0:00:02 > 0:00:04Good evening, losers, boozers and Jacuzzi users. Thank you
0:00:04 > 0:00:07for joining me on what is frankly an extravagantly crackpot,
0:00:07 > 0:00:11but I hope, tremendously enjoyable, adventure into sound.
0:00:11 > 0:00:15This 12 inches of glossy groove and dark promise is one of the most
0:00:15 > 0:00:19exciting creations in the history of carefree human gyration.
0:00:19 > 0:00:22It's an LP, of course. A pop LP.
0:00:22 > 0:00:25Tonight, I'll be joined by a group of hot bopping,
0:00:25 > 0:00:29finger popping sound scientists to hash around the pop music
0:00:29 > 0:00:33and end up with a smorgasbord of 12 selected LPs that are pure pop
0:00:33 > 0:00:36for now people, well now and then.
0:00:36 > 0:00:39Whatever the era, this is about the pop, the...
0:00:39 > 0:00:42that was heard around the world.
0:00:55 > 0:00:56Pop music.
0:00:56 > 0:00:59You know one of the best pop pieces of pop music ever
0:00:59 > 0:01:02was about pop music. And it was called Pop Music!
0:01:02 > 0:01:04By M. It included the genius couplet,
0:01:04 > 0:01:07"Want to be a gunslinger? Don't be a rock singer.
0:01:07 > 0:01:09"Eeenie, meenie, miny, mo Get you where you want to go."
0:01:09 > 0:01:11Suck it up, Black Flag.
0:01:11 > 0:01:14And taking us to the topper most of the popper most tonight,
0:01:14 > 0:01:18we have writer, novelist and doyenne of all the leading waspish salons,
0:01:18 > 0:01:23that's Grace Dent. Over there, actual top tier pop royalty.
0:01:23 > 0:01:26He wrote Karma Chameleon, maybe you've heard of him. Boy George.
0:01:26 > 0:01:30And not least, the man who launched Mojo, Empire and Q magazines,
0:01:30 > 0:01:34and most importantly, Smash Hits - David Hepworth.
0:01:34 > 0:01:36I'm going to ask you as a settler,
0:01:36 > 0:01:38the first pop album you bought with your own money. Grace?
0:01:38 > 0:01:41Pop album with my own money would be
0:01:41 > 0:01:44Welcome To The Pleasuredome - Frankie. Frankie Goes To Hollywood.
0:01:44 > 0:01:48- Frankie Goes To Hollywood. George? - T Rex, Tanx.- Yeah, you and I both.
0:01:48 > 0:01:52- What a piece of work. David? - We're The Beatles, by The Beatles.
0:01:52 > 0:01:56Yeah, yeah. There you can carbon date the ages of everybody on board.
0:01:56 > 0:01:59Tradition dictates pop spins at 45 rpm
0:01:59 > 0:02:02and lasts no longer than three minutes, one second.
0:02:02 > 0:02:06Up until the mid-60's, that was all the recipe required.
0:02:06 > 0:02:09But then, things started to get interesting and pop vinyl,
0:02:09 > 0:02:11like pop minds, began expanding.
0:02:18 > 0:02:22Pop, pop! The perfect word for a short burst of excitement.
0:02:22 > 0:02:25Singles have historically been pop's weapon of choice,
0:02:25 > 0:02:27but from the mid-60's to the '80s,
0:02:27 > 0:02:30some pop artists wanted a larger canvas.
0:02:30 > 0:02:32They needed the album.
0:02:36 > 0:02:40In 1955, Frank Sinatra released In The Wee Small Hours,
0:02:40 > 0:02:43a collection of ballads for lost love, Ava Gardner.
0:02:43 > 0:02:46It was probably the first-ever concept album
0:02:46 > 0:02:50and hinted at the creative possibilities of the long player.
0:02:51 > 0:02:54But not everyone could grow from 45 to 33,
0:02:54 > 0:02:58not everyone had vision, not everyone was any good.
0:03:01 > 0:03:05What, say the Barron Knights lacked, Brian Wilson had in bucket loads.
0:03:05 > 0:03:08The Beach Boys 1966 album Pet Sounds
0:03:08 > 0:03:11was constructed as a complete work, designed to serve
0:03:11 > 0:03:14different emotions than their zippy 45s.
0:03:14 > 0:03:17After the Beach Boys showed how it could be done,
0:03:17 > 0:03:22simple giddy slapdash pop LPs became, well, more brainy.
0:03:22 > 0:03:25Money, time, creativity, possibly drugs,
0:03:25 > 0:03:29were lavished on cutting an album. Peppy, improved record players
0:03:29 > 0:03:33and teenagers with lots of spare cash didn't hurt, either.
0:03:33 > 0:03:37By 1968, album sales had even outstripped that of the single.
0:03:41 > 0:03:45It was the beginning of the 33 1/3 revolution, a golden age
0:03:45 > 0:03:48when the pop album was fun, wildly creative
0:03:48 > 0:03:53and the repository of a new booming culture's dreams and emotions.
0:03:53 > 0:03:56David, earlier you said your first pop album you bought
0:03:56 > 0:03:59with your own money was the second Beatles album.
0:03:59 > 0:04:01Was that the beginning of it?
0:04:01 > 0:04:03When did you first think the pop album,
0:04:03 > 0:04:06which is a difficult concept, had legs?
0:04:06 > 0:04:10I suppose about 1965, when The Beatles had repeatedly
0:04:10 > 0:04:13made albums where they had written all the songs, I suppose.
0:04:13 > 0:04:16Which was a concept unknown in the 1950's.
0:04:16 > 0:04:17You got an album, an Elvis Presley album,
0:04:17 > 0:04:19you never expected it to be any good.
0:04:19 > 0:04:22It would have two hits and then a bunch of potboilers.
0:04:22 > 0:04:25And then the standards changed in the mid-60's
0:04:25 > 0:04:27and I suppose Bob Dylan, at the same time, Highway 61,
0:04:27 > 0:04:31all these kind of things and they suddenly started becoming really
0:04:31 > 0:04:34sustained and people would play them and play them and play them.
0:04:34 > 0:04:36And never get bored.
0:04:36 > 0:04:38The difference there, I think, between say, Dylan
0:04:38 > 0:04:41and The Beatles thing, I mean, the rock album went a different way.
0:04:41 > 0:04:43I always think it's a trickier concept
0:04:43 > 0:04:47and they're fewer and further between actual pop albums.
0:04:47 > 0:04:50It's almost an oxymoron because they should be singles.
0:04:50 > 0:04:53George, was it the albums you first started buying
0:04:53 > 0:04:56and playing every track, what were they, apart from T Rex?
0:04:56 > 0:04:58The first real important album for me
0:04:58 > 0:05:01was The Man Who Sold The World which I inherited from my older brother,
0:05:01 > 0:05:04who, I think, just found it a bit weird.
0:05:04 > 0:05:06I remember hearing it through the bedroom door.
0:05:06 > 0:05:09- It is a weird album.- What's this record, what's this record?
0:05:09 > 0:05:11I did not know anything about Bowie at that point.
0:05:11 > 0:05:14I think my brother very quickly went off it
0:05:14 > 0:05:18and moved on to the Faces or Alice Cooper and I got the album.
0:05:18 > 0:05:21- And that album was like, a life changing record for me.- How?
0:05:21 > 0:05:25People say that, maybe when they're younger, folk will think, how can
0:05:25 > 0:05:29an album, if they know what one is, be life changing? What do you mean?
0:05:29 > 0:05:32When you're like, sort of, 11, and you hear,
0:05:32 > 0:05:35"he swallowed his pride and puckered his lips
0:05:35 > 0:05:37"and showed me the leather belt round his hips...
0:05:37 > 0:05:39"he screamed and hollered...", you say, what is this?
0:05:39 > 0:05:42He smelt the burning pit of fear, I believe, as well!
0:05:42 > 0:05:45Everything, pop music...Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep, The Sweet,
0:05:45 > 0:05:47all those sort of pop records and suddenly,
0:05:47 > 0:05:51Bowie was painting this kind of, very interesting landscape, which I
0:05:51 > 0:05:54had never heard, you know, never.
0:05:54 > 0:05:57Pop, in itself, is separate from rock.
0:05:57 > 0:06:00A pop album, and Grace, it is the same,
0:06:00 > 0:06:04I hesitate to use the word - journey - that every teenager goes on.
0:06:04 > 0:06:06You think there has never been anything like this.
0:06:06 > 0:06:09- This is about me and stuff. - You talk about life changing
0:06:09 > 0:06:13and the album I was going to mention is Parallel Lines by Blondie.
0:06:13 > 0:06:18I was pre-teen when I heard that, but just that striking image,
0:06:18 > 0:06:22she is on the cover, flanked by men, and if you look at the personnel,
0:06:22 > 0:06:25if you look at who was working on that album,
0:06:25 > 0:06:28she's pretty much the only woman and that whole album is just
0:06:28 > 0:06:34full of these strong songs about her taking control in relationships and things like Sunday Girl, she is
0:06:34 > 0:06:38kind of having a bit of a laugh about drippy women and things like that.
0:06:38 > 0:06:40And that did, as an eight, nine, ten-year-old girl,
0:06:40 > 0:06:44I thought, God, it's out there, it's out there.
0:06:44 > 0:06:46It wouldn't have been no good though, without the tunes!
0:06:46 > 0:06:49The tunes were fantastic, yeah, yeah, I mean, it is single,
0:06:49 > 0:06:52- after single, after single. - It's everything.
0:06:52 > 0:06:55I don't think you can ever separate a good artist from what they wear,
0:06:55 > 0:06:59how they wear it, how they walk, you know, it is
0:06:59 > 0:07:01all encompassing, I think.
