Did you see the Danny Baker 'LPs are best' BBC4 show?

I'm catching up, saw the first one...

Yes. Last night's was much better. The 'rock' one pissed me right off. http://sickmouthy.com/2013/02/06/why-the-vinyl-revival-can-sod-off-as-far-as-im-concerned/

Saw the rock one yesterday and about to start the pop one any minute now once my Sky+ box decides to work.

Any programme that makes Jeremy Clarkson look reasonable in comparison to other people in the room is a negative. The pop episode last night was much better, not least because Grace Dent and Boy George both had substantial things to say that were not related to vinyl fetishism. The guests on the R&B episode tonight are Trevor Nelson, Mica Paris, and that great authority on black music, Martin Freeman.

And the whole thing about 'people in the good old days used to want to listen to albums all the way through' is suspicious at best. People listened to entire sides of an LP not through choice but because of the physical constraints of the medium, ie, it's a pain in the arse to get up and change songs on an LP by moving the needle. Which still leaves the elephant in the room that Baker never even hinted at - MIXTAPES. When technology gives people the choice of not having to listen to an album all the way through, and people decide not to, that says a lot about the quality of albums and not much at all about people's so-called 'changing attitudes to music', and certainly doesn't indicate any kind of falling interest in music for it's own sake.

It's easy to go for generalisations. So far this series has done little apart from that.

But you can't proffer a generalisation that "People listened to entire sides of an LP not through choice"...millions of people did do so through choice and continue to do so. Tracks were skipped then as now; to say that people were too lazy to get up and move the needle/change the record is inaccurate stereotyping.

Mixtapes used to be called C60 or C90 compilations. Not much nostalgia about those could I detect.

Technology may mean that people are going back to listening to songs as such. If people decide not to listen to albums now, that may say more about people today and altered ways of listening than anything else.

The seesaw non-argument that on one side albums were GREAT and on the other they are a redundant kapitalist tool is too black and white; the truth is, as with most things, somewhere in between.

Martin Freeman is actually, reputedly, a massive soul boy with a huge and extensive record collection. Just because he looks like an Oasis fan doesn't mean he is.

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41C5JvnuJuL._SL500_AA300_.jpg

Yeah..

Then again, this still makes him BBC/friendly by category, despite his knowledge/quality.. (See also TWestwood, etc)

xpost I keep having "the vinyl conversation" with my wife. She works at the FT and it seems as though every week she says: "They really want to do a story about vinyl. Apparently it's a massive success story and getting bigger all the time." And every week I say it's a massive success in terms of where everyone had predicted it would be by now: dead. But it's still like noticing that Paul A Young has opened another shop and saying "Artisan chocolate is the big success story of confectionary!" and ignoring the fact that Dairy Milk sells three billion times more bars.

Did you see the increase in sales, represented in percentage terms, of cassette singles from 2011 to 2012?

I haven't even seen any cassette singles!

http://www.officialcharts.com/chart-news/cassette-singles-are-back-1789/

Here is the source:

Mixtapes used to be called C60 or C90 compilations. Not much nostalgia about those could I detect.

Mixtape nostalgia is definitely a thing among people who were the right age at the time, although actually buying cassettes is surely ridiculously niche at this stage.

Re tapes, I had two 'projects' for long-term process

1) Code-up those NME cassette compilations you used to send away for, CDr some of them
2) Code-up my mixtapes I made from 1978 up to 1999 or thereabouts. CDr a bunch of them.

Someone has done all the NME cassettes on a nice website. It's unlikely they will have done mine..

When I get to my tapes, I get a sense of ennui which is much the same on looking at that indie-box-set someone listed yesterday, I know them well but do I need to hear them again?

(xps) I didn't imply that people are lazy. The easier it is to do something, the more people are likely to do it. Skipping a track on a CD is a lot easier than skipping a track on an LP. Say someone's listening to Ziggy Stardust, and they don't particularly care about the track 'It Ain't Easy'. They don't hate it, but they're kind of indifferent to it. If they're listening to the CD, they're more likely to skip that track (pressing a button, if they have a remote control they don't even have to get up out of their chair), but if they're listening to the LP, they're probably going to listen to the song, because the effort of getting up and moving the needle is more than the payoff from doing so.

