeated, especially as it isn’t available on DVD, but not repeatedly repeated! It would make a change, even though there aren’t any detectives in it!! It does boast a superlative music score by Poirot composer Christopher Gunning, if that’s any help.
Finally, I come to the scheduling of the next series of Doctor Who. Has anyone in its potential audience questioned why the Seventh Season is being spread across two years? Clearly, it is to save money, cash possibly spent on the Olympic Games. And just as the programme approaches its Fiftieth Anniversary when, maybe, one might expect the BBC to be spending a little more on it, rather than less! Heaven knows, sales of all things Doctor Who-related have helped keep the licence fee as low as possible, even when the show was on its extended extended break between 1989 and 2005!! It really is a crafty way for the BBC to be able to say there were new adventures in both 2012 and 2013 while only spending money on one set of episodes, and without the need to incur any extra expense with “specials”, as in 2009. Perhaps there will be a Series Eight starting in September 2013, a year after Series Seven, but it doesn’t seem likely. So just how, exactly, will BBC One celebrate, come November 2013? I’m curious to know. Drama repeats aren’t really their style, as I’ve previously explained. Episodes from the modern era are oft-repeated, but on BBC Three and always at the same time, never giving a different audience the opportunity to see them. Classic episodes hardly ever, not even to mourn the passing recently of companion Caroline John. Confidential-type documentaries might’ve been plausible if that series hadn’t been axed. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see. Unfortunately, I won’t be here to report on it as… That’s all, folks!!! My taxi is waiting and I’m off to paradise…
Sunday, 27 January 2008
Gone to Pop!
BBC Four have spent, virtually, the entire month of January trying to decide which was the best decade for pop music, beginning with the Fifties and ending with the Nineties. In the end, the choice came down to the one in which you were a teenager! I was a teenager in the Seventies and, surprise, surprise, the Seventies won. Looking at it in a more detached way, although my favourite decade of pop is the Seventies, I believe the Sixties was actually the most creative… if only because of The Beatles. I don’t mention them in the gooey-eyed nostalgic sense but when you listen to the records themselves, while they do contain terrific melodies and harmonies, they are simultaneously very experimental. And, it’s not just their later songs but also those released at the very beginning of their career. The Beatles were adventurous right from the off. Many people tend to choose “Sgt. Pepper”, from 1967, as the definitive album by the Fab Four but my preference is for the release that followed later the same year, namely “Magical Mystery Tour”. Certainly, many people cite the double A-sided single “Strawberry Fields Forever” and “Penny Lane” as the best seven inch of the Sixties and both tracks appear on the album. Also included is the seminal anthem “All You Need is Love”. But, for me, the two songs that mark the record apart are Paul McCartney’s “The Fool on the Hill”, with its deliberately out of tune recorders, and especially John Lennon’s richly orchestrated “I am the Walrus”. How bizarre is the end of this song? Ringo chants “Oompa, oompa, stick it up your joompa” while a transistor radio is tuned and retuned over the strident strings. It sounds haphazard but, whether by luck or design, the song works. Chance played an important part in classical music of the time so, with producer George Martin’s guidance, this may be an influential factor worth taking into consideration.
So, in the face of The Beatles, why did the Seventies triumph? Put succinctly, Glam Rock and Punk! It was a decade of two halves. As The Beatles went their separate ways, Marc Bolan took centre stage with his glam band T-Rex and a succession of number one hit singles. He laid the foundations for David Bowie and Bryan Ferry to develop the genre further. These days Ferry is mistaken for a crooner but, like Lennon before him, he was an experimentalist. England had heard nothing like the sonorities to be found on Roxy Music’s debut single “Virginia Plain”. It certainly changed my life in 1972. I ended up composing and studying modern classical music at university for seven years because of it! Early Bowie seemed space obsessed and in the same year as the aforementioned Roxy record he penned and sang backing vocals on my all-time favourite single, “All the Young Dudes” by Mott the Hoople. In the latter half of the decade, the very foundations of society trembled as Johnny Rotten spat out his rebellious lyrics with such vehemence and raw energy that no one could escape the onslaught. The Sex Pistols were over almost as quickly as they began with one proper album to their name lasting not much over thirty minutes in duration! But what an album with no less than four blinding singles. My preference, at the time, was for The Stranglers but there can be no denying the lasting influence, on the world of rock ‘n’ roll, of “Never Mind the Bollocks”! It’s not the easiest thing, to condense two decades of pop music into two paragraphs. I could’ve chosen different music entirely and talked about the impact of “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” by The Rolling Stones or “Lola” by The Kinks. I might’ve discussed “Make Me Smile (Come Up and See Me)” by the underrated Steve Harley and Cockney Rebel or any number of bitter-sweet love songs by The Buzzcocks, such was the diversity of these two decades!
So, in the face of The Beatles, why did the Seventies triumph? Put succinctly, Glam Rock and Punk! It was a decade of two halves. As The Beatles went their separate ways, Marc Bolan took centre stage with his glam band T-Rex and a succession of number one hit singles. He laid the foundations for David Bowie and Bryan Ferry to develop the genre further. These days Ferry is mistaken for a crooner but, like Lennon before him, he was an experimentalist. England had heard nothing like the sonorities to be found on Roxy Music’s debut single “Virginia Plain”. It certainly changed my life in 1972. I ended up composing and studying modern classical music at university for seven years because of it! Early Bowie seemed space obsessed and in the same year as the aforementioned Roxy record he penned and sang backing vocals on my all-time favourite single, “All the Young Dudes” by Mott the Hoople. In the latter half of the decade, the very foundations of society trembled as Johnny Rotten spat out his rebellious lyrics with such vehemence and raw energy that no one could escape the onslaught. The Sex Pistols were over almost as quickly as they began with one proper album to their name lasting not much over thirty minutes in duration! But what an album with no less than four blinding singles. My preference, at the time, was for The Stranglers but there can be no denying the lasting influence, on the world of rock ‘n’ roll, of “Never Mind the Bollocks”! It’s not the easiest thing, to condense two decades of pop music into two paragraphs. I could’ve chosen different music entirely and talked about the impact of “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” by The Rolling Stones or “Lola” by The Kinks. I might’ve discussed “Make Me Smile (Come Up and See Me)” by the underrated Steve Harley and Cockney Rebel or any number of bitter-sweet love songs by The Buzzcocks, such was the diversity of these two decades!
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