0:07:01 > 0:07:05When we talk about the X factor, that idea we have now, the X factor,
0:07:05 > 0:07:10we don't really see that whereas that was what we were seeing.
0:07:10 > 0:07:12I hesitate to be the first person to use the expression,
0:07:12 > 0:07:16"the thing that you can't tell kids today" but, in the golden age
0:07:16 > 0:07:20of the album, you had no other entertainment.
0:07:20 > 0:07:23You know, if you were a teenager or young 20's or whatever,
0:07:23 > 0:07:26you went home every night and you went in your bedroom
0:07:26 > 0:07:29- and you listened to your records again and again. - Finding new meaning.
0:07:29 > 0:07:32There was only one TV show once a week
0:07:32 > 0:07:35that you could watch music on and I think life was better for it!
0:07:35 > 0:07:38You couldn't even watch it
0:07:38 > 0:07:42without a chorus of disapproval behind you from your family.
0:07:42 > 0:07:45It upset my father. I couldn't watch it.
0:07:45 > 0:07:48That was the end of life. If I upset dad.
0:07:48 > 0:07:51The album, the actual album and we'll go into the cover
0:07:51 > 0:07:54and everything else, it was almost like a narcotic and a secret,
0:07:54 > 0:07:56even though they were selling hundreds of thousands.
0:07:56 > 0:07:59The one that you owned was the one that mattered.
0:07:59 > 0:08:02Also it was stuff, like my mother would hear the records
0:08:02 > 0:08:05I was playing and say that isn't music.
0:08:05 > 0:08:07So it was your secret thing that you took to your bedroom
0:08:07 > 0:08:11and listened to over again. Nobody could understand why you listened to it.
0:08:11 > 0:08:14Any extra content you could find on it, because you were so bored.
0:08:14 > 0:08:17You'd look through everything on the back, you'd read everything,
0:08:17 > 0:08:21you'd look for the play out messages, it would be, you know...
0:08:21 > 0:08:24The pop album is different from the folk album, the jazz album,
0:08:24 > 0:08:25the reggae album, whatever.
0:08:25 > 0:08:27They were something that just you put on
0:08:27 > 0:08:30when you needed not to think about stuff as well.
0:08:30 > 0:08:32I mean, you had all your different albums, your serious albums,
0:08:32 > 0:08:35but the pop album is a hard thing to carry off,
0:08:35 > 0:08:39because, by definition, it has to keep the hits coming over two sides.
0:08:39 > 0:08:40Did you keep your pop albums,
0:08:40 > 0:08:43did they have a special place for anyone here that you actually
0:08:43 > 0:08:47thought, what I want to do is put this on and kickback?
0:08:47 > 0:08:50I have always been really disrespectful of vinyl that I owned.
0:08:50 > 0:08:52I know this is going to annoy you men,
0:08:52 > 0:08:55but there was no system, there was no order.
0:08:55 > 0:08:58A lot of things didn't even get put back in sleeves.
0:08:58 > 0:09:01DAVID GASPS
0:08:59 > 0:09:01Look at that. There you go.
0:09:01 > 0:09:03Jam, mascara, you know!
0:09:03 > 0:09:06The hollow laugh you heard from south London is you suggesting
0:09:06 > 0:09:10I have order in my system! That was my wife coming aboard there.
0:09:10 > 0:09:11There was no discretion.
0:09:11 > 0:09:14It was like, I could listen to Man Who Sold The World,
0:09:14 > 0:09:19listen to the Irish rebel songs, the showbands, listen to jazz.
0:09:19 > 0:09:23You've got a theory about why we call that pop music, haven't you?
0:09:23 > 0:09:26That most winning theory for why you call it pop music,
0:09:26 > 0:09:29I picked it up recently watching a film called The Wrecking Crew,
0:09:29 > 0:09:33about the great studio musicians of Los Angeles in the '60s.
0:09:33 > 0:09:37Carol Kaye, she talks about making a tune pop.
0:09:37 > 0:09:40The job of a session musician was to make a tune pop,
0:09:40 > 0:09:43make it work in a way that leapt off the record.
0:09:43 > 0:09:46That's far more winning a definition than talking
0:09:46 > 0:09:49about popular, but I think all these categories have been
0:09:49 > 0:09:53increasingly slavishly adhered to recently.
0:09:53 > 0:09:57I think category names are good servants and very bad masters.
0:09:57 > 0:09:59I think there is a great danger nowadays where people say, you show
0:09:59 > 0:10:02a kid a picture of a band and they can tell you what it sounds like.
0:10:02 > 0:10:05Because everybody dresses like their sound nowadays,
0:10:05 > 0:10:08whereas I bought The Monkees' "I'm A Believer" on the same day
0:10:08 > 0:10:13I bought Jimi Hendrix' "Hey Joe". It's the same world.
0:10:13 > 0:10:15I tell you, I am going to make selections for what we call
0:10:15 > 0:10:18in Phil Spector's absence, The Wall Of Sound, behind us,
0:10:18 > 0:10:21although you'll notice it doesn't make a noise.
0:10:21 > 0:10:23I'll be peppering the show with the ones I'll put there.
0:10:23 > 0:10:26At the end of the show, I'll ask you to suggest three to complete it.
0:10:26 > 0:10:30The first I'll put up could only happen with a pop album.
0:10:30 > 0:10:33I don't trust best ofs and greatest hits by rockstars
0:10:33 > 0:10:36or opera singers or anything else, but pop music can do that
0:10:36 > 0:10:40and one of the greatest is straightaway is T Rex Greatest Hits.
0:10:40 > 0:10:42It's all killer, no filler,
0:10:42 > 0:10:45and even the B-sides on here Jitterbug Love,
0:10:45 > 0:10:47songs like this, all terrific,
0:10:47 > 0:10:50so the first one for the Wall of Sound, inevitably, everyone has got
0:10:50 > 0:10:53to live up to T Rex, Greatest Hits, sitting on a real tiger, I'll bet!
0:10:53 > 0:10:57In some ways, the pop LP requires more work than any other genre.
0:10:57 > 0:11:01You can't just put out your product in an old sock and shuffle away.
0:11:01 > 0:11:06We punters wanted the whole package and you've got to sell, sell, sell!
0:11:11 > 0:11:15Pop - it's the gateway drug, before we start with the harder stuff.
0:11:15 > 0:11:18It starts with singles and if you're not careful,
0:11:18 > 0:11:20it ends up with double albums.
0:11:20 > 0:11:24It's the pop style that hooks us, their album, the sound,
0:11:24 > 0:11:26the sleeve, and yes, the smell,
0:11:26 > 0:11:29would give us even more of what we really, really wanted -
0:11:29 > 0:11:34to be part of something, something global, yet somehow, still secret.
0:11:36 > 0:11:41Oh, Ronnie! Ronnie, Ronnie Spector - beautiful, talented,
0:11:41 > 0:11:45bad girl of the Ronettes, reducing her bandmates to mere luggage,
0:11:45 > 0:11:49this was Phil Spector in full flood and before the fall.
0:11:49 > 0:11:53Just one of the Ronettes magnificent songs seemed to be an album of
0:11:53 > 0:11:57emotions in itself, or as Phil said, "a little symphony for the kids."
0:11:57 > 0:12:00MUSIC: "Get It On" by T Rex
0:12:00 > 0:12:06T Rex - pop at its best. How can something so shallow, hit so deep?
0:12:06 > 0:12:09In 1971 on Top Of The Pops, Marc Bolan went from
0:12:09 > 0:12:13gently toking on Tolkien to Little Richard reborn,
0:12:13 > 0:12:16simply by making up his face. The girls loved Bolan.
0:12:16 > 0:12:19You can't fake what Cilla's putting out there
0:12:19 > 0:12:23and the boys suddenly found their feminine sides to be fun.
0:12:23 > 0:12:26Market traders silently blessed him as they flogged glittery loon pants
0:12:26 > 0:12:29by the truckload.
0:12:31 > 0:12:32But it was Marc's pal, Elton,
0:12:32 > 0:12:35briefly a fellow foot soldier in the glam rock army -
0:12:35 > 0:12:39who graduated not just to ever more flamboyant stage clothes, but to
0:12:39 > 0:12:44even greater song writing success with Goodbye Yellow Brick Road.
0:12:44 > 0:12:46Here, was that rarest of vinyl creatures -
0:12:46 > 0:12:49a double album that worked.
0:12:49 > 0:12:53MUSIC: "Like A Virgin" by Madonna
0:12:56 > 0:12:58Sweet mother of mercy!
0:12:58 > 0:13:02This is a great pop record and from a powerhouse album.
0:13:02 > 0:13:05Madonna bringing aboard Nile Rodgers from Chic to produce,
0:13:05 > 0:13:10created a diamond encrusted bear trap of a sound and it is the sound.
0:13:10 > 0:13:15That same snaky narcotic that winds through generations of popular hits
0:13:15 > 0:13:17like a platinum thread.
0:13:19 > 0:13:23George, I suspect we're heading towards, inevitably, David Bowie
0:13:23 > 0:13:26here, but what was the first album where you thought,
0:13:26 > 0:13:30oh, it's a lifestyle too, there is more to this than just
0:13:30 > 0:13:32a bunch of tunes on an album?
0:13:32 > 0:13:36I think from the moment I discovered Bowie from my older brother,
0:13:36 > 0:13:39it was the sense of kind of, not being alone,
0:13:39 > 0:13:42not being the only person in the world that was a bit odd.
0:13:42 > 0:13:44Because when you're a kid,
0:13:44 > 0:13:47when you are gay and you are a kid in suburbia,
0:13:47 > 0:13:50other kids point out that there is something odd,
0:13:50 > 0:13:53you don't know there is anything odd about you at all.