Mixtapes used to be called C60 or C90 compilations. Not much nostalgia about those could I detect.

I've known people who were making mixtapes on reel-to-reel machines in the early 60's. And there were probably people doing it even before then. But that comes back to 'the easier it is to do something...'. Mixtapes didn't become a widespread cultural phenomenon until cassettes, when it became straightforward enough that enough people did it for it to become a thing.

When did compilation tapes become "mixtapes"? I made enough compilations in my time but never wrote down track listings on boxes, or any annotation at all. It was fun and random to pick a tape for the morning journey to work in 1993 and not know what was on the walkman, it's a pain in the arse when confronted with a box of near identical c90s two decades later.

Enjoyed the Danny Baker pop show a lot more than the rock one for what it's worth.

When did compilation tapes become "mixtapes"?

When fading in/out and using sections of tracks became the thing to do, I guess.

I did do some fade in/out tapes, never really did 'using sections' so I guess mine are all 'compilation' tapes by that defn.

During the 'rock' edition, there was a brief, black and white clip of a guy sat at a keyboard who was almost yodelling some fairly progressive melody - any ideas, anyone? (thought it might be Family, but prob not...)

Was that Focus?

In my head that was Focus... "Hocus Pocus" by Focus, in fact, but I may have made that up. It's most certainly Not My Field.

Unless you meant something other than the clip I am on about.

It was Focus, yes.

The Focus clip was in colour, from OGWT. The black and white clip may have been the Nice performing "America"... Will have a quick scan through the show and see.

But if there was yodelling then yes that would be Focus.

oh maybe i have confused b&w w/ colour - but there was definitely yodelling! (Focus sounds v plausible)

not really interested in this programme but why is it being split up by genre?

Demographic apartheid, probably.

I would rather it be split up by genre than (say) by decade, I think - the latter would risk ending up with rock albums dominating each show.

xxp it's how most BBC music docus have rolled since the late 90s.

It was Focus, yes.

Who had a couple of pop hits of course - more than Joni Mitchell managed from her "pop" album, "Court and Spark", as featured on the "pop" edition last night. I stumbled across this and tbh had no idea it was specifically about pop music, even when Danny Baker kept saying pop every two seconds and annoying the tits off me in the process.

I would rather it be split up by genre than (say) by decade, I think - the latter would risk ending up with rock albums dominating each show.

As opposed to albums like "Court and Spark" and "Desire"?

Yeah, I didn't see the first one, but I was definitely confused by their use of 'pop' on this show. I mean, obviously the boundaries blur, but JM and Dylan? Come on...

Drawing a line between rock and pop is hellish.

What's the point of having four people sitting in a studio talking about music for an hour and not actually playing any examples of music?

They did (the first show, anyway, haven't seen the rest), but it was brief snippet/inserts.

Anyone watch the R+B one? I thought they were going to go through the entire show without mentioning Al Green when good old Danny pulled out "Call Me" as his final album choice, phew!

I forgot to TIVO it, will have to catch-up on 2 episodes..

I spent the evening in A&E worrying that I'd broken my neck, but I'll watch it tonight on iPlayer if it's there.

I started watching it last night but my other half wanted to watch "The big reunion" so I recorded it. "The big reunion" bit on Atomic Kitten didn't mention Andy McCluskey once. Let's hope the Danny Baker show isn't so casual with the facts.

I thought that was the weakest of the three, not least because Mica was far and away the worst pundit on the show. In the beginning when they are trying to codify what R&B is she just repeats the same point multiple times, and then when she says that Donna Summer's disco period was all about her 'taking it to another level' without mentioning Moroder is pretty inexcusable - especially since it's immediately after a discussion about how great the bands are, independent of the singer. And her view of politics in R&B; "you know, Gil Scot Heron and... all those other guys..."

