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The Sound of TV with Neil Brand

BBC Four TV music programme (December 2020)

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CO
commseng
I was very disappointed with this programme.
Only an hour long.
It could be 12 hours per programme and have 89 parts, and still not have covered a more than tiny fraction of some of the great TV themes.

I cannot wait for next week's show!
BR
Brekkie
I hope it at least had a decent theme tune itself.
DE
deejay
I rather enjoyed it but felt it was a little slow. I think in these parts at least, next weeks episode will be more interesting with a focus on jingles, branding and idents.
MI
Michael
Did it feature either Simon May or Mike Post?
CO
commseng
Simon May was on there, and I hadn't realised he'd had hits before the TV music world.
BH
BillyH Founding member
The clip of him singing “We’ll Gather Lilacs” on 1977 Top of the Pops is one of my favourite moments in the show’s history, just because of how utterly bizarre it was to be there during the heady days of punk and new wave.

Sadly the episode it’s in is a Savile one so it’s unlikely to be repeated (it actually was reshown in 2012 as one of the last pre-Yewtree repeats) but it’s in The Story of 1977 documentary.
JA
james-2001
The clip of him singing “We’ll Gather Lilacs” on 1977 Top of the Pops is one of my favourite moments in the show’s history, just because of how utterly bizarre it was to be there during the heady days of punk and new wave.


Not that there was much punk & new wave on 1977 TOTP. To be honest, the effect they had on music at the time has been massively overstated in the years since.
CO
commseng
One of the more interesting tunes discussed was the Simpsons theme. I hadn't spotted the different parts referring to old TV shows.
Good to see Keith Mansfield featured, and surprising that the programme didn't mention the Grandstand theme.
But so many tunes that could have been in there of course.
UKnews, Gusan and TVVT gave kudos
DV
DVB Cornwall
Just watched it, I too felt it lacking, however then realised that the whole genre compared to the previous Musicals and Film series is that much younger.

The Genesis being for UK viewers the 1950's at the earliest and crucially for most within our lifetimes or those of our immediate past generation. There was no history to explain prior to this point as in the other two.

The content available too is immense so to precis it down to 60 minutes was brave, it didn't quite work, not hooking it to a firm timeline didn't help there. I'm wondering whether the design was at fault, it appears to be straying beyond programmes to idents and commecials in subsequent parts.

I'll watch those with interest though.
IS
Inspector Sands
Good to see Johnny Trunk on this, he has a record label and also sells other pop culture and TV ephermera:
https://trunkrecords.greedbag.com/

He was also responsible for rescuing and republishing a lot of Mike Samme's back catalogue: https://open.spotify.com/album/4LibNlUjMEnuAbFfhhAmbd
GE
thegeek Founding member
One of the more interesting tunes discussed was the Simpsons theme. I hadn't spotted the different parts referring to old TV shows.

The tacked-on 'ss' at the end of the vocal is really obvious when you know it's there! Had Matt Groening owned up to that before?
JA
JAS84
Here's the iPlayer link: https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000pz1b/the-sound-of-tv-with-neil-brand-series-1-episode-1

It's an interesting programme. Though they did goof when talking about Doctor Who. It started in 1963, not 1962!

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