0:13:53 > 0:13:56You don't think it's weird hanging out with girls
0:13:56 > 0:13:58and singing on the doorstep. You get told you're different
0:13:58 > 0:14:01and you're made to feel different, so when I discovered Bowie
0:14:01 > 0:14:05and Marc Bolan it was a sense of oh, there's other people that might
0:14:05 > 0:14:08be a bit like me.
0:14:08 > 0:14:11Without having a real understanding of what it is
0:14:11 > 0:14:13that's entirely wrong with you.
0:14:13 > 0:14:16Why couldn't that arrive at you then from any other way?
0:14:16 > 0:14:19I mean, would you have known that you could get it in books, films,
0:14:19 > 0:14:22- anything else? - Possibly and I know that people do.
0:14:22 > 0:14:25I know, alternatively, I remember my brother's friend, Barry,
0:14:25 > 0:14:28who was a Status Quo fan, I mean, I fell in love with him
0:14:28 > 0:14:29- and listened to Paper Plane. - Well done!
0:14:29 > 0:14:32GEORGE LAUGHS
0:14:32 > 0:14:36It was just, music was a kind of fantasy realm,
0:14:36 > 0:14:41it was out of reach, whereas nowadays, it is everywhere.
0:14:41 > 0:14:44Lift up your shoes and someone is doing a gig.
0:14:44 > 0:14:46Then, it was like, you know,
0:14:46 > 0:14:50so out of your reach and so other worldly, do you know what I mean?
0:14:50 > 0:14:51But it took that jump, though,
0:14:51 > 0:14:54from being a happy-go-lucky pop picker
0:14:54 > 0:14:58and buying singles to suddenly thinking, no, I want the album,
0:14:58 > 0:15:01I want to buy into what this person is putting out.
0:15:01 > 0:15:03Who was it for you, Grace, that you actually thought
0:15:03 > 0:15:06I'll look like that, dress like that, follow that, was there anyone?
0:15:06 > 0:15:10I didn't want to look and dress like that but completely infatuated
0:15:10 > 0:15:12- with Adam Ant.- Oh, yeah!
0:15:12 > 0:15:16I have an older brother who's ten years older than me
0:15:16 > 0:15:19and Dirk Wears White Sox was in the house, the album,
0:15:19 > 0:15:21and then Kings of the Wild Frontier,
0:15:21 > 0:15:24but that by the time it had turned into the Prince Charming part,
0:15:24 > 0:15:27well, the nation was in love with him, you know, the whole...
0:15:27 > 0:15:33- All that...we all know what I mean. - We know exactly! Just do that!
0:15:33 > 0:15:37I think by that point, because, I mean, I was a young girl,
0:15:37 > 0:15:42and he is incredibly beautiful, but also very female,
0:15:42 > 0:15:44so it was all a bit confusing,
0:15:44 > 0:15:50and also, from early on, you can see that, you know...
0:15:50 > 0:15:54..I always knew that I was not entirely normal in Carlisle
0:15:54 > 0:16:00- and he was...- What do you mean by that because George's sexuality...
0:16:00 > 0:16:05- and that otherness. What do you mean?- I wanted out.
0:16:05 > 0:16:09From when I was that big, I wanted out of Carlisle.
0:16:09 > 0:16:12I love Carlisle, it's a lovely place, but I wanted to be here,
0:16:12 > 0:16:16- I wanted to be sitting on this seat. - Where did you think...
0:16:16 > 0:16:19Where did you think the pop world was? Where did you think that was?
0:16:19 > 0:16:22- It was in London where Smash Hits was.- Oh!- Well!
0:16:22 > 0:16:27I wanted to be chatting to him and sitting with him.
0:16:27 > 0:16:29The bohemian lifestyle, the bohemian lifestyle!
0:16:29 > 0:16:32I always imagined, like Bowie eating space food
0:16:32 > 0:16:35and getting visits from Steve Priest from The Sweet, bringing him gifts.
0:16:35 > 0:16:37It was quite biblical in my mind.
0:16:37 > 0:16:41I was so shocked when I found out he wrote Life On Mars on a bus
0:16:41 > 0:16:44going to Lewisham to buy a shirt, he didn't do things like that.
0:16:44 > 0:16:46- Yes, he did.- Of course not.
0:16:46 > 0:16:49Someone said to me the other day, your life's not very rock 'n' roll.
0:16:49 > 0:16:52I was talking about something I could. I was, that's a myth!
0:16:52 > 0:16:56But it is good to kind of, encourage the myth sometimes.
0:16:56 > 0:16:59David, have you ever been a slavish follower,
0:16:59 > 0:17:02absolutely consumed by what a pop album was offering?
0:17:02 > 0:17:07I remember in my later teens, people like Bob Dylan
0:17:07 > 0:17:11and Paul Simon and suddenly, I was in the sixth form,
0:17:11 > 0:17:14I was not extraordinary, I was really normal,
0:17:14 > 0:17:17straight down the line.
0:17:17 > 0:17:20But I wanted to pursue this interest in pop music as I got older.
0:17:20 > 0:17:23The thing that was happening at the time, '66, '67, '68,
0:17:23 > 0:17:26was the music seemed to be getting slightly older,
0:17:26 > 0:17:28it seemed to be about things
0:17:28 > 0:17:32and so you could sell it to yourself as being partly educational
0:17:32 > 0:17:35and it's no exaggeration to say I learned a huge amount about
0:17:35 > 0:17:39the world and American history from the records of Paul Simon.
0:17:39 > 0:17:43- Those albums.- Now, people can't even compute Paul Simon as pop.
0:17:43 > 0:17:48They would say, Paul Simon, he is a poet, a legend, and he's a monolith.
0:17:48 > 0:17:51Actually, knocking out songs like Cecilia and that,
0:17:51 > 0:17:55and Bridge Over Troubled Water is 100% a pop album.
0:17:55 > 0:17:59He's written more pop hits than just about anyone else in popular music.
0:17:59 > 0:18:02I heard about Dylan through Bowie, Robert Zimmerman,
0:18:02 > 0:18:06- Song for Bob Dylan. - You went sideways, didn't you?
0:18:06 > 0:18:10You do discover people, also Lou Reed I discovered through Bowie.
0:18:10 > 0:18:13It's easy to beat past generations of pop with a stick, which is
0:18:13 > 0:18:17apparently what should happen, but people forget that pop wasn't
0:18:17 > 0:18:21the culture, it was a subculture and it wasn't on adverts, etc, etc.
0:18:21 > 0:18:25Even the biggest and brightest of Bowie, it was a bit of a battle,
0:18:25 > 0:18:28but I think that's half the attraction of it.
0:18:28 > 0:18:33You had Sunday night with the charts which you'd sit with Radio One,
0:18:33 > 0:18:36you had Smash Hits, for me, this is it.
0:18:36 > 0:18:38You had Top Of The Pops, if you could get it
0:18:38 > 0:18:41and then you had WH Smiths and Woolworths.
0:18:41 > 0:18:44As a boy, you weren't allowed to...
0:18:44 > 0:18:48Jackie was like, you borrowed it off your girlfriends
0:18:48 > 0:18:51- because you really weren't allowed to buy Jackie!- Yeah.- Or My Guy!
0:18:51 > 0:18:56- Things like that!- There was Fab 208 and all of those, etc.
0:18:56 > 0:18:58And just putting T Rex up there,
0:18:58 > 0:19:01because a greatest hits is legitimate in pop,
0:19:01 > 0:19:05equally the compilation album, you know, you could get those
0:19:05 > 0:19:09super hits ones and they were a bit naff and all of that,
0:19:09 > 0:19:10those 25 tracks aside,
0:19:10 > 0:19:14pop music is the only thing that allows you to skip from one genre
0:19:14 > 0:19:17to another, so you go from Guys and Dolls, I don't know,
0:19:17 > 0:19:21into, whisper it, Gary Glitter, into something else etc.
0:19:21 > 0:19:23Those compilation albums were absolutely legitimate.
0:19:23 > 0:19:26I think you all have a very different attitude
0:19:26 > 0:19:28and feeling for T Rex than I do,
0:19:28 > 0:19:31because you all see, kind of, a great depth in it
0:19:31 > 0:19:34and there is something there that's not there for me,
0:19:34 > 0:19:38- because to me that's just a party album.- No, no, it's not great depth.
0:19:38 > 0:19:43- I disagree, I disagree. - Half the idea is terrific fun.
0:19:43 > 0:19:45There was Marc Bolan,
0:19:45 > 0:19:48who had been a pillar of the underground, suddenly said,
0:19:48 > 0:19:51you know what, I'm singing a whop-bop-aloo-bop
0:19:51 > 0:19:53and he just turned it round.
0:19:53 > 0:19:56I don't know, I think there was depth, I mean, Cosmic Dancer,
0:19:56 > 0:20:00you know, "what's it like to be a loon, I liken it to a balloon",
0:20:00 > 0:20:03there's great depth in T Rex. I think you're absolutely wrong.
0:20:03 > 0:20:06I wonder whether we have the same view,
0:20:06 > 0:20:09you feel like that about him as I do about Adam Ant.
0:20:09 > 0:20:11I love Adam Ant as well.
0:20:11 > 0:20:14I watched him play last year doing an acoustic version of
0:20:14 > 0:20:17You're So Physical and it was like watching Marc Bolan.
0:20:17 > 0:20:20I was like, wow, he's such a rock star.
0:20:20 > 0:20:21We're a heartbeat away from me
0:20:21 > 0:20:25telling my Marc Bolan shirt story again. Can we calm down!