Still, at least I now know that Chic had absolutely nothing to do with, and no connection to disco, because disco is the anti-R&B and nearly killed it. Thanks for that, Trevor Nelson.

Oh Jesus, I missed nothing then. Mica Paris is a Tory so I don't expect her to understand anything. Were they really that hard up for eighties one-hit wonders? Couldn't get Princess or Glenn Goldsmith? "Taking it to another level": since when was R&B a service lift?

I mean, was even ROACHFORD brushing his teeth the night of recording?

Trevor Nelson has a good laugh at one point of the notion of there being a style of music called Krautrock.

Mica Paris is summed up by her three albums - Sign O'The Times, something by Barry White ("because all his videos were hilarious, just watching him in the white suit") and What's Going On. "The first secular record I ever heard." Having spent the rest of the show telling us how GSH was the political artist her father 'educated' her with before he forced her to listen to other politicised records "like Curtis and Marvin".

"The first secular record I ever heard" with most of its second side about God.

Maybe Patti Boulaye would be more up her street.

Can we be shown Trevor Nelson being squashed by a bulldozer driven by Kraftwerk?

Trevor Nelson has a good laugh at one point of the notion of there being a style of music called Krautrock.

LOL yeah I noticed that

When talking about artists coming out of the gospel tradition, Mica Paris mentioned Chuck Berry ... TWICE! I'm more gospel than Chuck Berry!

Why would Trevor know about a tiny dead thing like that: about 10 bands, made records in the 70s? The name can sound funny...

ten?

Five, tops.

No, it was the Four Tops

I loved as well that we'll "know when R&B is dead because the X Factor will do a week on it". WTF, every week on the X Factor is R&B week! We've been having Stevie Wonder weeks since about the second year!

I thought they kept rudely cutting Mica Paris off mid-sentence, hence her repeating herself so much (trying to be heard). Having said that, if she's a batshit rightwinger, maybe they did that on purpose...

You could hear her in the background when everybody else was talking, loudly going "mmm" and "absolutely" and other insightful stuff.

Just saw the last one of the three. Think you gus were a bit unfair really, Trev was definitely expounding his personal theory about R&B not being "Dance" and then praising Chic as classic R&B, so yeah it doesn't bear close examination but at least it's not completely "received info". And Mica, again, it's her perspective so YMMV, whatever.

Having said all that, the filmy bits were the most interesting parts of the show here...

(Did the TAMI show ever come out on DVD/VHS or whatever?)

gus = guys, obv.

people talking about LPs = not thrilling TV

not mentioning Al Green in the R'n'B ep until the last second = I WILL CRUSH YOU

before i go back and read thru this i will say

a) i only watched the R'n'B ep because uggh celebrating dead made-up history talking heads style but i was stuck in the patients' lounge and that was all that was on

b) anybody who badmouths Trevor Nelson is dead to me

Answereing my own Q: Yes, the full TAMI show got done on DVD about 2 years ago, so I have boughted one..

c) the discussion as to whether Chic had made a great album = everything that's wrong with everything ever

"It's not a great album if it's all dance"

cursory search for anything indicating mica paris is a conservative turns up nothing, fyi

xp

it's a perfectly reasonable argument to make until you get that vertiginous moment of "who gives a shit?", like people arguing whether Gulliver's Travels or Ulysses are novels or not.

micha paris tory gave this:

http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2010/09/30/soap-star-adam-rickitt-to-host-conservative-gay-party/

which isn't even to say that albums aren't good or worthwhile things - just to recognise that even half a second devoted to "what is an album?" is the apogee of too much time on your hands and space in your skull

xp yes, i found that too. it doesn't indicate her politics.

God who cares if she's a Tory or not, she's not exactly an influential cultural or political figure.

