That’s the name of the season, plus one of the programmes, on tonight, which involves ex NME Journalist and pop music fiend Paul Morley indulging his passion. One scene in the programme's rough cut features Paul visiting the garage of Can’t Get You Out of My Head’s writer, Mud’s Rob Davis, in Leatherhead, Surrey where Rob recreates the song writing process, complete with falsetto voice, cheapo synth sounds and raw guitar. I didn't know that the song was originally offered to Sophie Ellis Bextor. I can kind of see that working...
But working on the Pop Britannia website gave an insight into the psyche of the pop artist. This three episode documentary tells how Britain went pop, scanning 6 decades of an industry evolution. Check out the clip of Cliff Richard, where he discusses the Cliff Sound, and how it still surprises him when people say they can always tell a Cliff song. He claims to still think he sounds like everybody else. Is this false modesty, or a classic case of insecurity driven ambition? You’d think that after selling close to three hundred million units, he wouldn't worry .
Full interview transcripts for the doc included an interview with Pete Waterman and Lulu – both of whom were happy to describe themselves as punk. The corporate, tinny sound that dominated the late 80s, reviled and resented by many “true” British pop musicians, Waterman initially appears to be the antithesis of punk, but he has a contrasting view. Putting on the gigs that cost kids about £1 a go to see Kylie, Jason, Sonia et al, (many of whom let’s face it were just kids themselves – Rick Astley the tea boy with that strange wail), a revolutionary process, getting 2-3,000 14 – 17 year olds in the venue and 12,000 outside. And perhaps it was. He claims Stock Aitkin and Waterman were successful “Because we were those three girls that were the Supremes on that bed with the hairbrushes.”
And Lulu described herself thus:“When I started I was considered to be a bit of a rocker, actually a bit of a punk, more than a rocker. I just, you know, because my first record was shout. So it's a very strange situation to have had what I had, which was the first hit record. You record it when you're fourteen years old. There's no big management company or big record company you know or big wheels, big cogs pushing you. And it went straight into the charts.”
It’s funny how things start out and where they end up… next time you’re near a karaoke bar in Tenerife (ok, maybe not in your lifetime but you get the idea) and someone’s murdering this little song, remember its journey from the birth of a 14 year old's punk dream to an afterlife as a hen nightmare.
And worth a watch is definitely Charles Hazlewood, branching out from his normal Proms and Radio 3 Classical domain into working out what makes perfect pop in How Pop Songs Work.
BBC Four's Pop What Is It good For? season runs through the first 3 weeks of January. For more details, go to www.bbc.co.uk/pop. If you’ve missed Pop Britannia’s first episode, watch again in the next 4 days on the BBC’s iPlayer: www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer
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