0:20:25 > 0:20:28For something so seemingly shallow and throwaway,
0:20:28 > 0:20:31pop can really pack a punch and often it's a wounding
0:20:31 > 0:20:34stiletto aimed straight at your teenage heart.
0:20:37 > 0:20:39# Billy-Ray was a preacher's son
0:20:39 > 0:20:42# And when his daddy would visit he'd come along... #
0:20:42 > 0:20:45I always wanted to marry Dusty Springfield but I was only nine
0:20:45 > 0:20:47and anyway nature wasn't listening.
0:20:47 > 0:20:50In the 1960s and '70s pop music may have gone through a seismic
0:20:50 > 0:20:53revolution but love remained its engine,
0:20:53 > 0:20:56love between the singer and their chosen object of desire or,
0:20:56 > 0:20:59best of all, between the singer and you.
0:20:59 > 0:21:01A three-minute dirty secret.
0:21:02 > 0:21:07The sexual revolution meant songs got more risque, productions got
0:21:07 > 0:21:11lusher, more swelling with the strings, clever harmonies.
0:21:11 > 0:21:16# I've been crying over you... #
0:21:16 > 0:21:20And weeping wasn't just for the girls, Roy Orbison,
0:21:20 > 0:21:23as sweet a vocalist as you'd hope to hear.
0:21:23 > 0:21:27We believed at the time he hid his tears behind those shades.
0:21:27 > 0:21:30# Touch me in the morning... #
0:21:30 > 0:21:34Some performers could make love seem smooth,
0:21:34 > 0:21:37sultry and, for the younger fan, grown-up.
0:21:37 > 0:21:40Producing herself for the first time, Diana Ross continued to
0:21:40 > 0:21:45leave us yearning with her second solo album, Touch Me In The Morning.
0:21:45 > 0:21:47# I can't live
0:21:49 > 0:21:52# If living is without you... #
0:21:52 > 0:21:54And the heartbreak could be big,
0:21:54 > 0:22:00orchestra big, with sweeping vocals and industrial strength anguish.
0:22:00 > 0:22:04Without you, arguably the first ever power ballad was the emotional
0:22:04 > 0:22:08peak of Harry Nilsson's terrific Nilsson Schmilsson.
0:22:08 > 0:22:12# Talking to myself and feeling old... #
0:22:14 > 0:22:17Then there was the Carpenters' ethereal third album,
0:22:17 > 0:22:19so fragile, so rarefied
0:22:19 > 0:22:24that it felt like love would simply blow away on a wind of heartbreak.
0:22:24 > 0:22:26# Nothing to do but frown
0:22:27 > 0:22:30# Rainy days and Mondays always get me down. #
0:22:31 > 0:22:33Sometimes you just want to belt up and play the record.
0:22:33 > 0:22:36I don't know what we're doing here!
0:22:36 > 0:22:39Grace, not suggesting for a second anyone's ever stood you up,
0:22:39 > 0:22:43dumped you or sent you a Dear John/Jeannette letter.
0:22:43 > 0:22:48Do you have a go-to heartbreak album, even if you want to make yourself feel sad?
0:22:48 > 0:22:51Um, yes, definitely.
0:22:51 > 0:22:54But I would say some of them are so effective it's almost as
0:22:54 > 0:22:56if you have to ban yourself because you don't...
0:22:56 > 0:22:59that's the beauty of an album, you can be there for 10 tracks
0:22:59 > 0:23:04drinking the supermarket-brand vodka just pushing yourself to the limit.
0:23:04 > 0:23:07I would say Kate Bush. Anything by Kate Bush.
0:23:07 > 0:23:10The Hounds Of Love, possibly.
0:23:10 > 0:23:14Is that because it reminds you of a break-up or you...
0:23:14 > 0:23:16forcing the emotion I am all for.
0:23:16 > 0:23:18I think affecting emotion is a terrific thing to do.
0:23:19 > 0:23:23But sometimes an album can be like... it's like blood-letting,
0:23:23 > 0:23:25you know you can go there.
0:23:25 > 0:23:28There's stuff by Stevie Nicks I will go to
0:23:28 > 0:23:33and I know it will provoke reaction but Kate Bush,
0:23:33 > 0:23:38even her big pop singles and things that go through her albums,
0:23:38 > 0:23:41they are extraordinarily moving,
0:23:41 > 0:23:44deep themes about losing someone,
0:23:44 > 0:23:46unrequited love,
0:23:46 > 0:23:49making yourself more beautiful for someone who doesn't want you any more.
0:23:49 > 0:23:51These are all big sad...
0:23:51 > 0:23:54Considering she was 16 when she was penning some of them.
0:23:54 > 0:23:59A wonderful line in Love and Death by Annie Hall which sums up that -
0:23:59 > 0:24:04Diane Keaton delivers it - "I never want to get married, I just want to get divorced."
0:24:04 > 0:24:09There's that forcing of emotion. David, you strike me as not the most emotional man I've ever met but...
0:24:09 > 0:24:11You'd be surprised.
0:24:11 > 0:24:13I think pop albums were used as a way of rehearsing
0:24:13 > 0:24:16emotions for yourself.
0:24:16 > 0:24:23And so I could still go back to Scott Walker's first solo album
0:24:23 > 0:24:27and put it on and I could go back into the mindset I had
0:24:27 > 0:24:30when I was 18 when something had gone wrong with a girl
0:24:30 > 0:24:35and you listen to the record and it was full of Jacques Brel songs about death
0:24:35 > 0:24:40and Jacky and Mathilda and you think if only I could respond to romantic
0:24:40 > 0:24:45disappointments as magnificently as this character does.
0:24:45 > 0:24:48And they were a way of learning bits about life.
0:24:48 > 0:24:50And that was one of the ways you did them.
0:24:50 > 0:24:53We didn't read romantic novels. We didn't see romantic films.
0:24:53 > 0:24:56It was largely through albums we did that.
0:24:56 > 0:24:59George, albums where you wish you could feel about someone
0:24:59 > 0:25:02- felt about me like that? - No, I have no problem crying!
0:25:02 > 0:25:06There are many many songs from the Beautiful Ones by Prince,
0:25:06 > 0:25:09that's a big one if I'm really having a bad time.
0:25:09 > 0:25:13Is it him or is it me? Sara by Bob Dylan.
0:25:13 > 0:25:17Please forgive me, my unworthiness...
0:25:17 > 0:25:20But sometimes I think it doesn't have to be, even though
0:25:20 > 0:25:23its most delicious perhaps if you are thinking about an obscure object of desire,
0:25:23 > 0:25:27but Gilbert O'Sullivan, who has been resurrected quite rightly
0:25:27 > 0:25:32and his albums had something like Alone Again (Naturally) which
0:25:32 > 0:25:35deals with desolation, old age and death
0:25:35 > 0:25:38and when you're 15 and hearing... "Looking back over the years whatever
0:25:38 > 0:25:40"else that appears, I remember I cried when my father died,
0:25:40 > 0:25:44"never wishing to hide the tears and at 65 years old my mother,
0:25:44 > 0:25:46"God rest her soul, couldn't understand why the only man
0:25:46 > 0:25:50"she'd ever loved had been taken leaving her to start with a heart so
0:25:50 > 0:25:53"badly broken despite encouragement from me no words were ever spoken.
0:25:53 > 0:25:58"And when she passed away I cried and cried all day alone again, naturally."
0:25:58 > 0:26:00I'm 14 and hearing that.
0:26:00 > 0:26:05And now I see myself at 14 and think, wow, oh,
0:26:05 > 0:26:08is that pop music or poetry or just genius?
0:26:08 > 0:26:12It's also the fact these things are imprinted on you cos you've listened to
0:26:12 > 0:26:16them so many times so when something comes along in your life...
0:26:16 > 0:26:1914, jilted and...
0:26:19 > 0:26:21You learn it first and then understand it years later.
0:26:21 > 0:26:23It's good to know, isn't it?!
0:26:23 > 0:26:24LAUGHTER
0:26:24 > 0:26:29There is a set of albums in my house that I love but I can't go to,
0:26:29 > 0:26:33I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got by Sinead O'Connor,
0:26:33 > 0:26:36- Little Earthquakes by Tori Amos. - Why can't you go to them?
0:26:36 > 0:26:39Because they remind me of a time...
0:26:39 > 0:26:44stuff by Suzanne Vega from when I was 14
0:26:44 > 0:26:47and I was going out with somebody who probably said he didn't want
0:26:47 > 0:26:50to see me any more because he didn't want a relationship.
0:26:50 > 0:26:53- Then I saw him with Julie Arragon! - < It's always her!
0:26:53 > 0:26:58And forgive the cliche, as somebody who pulls no punches and waspish...
0:26:58 > 0:27:00It's something about when you see even a casual remark
0:27:00 > 0:27:03in a Sunday supplement badmouthing a record you really love.
0:27:03 > 0:27:05Nothing is a call to arms more than that.
0:27:06 > 0:27:08If you suddenly saw a piece by me saying,
0:27:08 > 0:27:11"What a waste of time Tori Amos is," nothing makes you...
0:27:11 > 0:27:15Even beyond, for me, football or anything else, I go into battle.
0:27:15 > 0:27:18One of the worst things you can say as a writer,
0:27:18 > 0:27:21that will rile people up, is to take something that they love
0:27:21 > 0:27:25- and say, "You only like that because it's cool." People go mad.- I know.
0:27:25 > 0:27:29- You're going to get green felt tip. - Morrissey's take on love as well,
0:27:29 > 0:27:32- like Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me. - I was going to say that.
0:27:32 > 0:27:34You know, "if a ten-ton truck kills the both of us".
0:27:34 > 0:27:37That really speaks to me when I'm feeling sad.