Well, quite, but then the fact that they were random was fine by me, anyway.

i think if you're gonna do what amounts to a radio debate on TV for an hour then the debaters could at least have some really decent credentials to bring to the table

God who cares if she's a Tory or not

Marcello

The event was set up and organised under the aegis of Conservative Future. Aligning yourself with a political party event in any way implies that you are sympathetic towards the party in question. Otherwise you've have had nothing to do with it.

It matters because it affects and perhaps distorts your outlook; hence the urge to offer bland, middle-of-the-road "opinions" rather than provocative, game-changing thought, principally because it satisfies watery pink Tories who go to Giraffe World Cafe but don't want to pay more taxes and think stacking shelves is "better" for the "community" than working in a museum because it is more "relevant." For community, raad big business.

i assume Freeman self-identifies as some kind of left-liberal. his opinions about r'n'b aren't necessarily any less conservative than Mica Paris's. or more interesting, tbf.

Aligning yourself with a political party event in any way implies that you are sympathetic towards the party in question.

it really doesn't. artists go where they're paid to be or where their agent tells them to be. i imagine that's especially the case for someone like paris, who can't exactly be rolling in bookings

She certainly isn't rolling in principles.

God who cares if she's a Tory or not, she's not exactly an influential cultural or political figure.

― Matt DC, Monday, 18 February 2013 17:04 (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I remember her saying years ago she voted tory.

was that in front of the McCarthy enquiry?

i know Mick was pretty tough on suspected fellow travellers in the lightweight smooth radio community

Kenny Everett certainly never recovered from his public denunciation

which was a pity cos it meant he never completed his book about post-Althusserian entryism in local government politics

i mean bun dem all obv but still

You might like to address what I said, instead of reposting other people's comments and being sarcastic, because then it stops being a conversation.

ok.

even as a raging commie i can accept that being a Tory doesn't necessarily indicate a lack of principles. doing a gig for somebody that you vehemently disagree with or have publicly denounced would indicate that lack. i don't see how that applies to Mica Paris.

anybody's political beliefs will colour their response to the world around them, including their response to art, but it won't colour that response in a consistent and predictable way, and the influence of political belief might well be so marginal as to be unimportant to a person's response to a work of art.

i don't remember Mica Paris making any bold or controversial political analyses of the records she was talking about so i can only conclude that the fact that she may or may not be a Tory is completely irrelevant to her repping for Gil Scott Heron.

will this do?

you could disagree with her opinions, or think that she is ill-informed or dishonest about what she was saying, but tbh that wd be more the fault of whoever decided to put her on the programme. since i only recall her talking about her personal relationship to the music under discussion i'd find it difficult to claim she was wrong about anything. she mightn't have had much of interest to say, but the format of the show again didn't seem conducive to saying insightful or interesting things.

not even picking a fight here, i'm fine with laughing at public Tories, but i think the laughter is relative to the public profile and the degree of Toryness?

Probably should start a separate thread on this, but a new low was struck this week with the bbc's 'remake' of Please Please Me, with vocal contributions from Mick Hucknall, Graham Coxon and Tilbrook and Difford. The latter were like a pair of drunk uncles with a ukelele. There was an obligatory string section doing balloons - a massive incongruity for a supposed celebration of early 60s beat music. Nobody could manage a harmony that worked. I am Kloot was the only contribution that didn't make me want to die with shame for tuning in.

I did Tivo it, but can't actually bring myself to actually.. um, watch.. it urghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh...

"Things to do after you die" - Watch this prog.

it's bad enough that BBC4 devotes so much time to classic pop and rock or however you wanna describe it, but to do so much of that so badly is just

something

i dunno

i have come around to the school of thought that says drop the endless "archive" clip shows, the "looks back" at, you know, whatever over-lionized rock band the commissioners feel like fancying that year, put the original stuff on BBC Two and just forget the channel ever happened. there are some great original docs (like this one - http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01nqc0g) but most of this stuff is just beyond lifeless.

the krautrock doc was ace

The Brian Epstein one.. not engaging.

That was ancient though, wasn't it?