0:27:37 > 0:27:41The whole of The Queen Is Dead is just this whole album
0:27:41 > 0:27:44and anthem to loneliness. Public loneliness, isn't it?
0:27:44 > 0:27:46But the music itself, we're dealing with the lyrics,
0:27:46 > 0:27:48and when that piece came on earlier on,
0:27:48 > 0:27:49Wee Small Hours by Sinatra,
0:27:49 > 0:27:52just that little glockenspiel and violins,
0:27:52 > 0:27:55that somehow is a deep speaking to deep, you just think,
0:27:55 > 0:27:56"I'm in a great mood,
0:27:56 > 0:27:59"but I'm willing to just indulge myself in this."
0:27:59 > 0:28:03There's something in the actual series of notes, of course,
0:28:03 > 0:28:05especially in pop, they can do it in three minutes,
0:28:05 > 0:28:07and say, "I'm going to break my heart before this is over,
0:28:07 > 0:28:10"even though it's a lovely sunny day in New York."
0:28:10 > 0:28:12Do you not worry about the neighbours, that they can hear,
0:28:12 > 0:28:15that they know that it's that album that you've got out again?
0:28:15 > 0:28:17I once lived beside someone who would always play
0:28:17 > 0:28:21an Elkie Brooks album at about 11:30 at night.
0:28:21 > 0:28:24I would suddenly hear him singing along to No More The Fool,
0:28:24 > 0:28:28and I was like, "Oh, God, mate, she's not coming back!"
0:28:28 > 0:28:31One of the more successful phone-ins I've ever done on the radio
0:28:31 > 0:28:33was asking people to call in
0:28:33 > 0:28:38on the subject "My neighbours apparently only have one record."
0:28:38 > 0:28:41And there was plenty in there. I'm going to lighten it up now.
0:28:41 > 0:28:45Sometimes with pop music you can't see the wood for the trees.
0:28:45 > 0:28:46You take things for granted,
0:28:46 > 0:28:49until you get a few years under the belt and you think, wow.
0:28:49 > 0:28:52Some people just put out pop album after pop album after pop album,
0:28:52 > 0:28:54but because it's pop, it's overlooked.
0:28:54 > 0:28:56One of those people is Elton John.
0:28:56 > 0:28:58People think "silly old Elton," you know, but an album like this
0:28:58 > 0:29:02is faultless. It is absolutely beautiful.
0:29:02 > 0:29:05Even the stuff that could have been released as singles and weren't
0:29:05 > 0:29:06it's almost of a single piece.
0:29:06 > 0:29:09It's got hits on it, it's got tunes on it, brilliant arrangements.
0:29:09 > 0:29:13Elton John's Captain Fantastic And The Brown Dirt Cowboy.
0:29:13 > 0:29:16From a period when he was selling 2% of all records in the world.
0:29:16 > 0:29:17That's a fact.
0:29:17 > 0:29:20Can you remember how he unveiled that record?
0:29:20 > 0:29:21Did he unveil it?
0:29:21 > 0:29:25He played the whole thing in sequence at Wembley Stadium,
0:29:25 > 0:29:26- and I was there.- Was you?
0:29:26 > 0:29:29Nothing makes my heart sink like when somebody says,
0:29:29 > 0:29:31"Now I'm going to play some new songs!"
0:29:31 > 0:29:34Unlike other forms of album, pop is not allowed to intrigue,
0:29:34 > 0:29:36suggest or grow on you.
0:29:36 > 0:29:40It has to be immediate, finished and fully formed from the world go.
0:29:40 > 0:29:43Pop is a fantastic, insistent, glittery salesman,
0:29:43 > 0:29:45and what it's selling you is your own life.
0:29:51 > 0:29:54Great pop touches everyone. And those that it doesn't
0:29:54 > 0:29:57should be thrashed with a rolled-up copy of Smash Hits.
0:29:57 > 0:29:59Great pop can't be planned, either.
0:29:59 > 0:30:02It's just down to some crazed alchemy.
0:30:02 > 0:30:07Just the sight of that album cover, or a few bars of, I don't know,
0:30:07 > 0:30:12track four, side two, can take you to some magnificent moment in time.
0:30:12 > 0:30:15Some say such majesty as this is melodramatic.
0:30:15 > 0:30:20But these people have pea-sized souls. Just listen to Art's voice.
0:30:20 > 0:30:22That's not normal.
0:30:22 > 0:30:26Suddenly it's 1970 again.
0:30:26 > 0:30:29'60s folk is but a memory, Simon and Garfunkel
0:30:29 > 0:30:32have consecrated a new cathedral in sound.
0:30:32 > 0:30:34Thanks, Melody Maker.
0:30:39 > 0:30:40Then there's reggae.
0:30:40 > 0:30:43In the 60s, Trojan Records' Tighten Up compilations
0:30:43 > 0:30:47saw a generation swing a non-stop Sta-Prest leg.
0:30:47 > 0:30:51By 1977, reggae too had grown up, got roots.
0:30:51 > 0:30:55Bob Marley became an international star on the back of Exodus.
0:30:55 > 0:30:59Roots reggae as pop music as Proustian rush.
0:31:01 > 0:31:05Sometimes, though, you just want to escape with a pop narcotic,
0:31:05 > 0:31:08an album that will offer you an instantaneous, fleeting pop high.
0:31:10 > 0:31:13And the pop audience remains insatiable.
0:31:13 > 0:31:16Few of those can keep their hits a-coming like Abba.
0:31:16 > 0:31:20Benny, Bjorn, Agnetha and Meryl.
0:31:20 > 0:31:22The album, Arrival.
0:31:22 > 0:31:26Money, Money, Money, Knowing Me, Knowing You, Dancing Queen.
0:31:26 > 0:31:27That is a song cycle.
0:31:27 > 0:31:31# Having the time of your life.... #
0:31:31 > 0:31:35# I know a girl from a lonely street... #
0:31:35 > 0:31:39Blondie's Parallel Lines - so-called because it drives along
0:31:39 > 0:31:42like some shiny bullet-proof locomotive
0:31:42 > 0:31:45from the moment the needle hits the groove.
0:31:45 > 0:31:48# ..Hey, I saw your guy with a different girl... #
0:31:48 > 0:31:51The more I think about it and the more I see of it, it is,
0:31:51 > 0:31:56to quote The Sound Of Music, like trying to nail a wave upon the sand.
0:31:56 > 0:31:58Pop music, you can hear reggae there,
0:31:58 > 0:32:01you hear Bridge Over Troubled Water, you got Blondie, you got Abba -
0:32:01 > 0:32:04all of the, what would otherwise be different genres
0:32:04 > 0:32:07coming together to agree they're pop music.
0:32:07 > 0:32:09So can then, is it tied to a time?
0:32:09 > 0:32:12Would you say certain pop songs are tied to a time?
0:32:12 > 0:32:15They can be evocative, but are they timeless?
0:32:15 > 0:32:17I think they are timeless. Yes.
0:32:17 > 0:32:19I find as I, you know,
0:32:19 > 0:32:22I'm going back to records that I may have bought 40 years earlier.
0:32:22 > 0:32:25I'm more likely to play again the thing that I bought
0:32:25 > 0:32:27because the record was on the radio than the thing that I bought
0:32:27 > 0:32:30because it was the cool thing to do and my mates were buying it.
0:32:30 > 0:32:32I'm more likely to play Blondie
0:32:32 > 0:32:35than I am to play Ten Years After - Stonedhenge, you know?
0:32:35 > 0:32:38I understand exactly what you mean.
0:32:38 > 0:32:41Because those things, you know, tunes, lyrics -
0:32:41 > 0:32:44those are the things that are timeless.
0:32:44 > 0:32:48- These people deserve far more respect than they get.- They do.
0:32:48 > 0:32:53George is the person here who has actually written hit records.
0:32:53 > 0:32:57You're never going to get respect for a pop album
0:32:57 > 0:32:59because it's "just" a pop album.
0:32:59 > 0:33:02As an artist, do you want to be taken seriously
0:33:02 > 0:33:05and do you think your music is particularly evocative
0:33:05 > 0:33:07- for people of an era, just? - Absolutely.
0:33:07 > 0:33:11And I think it's taken me a long time to realise what I meant,
0:33:11 > 0:33:13what we meant to people, you know.
0:33:13 > 0:33:16When you're in the thick of it you take a lot of it for granted,
0:33:16 > 0:33:19but over the years as I've travelled around the world
0:33:19 > 0:33:21to places I couldn't go to in the '80s like Argentina,
0:33:21 > 0:33:24places in South America where I wasn't allowed in,
0:33:24 > 0:33:25Russia, where I wasn't allowed,
0:33:25 > 0:33:30so may people coming up and saying, you know, "You changed my life."
0:33:30 > 0:33:32"You helped me come out."
0:33:32 > 0:33:35Transsexuals coming up to me and saying thank you.
0:33:35 > 0:33:38I'm like, "what did I do?" Just by being myself, you know?
0:33:38 > 0:33:41Let me ask you this, George.
0:33:41 > 0:33:44As someone who had, you know, regular on Top Of The Pops
0:33:44 > 0:33:46and the joy of seeing a number one record around the world,
0:33:46 > 0:33:48did you actually want to make pop albums?
0:33:48 > 0:33:50Were you quite happy doing singles?
0:33:50 > 0:33:52Did you have anything to say by saying, "here is a pop album"?
0:33:52 > 0:33:56I think when I started in music I just wanted to be Bowie.
0:33:56 > 0:34:00I had this idea of myself as kind of dangerously weird,
0:34:00 > 0:34:03on the edge, lock up your sons. And then I started this band
0:34:03 > 0:34:05with three other people and they changed.
0:34:05 > 0:34:07We were a goth band. We were like doing goth.
0:34:07 > 0:34:09- Were you?- Yeah!
0:34:09 > 0:34:12We had this song about dying amid applause, you know.
0:34:12 > 0:34:15We were originally called In Praise Of Lemmings.
0:34:15 > 0:34:18- Were you?!- That was the first name. - Why did you change?!
0:34:18 > 0:34:21And John Moss came along and went, "Nah, no-one's going to like that."
0:34:21 > 0:34:24Then we were called The Sex Gang Children, and John said,
0:34:24 > 0:34:27"No-one is going to buy a record by The Sex Gang Children."
0:34:27 > 0:34:30So I gave it to my mate Andy and they became The Sex Gang Children.
0:34:30 > 0:34:32And we became Culture Club.
0:34:32 > 0:34:35And it's just, whatever intentions you start out with, you know,
0:34:35 > 0:34:38they can be the best in the world, but they get changed.
0:34:38 > 0:34:41Just looking like that as well, again, forgive me,
0:34:41 > 0:34:43but people say, "Oh, the '80s, Culture Club in the '80s."
0:34:43 > 0:34:46You weren't of course aware, "Here I am making an '80s album."
0:34:46 > 0:34:48Oh, no. And I have to say when people come up
0:34:48 > 0:34:50and say, "you're from my era,"
0:34:50 > 0:34:54I say, "No, no, I'm still here! You are as well!"
0:34:54 > 0:34:59I mean, I have a lot of... kind of respect for the past,
0:34:59 > 0:35:03but I'm not someone who's interested in wallowing in the past.
0:35:03 > 0:35:05I think the past is great, but it's over.
0:35:05 > 0:35:06And yet it would be hypocritical
0:35:06 > 0:35:08if you went to see one of your favourite artists
0:35:08 > 0:35:11if they didn't play the album from years ago.
0:35:11 > 0:35:14Oh, I always play the old songs, always have. Always, always have.
0:35:14 > 0:35:18You always have to be careful not to kind of torture people with...
0:35:18 > 0:35:21You've got to place things properly when you do a show.
0:35:21 > 0:35:23When I go and see Prince, I want to hear things I know.
0:35:23 > 0:35:25When I go and see Bowie, I want to hear things I know.
0:35:25 > 0:35:27So I understand how it works, you know.
0:35:27 > 0:35:31Grace, how much then is, you know, remembrance of things past,
0:35:31 > 0:35:33as they say, in an album?
0:35:33 > 0:35:35Is it a hard sell if you try to say to somebody,
0:35:35 > 0:35:39"This is a great album," but they haven't got the context of it?
0:35:39 > 0:35:42Do you know, I think it perhaps is.
0:35:42 > 0:35:44Especially if something really means something to you,
0:35:44 > 0:35:48something like The Queen Is Dead by the Smiths,
0:35:48 > 0:35:51which to me is me, 13 years old,
0:35:51 > 0:35:54sitting in a back bedroom
0:35:54 > 0:35:57and suddenly having this kind of beautiful slice
0:35:57 > 0:35:59of another north-west weirdo
0:35:59 > 0:36:01talking about feeling like an outsider
0:36:01 > 0:36:05and being, you know, being unsuccessful
0:36:05 > 0:36:08at making wonderful relationships with...
0:36:08 > 0:36:12Well, men, women, what was Morrissey doing then?
0:36:12 > 0:36:15However, I think if you give it to somebody now, they just go,
0:36:15 > 0:36:18"It's just the Smiths."
0:36:18 > 0:36:19If they didn't know the Smiths,
0:36:19 > 0:36:22that's just another slice of their misery, if they weren't into it.
0:36:22 > 0:36:25But you know, it's something that was very much of that time,
0:36:25 > 0:36:29that kind of him popping up on Top Of The Pops.
0:36:29 > 0:36:30I think the Smiths are...
0:36:30 > 0:36:33I'm a huge Morrissey fan, I'm a Smiths fan,
0:36:33 > 0:36:35and I think the Smiths really divide people.
0:36:35 > 0:36:37My musician friends, I have rows with them
0:36:37 > 0:36:41because they say, "Oh, well, it's not melodic, it's not intelligent."
0:36:41 > 0:36:44I'm like, "Aaah!" I mean, I just...
0:36:44 > 0:36:47It's one of those groups that you will fight with people over.
0:36:47 > 0:36:52"How can you say...?" It's so genius. It's so clever.
0:36:52 > 0:36:55David, if you've got, as they say, this context thing,
0:36:55 > 0:36:58especially now when music has exploded
0:36:58 > 0:37:01and become to some extent worthless,
0:37:01 > 0:37:04is the context absolutely crucial?
0:37:04 > 0:37:07If you're going to say to someone, "This is a great album,"
0:37:07 > 0:37:10- they may say, "Come off it, Grandad".- I think stuff lives.
0:37:10 > 0:37:13I got a remainder of this at the closing ceremony of the Olympics,
0:37:13 > 0:37:16when The Who turned up and did Baba O'Riley.
0:37:16 > 0:37:19I thought, "Why are they doing a track that was never known
0:37:19 > 0:37:21"as a hit single? Whatever."
0:37:21 > 0:37:23And of course people told me it was
0:37:23 > 0:37:26because it's widely used on American TV shows.
0:37:26 > 0:37:28And so this music nowadays,
0:37:28 > 0:37:31and this must apply to George's music as well, just lives for ever.
0:37:31 > 0:37:33It's going round and round.
0:37:33 > 0:37:36And so a 16-year-old nowadays listening to George's record
0:37:36 > 0:37:38doesn't place it in the 1980s.
0:37:38 > 0:37:41It could be now or it could be the 1960s. They've no idea at all.
0:37:41 > 0:37:45But I think trying to sell the concept of listening to an album
0:37:45 > 0:37:49to 16-year-old, it is quite difficult anyway.
0:37:49 > 0:37:52I think that younger people now, they are used to
0:37:52 > 0:37:54kind of two singles and being a bit short-changed.
0:37:54 > 0:37:56- The remote control generation.- Yeah.
0:37:56 > 0:37:59Pop is synonymous with the new.
0:37:59 > 0:38:02"Tomorrow's sound right now" is the message.
0:38:02 > 0:38:04More often than not, though, it's just last year's model
0:38:04 > 0:38:06with a new wig and hairspray.
0:38:06 > 0:38:09Sometimes, though, something genuinely, shockingly new appears,
0:38:09 > 0:38:12as if you never knew pop at all.
0:38:13 > 0:38:17MUSIC: "This Town Ain't Big Enough For The Both Of Us" by Sparks
0:38:19 > 0:38:22Every now and then, a pop act comes along and you think,
0:38:22 > 0:38:26"Hold on, hold on. Where has this come from?"
0:38:26 > 0:38:28Despite being inherently mainstream,
0:38:28 > 0:38:32sometimes the forces of pop conservatism takes 40 winks,
0:38:32 > 0:38:35and that's when the left-field loonies storm the barricades.
0:38:35 > 0:38:37They get swept up in the moment,
0:38:37 > 0:38:41and allowed at last the attention the talent actually deserves.
0:38:41 > 0:38:45And if you have a wonky worldview or live in a parallel universe,
0:38:45 > 0:38:49you need space to stretch out. You need an album.
0:38:49 > 0:38:52MUSIC: "Ladytron" by Roxy Music
0:38:54 > 0:38:56Reaching beyond glam
0:38:56 > 0:38:58and smuggling in bits from what we can still call Krautrock,
0:38:58 > 0:39:04Roxy Music's debut album, released in 1972, was utterly original.
0:39:04 > 0:39:09And by taking their underground proto-electric explosion overground,
0:39:09 > 0:39:12they offered us something blindingly new.
0:39:12 > 0:39:15Yes, it was pop, but not like anyone had known it.
0:39:15 > 0:39:18MUSIC: "Autobahn" by Kraftwerk
0:39:27 > 0:39:33'Kraftwerk have a name for this. It's machine music. This is Autobahn.
0:39:33 > 0:39:36'Based, say the group, on the rhythm of trucks, cars and passing bridges
0:39:36 > 0:39:38'heard while driving through Germany.'
0:39:39 > 0:39:43It was the Tomorrow's World programme who first introduced us
0:39:43 > 0:39:45to what appeared to be a group of accountants
0:39:45 > 0:39:46fiddling with synthesisers
0:39:46 > 0:39:49and trying to recreate the impression of a journey
0:39:49 > 0:39:51on a German motorway.
0:39:51 > 0:39:55Everyone loved it, and in 1974, Kraftwerk's Autobahn album
0:39:55 > 0:39:59sped ahead to leave everyone else stuck on the pop hard shoulder.
0:39:59 > 0:40:02MUSIC: "Babooshka" by Kate Bush
0:40:04 > 0:40:07Kate Bush's 1980 album Never For Ever
0:40:07 > 0:40:11opened with a multi-octave song, A Wife's Paranoia,
0:40:11 > 0:40:15then moved on to a tribute to a turn-of-the-century composer,
0:40:15 > 0:40:19and ended with a song about a foetus worried about a nuclear war.
0:40:19 > 0:40:20It went straight to number one
0:40:20 > 0:40:23and it was the first album by a female solo artist
0:40:23 > 0:40:26ever to enter the charts right at the top.
0:40:26 > 0:40:29Like they say, just give them what they want
0:40:29 > 0:40:31when they don't know they want it.
0:40:34 > 0:40:36One or two still surprising looks in there.
0:40:36 > 0:40:38Obviously, Bowie is a given.
0:40:38 > 0:40:42But has anybody else, and away from, if I can,
0:40:42 > 0:40:46what it meant to you personally and sexually and all that,
0:40:46 > 0:40:48are you continually surprised in pop
0:40:48 > 0:40:50when people arrive and think, "That's new!"
0:40:50 > 0:40:54Is it possible that something can still leave you thinking "wow!"?
0:40:54 > 0:40:56I think it's different now.
0:40:56 > 0:41:00You know, these days it's whether the kind of music excites me,
0:41:00 > 0:41:02and whether it feels real.
0:41:02 > 0:41:05You know, cos a lot of pop music today feels like
0:41:05 > 0:41:10it's really been kind of designed and really thought about,
0:41:10 > 0:41:14and I think some people still make it look effortless.
0:41:14 > 0:41:17Although I can't think of any in particular right now!
0:41:17 > 0:41:19Coughs, points at his own chest.
0:41:19 > 0:41:24I just feel like, I don't know, it's just whether you believe the person.
0:41:24 > 0:41:27Then looking at it from the other end of the telescope,
0:41:27 > 0:41:30we can say Roxy Music and Kate Bush and all these people arrived
0:41:30 > 0:41:32and we went, "Wow, where did that come from?"
0:41:32 > 0:41:34Can that happen again? Have we exhausted the seam?
0:41:34 > 0:41:36No, I think it does happen all the time.
0:41:36 > 0:41:39I think there are great records being made all the time.
0:41:39 > 0:41:41But I think you have to look harder now.
0:41:41 > 0:41:44I think the mainstream is very formulaic now.
0:41:44 > 0:41:47Everyone sounds like someone else. This is the new this person,
0:41:47 > 0:41:49and the other person's only been around two weeks.
0:41:49 > 0:41:52And it's the new, you know, Ellie Goulding or the new this.
0:41:52 > 0:41:56And I think the Internet is really the great place to find new things.
0:41:56 > 0:41:58It never seems very visual, though.
0:41:58 > 0:42:00It don't seem like that physical thing.
0:42:00 > 0:42:02And I know it sounds romantic and nostalgic,
0:42:02 > 0:42:04but the physical thing, the commitment to
0:42:04 > 0:42:08getting on a bus, going to, remember record shops, getting something,
0:42:08 > 0:42:11taking it home, then sitting indoors as you were saying earlier on.
0:42:11 > 0:42:15It's that commitment. Grace, what was the shock of the new for you?
0:42:15 > 0:42:17The very first time you thought, "Wow! What is that?"
0:42:17 > 0:42:20- Or does it happen repeatedly? - It happens repeatedly.
0:42:20 > 0:42:23I can still remember the first time I set eyes on you.
0:42:25 > 0:42:29You know, like, the sign of a good experience like that
0:42:29 > 0:42:33is when it almost causes a violent reaction in your living room.
0:42:33 > 0:42:35Because you've got generations watching together
0:42:35 > 0:42:38actually becoming angry at each other,
0:42:38 > 0:42:40because one person is loving it
0:42:40 > 0:42:42and the other person is asking too many questions,
0:42:42 > 0:42:45and somebody's finding it kind of morally wrong,
0:42:45 > 0:42:48and it's all kind of kicking off, so, yeah.
0:42:48 > 0:42:50So George, when you were most extreme,
0:42:50 > 0:42:54or even when you first came on it, was it disheartening to find everyone
0:42:54 > 0:42:56who bought your albums and stuff dressed exactly the same as you?
0:42:56 > 0:42:59- That's not quite the point, is it?- No, no.
0:42:59 > 0:43:01What was interesting was when we got on Top Of The Pops,
0:43:01 > 0:43:03we got on Top Of The Pops by accident.
0:43:03 > 0:43:05We were too low to be eligible for Top of the Pops.
0:43:05 > 0:43:08I think Shakin' Stevens was ill. So we got his slot.
0:43:08 > 0:43:09Thank you, Shaky.
0:43:09 > 0:43:11And the reaction from the industry,
0:43:11 > 0:43:14all the interviews that we'd had set up, all pulled out.
0:43:14 > 0:43:18They all said, "We're not having that on the telly. What was it?
0:43:18 > 0:43:20"What was that?" But people loved us.
0:43:20 > 0:43:22The difference when I went out on the street,
0:43:22 > 0:43:26I went into a department store and got mobbed by housewives.
0:43:26 > 0:43:30People liked me, but the industry was, "What the hell was that?"
0:43:30 > 0:43:33There was a thing in the paper saying, "Is it a bird, is it a plane?"
0:43:33 > 0:43:37"Wally of the week." I got all sorts of... but people loved us, so...
0:43:37 > 0:43:40As an editor of Smash Hits,
0:43:40 > 0:43:45as influential as it is, how much were you trying to push new sensations all the time
0:43:45 > 0:43:49and were you ever affected by new sensations?
0:43:49 > 0:43:52Well, you used to look at people and think, "I hope this happens,"
0:43:52 > 0:43:56because this will be really exciting if it happens. George was one case.
0:43:56 > 0:43:58Human League were another case, because you thought,
0:43:58 > 0:44:01there's not just a sound here, there's a look,
0:44:01 > 0:44:05there's a world view, there's a personality that comes with it,
0:44:05 > 0:44:09which as a magazine editor, you are looking for absolutely all the time.
0:44:09 > 0:44:11There was that kind of Thursday night theatre of Top Of The Pops,
0:44:11 > 0:44:17where the nation changed its mind in 10 minutes.
0:44:17 > 0:44:22And that activity was changed on Friday and Saturday as a consequence.
0:44:22 > 0:44:24You can't have that any more.
0:44:24 > 0:44:28Do you think that we, the British, are better at it than the Americans,
0:44:28 > 0:44:33actually throwing new genres and sensations out there. We seem to be more willing to be shocked.
0:44:33 > 0:44:38We play with things, don't we? We like costumes, we like funny voices.
0:44:38 > 0:44:44- It's all part of our tradition.- Some things just are undeniably great.
0:44:44 > 0:44:47I remember seeing Suede's first appearance on Top Of The Pops,
0:44:47 > 0:44:52and I was an artist myself, and I remember thinking, this is amazing.
0:44:52 > 0:44:56And exciting. I totally got it straightaway.
0:44:56 > 0:45:00I didn't have to be convinced. There was just something about it that was just very now.
0:45:00 > 0:45:02It made me feel a bit old-fashioned.
0:45:02 > 0:45:05And also very flexible, because we're looking there...
0:45:05 > 0:45:08saying, whether it's Roxy Music, Bowie, Kate Bush,
0:45:08 > 0:45:12but the perception is that that's, then, what you're into.
0:45:12 > 0:45:15But just slotted in alongside all the other albums in your collection.
0:45:15 > 0:45:20You can jump from punk to Kraftwerk. That's what a real pop fan does.
0:45:20 > 0:45:24You are always willing to... there are things that you live and die by.
0:45:24 > 0:45:26There are things that you'll never let go of because
0:45:26 > 0:45:28they're part of who you are.
0:45:28 > 0:45:31But if you're a good pop fan, you're always open to "What's this over here?"
0:45:31 > 0:45:34Like acid house. Good example.
0:45:34 > 0:45:37When that happened, I was like, I want some of this.
0:45:37 > 0:45:40Can I just throw in one thing that very often gets forgotten
0:45:40 > 0:45:42when you talk about albums, particularly in the days
0:45:42 > 0:45:44of vinyl, that they existed in the public space.
0:45:44 > 0:45:46You took them around with you.
0:45:46 > 0:45:49You carried them, in order to attract the envy
0:45:49 > 0:45:52and excitement of your peers, and to say,
0:45:52 > 0:45:54"I'm this kind of person now."
0:45:54 > 0:45:59The hottest boys at school would have a kind of Our Price bag
0:45:59 > 0:46:02and you'd go, "what's in the Our Price bag?"
0:46:02 > 0:46:04And if you're really good, you can read through the plastic.
0:46:04 > 0:46:05You can see what it was.
0:46:05 > 0:46:07I'm going to go to my third selection for the wall of fame,
0:46:07 > 0:46:11and it comes out of the shock of the new, because pretty much nothing
0:46:11 > 0:46:15shocked everyone more than punk rock when it turned up in 1976,
0:46:15 > 0:46:19and yet it was born out of the cartoon pop and genius pop
0:46:19 > 0:46:22and a group who never, ever, ever really got their due.
0:46:22 > 0:46:25Of course, the Ramones. A pop album that's just...
0:46:25 > 0:46:28Surfin' Bird, Cretin Hop and of course the only real hit,
0:46:28 > 0:46:30Sheena Is A Punk Rocker on it.
0:46:30 > 0:46:34It may sound like a guitar album, but this is as good pop writing,
0:46:34 > 0:46:36economical and brilliant, as you'll find.
0:46:36 > 0:46:39And the Ramones' Rocket To Russia for all they did for us
0:46:39 > 0:46:41and all they never got at the time.
0:46:41 > 0:46:43Most successful pop acts have only one sound,
0:46:43 > 0:46:46which we're all happy for them to hammer into the ground,
0:46:46 > 0:46:48but the truly great artists liked
0:46:48 > 0:46:52to keep things fresh by radical reinvention, and good for them.
0:46:52 > 0:46:55Doing something different is the beating heart of all art.
0:46:55 > 0:46:56Most of the time.
0:46:57 > 0:47:00# Wake me up before you go-go... #
0:47:00 > 0:47:02we first fell in love with pop stars
0:47:02 > 0:47:06because they played mainstream pop, but then they, and we, grew up.
0:47:06 > 0:47:09They matured and wanted to become artists,
0:47:09 > 0:47:13no longer constrained by disposable three-minute puppy love songs.
0:47:13 > 0:47:15They wanted to go their own way,
0:47:15 > 0:47:19to be unchained from the forces of commercial repression, and that.
0:47:19 > 0:47:22What pop star didn't want 40 minutes of album time
0:47:22 > 0:47:24to mess about reinventing themselves?
0:47:24 > 0:47:27MUSIC: "Billie Jean" by Michael Jackson
0:47:27 > 0:47:29After leaving Motown,
0:47:29 > 0:47:32Michael Jackson was determined to redefine his solo career,
0:47:32 > 0:47:36and his 1979 album, Off The Wall, created by Jackson
0:47:36 > 0:47:40and producer Quincy Jones, was a jawdropping game-changer.
0:47:40 > 0:47:43From there, it was but a short moonwalk to its successor,
0:47:43 > 0:47:46Thriller, and 50 million album sales
0:47:46 > 0:47:49and a silly, but justified, new title, the King of Pop.
0:47:49 > 0:47:51MUSIC: "Faith" by George Michael
0:47:54 > 0:47:56Following his breakout 1987 album, Faith,
0:47:56 > 0:47:59George Michael set out to do a reverse Jackson.
0:47:59 > 0:48:04The album had spawned six singles, including the fruity I Want Your Sex,
0:48:04 > 0:48:07but George still felt he wasn't being taken seriously.
0:48:07 > 0:48:11Cue his po-faced follow-up, Listen Without Prejudice volume 1,
0:48:11 > 0:48:14and all that could be heard was the sound of furrowed brows
0:48:14 > 0:48:15and tumbleweed.
0:48:15 > 0:48:17We're still waiting for volume 2.
0:48:17 > 0:48:20# Just look through your window
0:48:20 > 0:48:23# Look who sits outside... #
0:48:23 > 0:48:28But the indisputable dame of reinvention will always be Bowie.
0:48:28 > 0:48:32From glam rocker to Germanic electronics boffin,
0:48:32 > 0:48:34to Philly soul boy and beyond,
0:48:34 > 0:48:37Bowie has raided the style wardrobe with gay abandon,
0:48:37 > 0:48:41over and over again, and nearly always it has worked fabulously.
0:48:41 > 0:48:46Fleetwood Mac have often had their reinventions forced upon them.
0:48:46 > 0:48:50No group has had to juggle fame, fortune and obscurity
0:48:50 > 0:48:51quite so cleverly as they.
0:48:51 > 0:48:55It was their 1977 album, Rumours, where they discovered pop perfection,
0:48:55 > 0:48:59not to mention worldwide sales of 40 million copies.
0:48:59 > 0:49:03Of course, hubris took its toll after that, and the follow-up,
0:49:03 > 0:49:07Tusk - double album, natch - saw the whole thing get a bit boss-eyed.
0:49:07 > 0:49:09# Just tell me that you want me... #
0:49:10 > 0:49:13Grace, do we want pop stars to be real people
0:49:13 > 0:49:16and even, whisper it, artists and change?
0:49:16 > 0:49:17Is that a good thing?
0:49:17 > 0:49:20- Do we want them to be real people? - Real people, yeah.
0:49:20 > 0:49:22No, I don't want them to be real people. I don't want...
0:49:22 > 0:49:26that's what was so beautiful about the '80s,
0:49:26 > 0:49:29which is my era of pop, that we didn't get to see them
0:49:29 > 0:49:31being real people, so they became these huge stars.
0:49:31 > 0:49:34You know, you don't get to see... there wasn't the Internet.
0:49:34 > 0:49:39There wasn't the Daily Mail, constantly refreshing Internet coverage
0:49:39 > 0:49:42of them putting their bin out and scratching their bum in Tesco.
0:49:42 > 0:49:43You didn't see that.
0:49:43 > 0:49:46Did you want, you know, your favourite bands to do
0:49:46 > 0:49:49an unplugged album or do something different?
0:49:49 > 0:49:53No, I don't want any of my favourite bands to ever do unplugged.
0:49:53 > 0:49:57No, no I don't. But, you know, talking about George in the '80s.
0:49:57 > 0:50:00I just assumed that he sat on a pile of gold all day
0:50:00 > 0:50:03while people fitted him with beautiful shoes.
0:50:03 > 0:50:05Not far wrong!
0:50:05 > 0:50:08That's what he did.
0:50:08 > 0:50:12- I don't want to think that George got a gas bill at any point.- No, no.
0:50:12 > 0:50:17- You know that I still don't deal with those things.- There you go. Thank you!
0:50:17 > 0:50:21But musically, I was quite happy for people to make the same album.
0:50:21 > 0:50:22I'm quite happy to.
0:50:23 > 0:50:27I disagree. I think as an artist, you... Look at someone like Bowie.
0:50:27 > 0:50:30When I was a kid, every album was like, "What's he done now?"
0:50:30 > 0:50:32To start with, I never liked anything.
0:50:32 > 0:50:36The first one I bought, Station To Station, it was like, "What's he doing now?"
0:50:36 > 0:50:42Diamond Dogs, Low... Within a 24 hour space, it would be my favourite record ever.
0:50:42 > 0:50:46So in a way, Bowie was one of the last artists that did that.
0:50:46 > 0:50:50They're few and far between - artists who CAN do that and know what they're doing.
0:50:50 > 0:50:54I've seen Bowie do acoustic gigs.
0:50:54 > 0:51:02Any form of Bowie or any form of my favourite artists - stripped down, rocked up, I don't care!
0:51:02 > 0:51:04I don't care, it's all great.
0:51:04 > 0:51:06David, are you in favour of people doing new things?
0:51:06 > 0:51:10I've got no problem with him doing new things as long as they're GOOD.
0:51:10 > 0:51:12That's the trick, isn't it?
0:51:12 > 0:51:16In the end, strip all this away - it's "Can you come up with a tune?"
0:51:16 > 0:51:19Some people DO come up with the tunes
0:51:19 > 0:51:22while totally changing their line-up, their image and everything.
0:51:22 > 0:51:25And some people - Bruce Springsteen being a case -
0:51:25 > 0:51:29sort of make the same record again and again but it's not as good.
0:51:29 > 0:51:33I don't mind people changing if it gives them inspiration
0:51:33 > 0:51:37and it reawakens some kind of spark within them.
0:51:37 > 0:51:40I don't like it when an artist tries to be trendy.
0:51:40 > 0:51:47There's some Bowie records, some remixes that I didn't like.
0:51:47 > 0:51:51What I like about the new Bowie record is it's BOWIE.
0:51:51 > 0:51:57It's Bowie with Visconti, it's not trying to be anything but what it is.
0:51:57 > 0:52:02I think there's a point with every artist where you have to just be yourself and do it well.
0:52:02 > 0:52:07I think one thing we've overlooked, particularly with the pop album as distinct from any other genre,
0:52:07 > 0:52:11it's not necessary for the person even to write the songs.
0:52:11 > 0:52:13For a long time, it worked better when they didn't.
0:52:13 > 0:52:16In the '70s, you've got to do your own material.
0:52:16 > 0:52:20But a lot of the songs we've heard tonight - Rainy Days And Mondays etc -
0:52:20 > 0:52:25they were written by people we can't even conjure up the names now, we couldn't if we wanted to.
0:52:25 > 0:52:31I think that might have got lost - the great tunesmiths or songsmiths.
0:52:31 > 0:52:33They're around now but they're very formulaic.
0:52:33 > 0:52:35They're mechanics!
0:52:35 > 0:52:41We live in an age where there's a distinct lack of melody around, I think.
0:52:41 > 0:52:42We need that back.
0:52:42 > 0:52:47I edge towards Grace here - I like my artists to be good and reliable...and predictable.
0:52:47 > 0:52:49LAUGHTER
0:52:50 > 0:52:54Here's the real fun part of the evening where we've asked our guests
0:52:54 > 0:52:59to bring along three albums which for them define the very word "pop" in album form. Grace?
0:52:59 > 0:53:04Ooh, yes. I've brought Kate Bush - "Hounds Of Love".
0:53:04 > 0:53:07I must have listened to this album 1,000 times, especially in the '90s
0:53:07 > 0:53:10when I was doing my dissertation in Scotland on Virginia Woolf.
0:53:10 > 0:53:13This was the perfect backing track.
0:53:13 > 0:53:15It sent me a little bit off the edge.
0:53:15 > 0:53:18All right. Kate Bush - solid pop album.
0:53:18 > 0:53:22Just wonderful and very, very deep and, you know...
0:53:22 > 0:53:25"Hatful Of Hollow" by The Smiths.
0:53:25 > 0:53:32Love "The Queen Is Dead" but I think if you weren't a Smiths fan and you were given this first,
0:53:32 > 0:53:38I think you'd find this one a little bit more challenging cos it's just utterly, utterly miserable
0:53:38 > 0:53:41with no pick-up at any point.
0:53:41 > 0:53:43But that's what I love about them.
0:53:43 > 0:53:47Also things that really pushed the buttons of people and annoyed them.
0:53:47 > 0:53:52I love pop that aggravates people so much that people just want to ring the police.
0:53:52 > 0:53:57LAUGHTER You know? "What is he saying?! I've got to report somebody!"
0:53:57 > 0:54:01I may reach for the butterfly net and chase you down. Sisters Of Mercy?!
0:54:01 > 0:54:06I'm having this. I'll let you into a secret.
0:54:06 > 0:54:09- I used to be a Goth.- Yeah. And him.
0:54:09 > 0:54:14I haven't changed that much. I'll stretch to a navy blue dress at the moment.
0:54:14 > 0:54:19I absolutely love this album and I still put it on in the house.
0:54:19 > 0:54:24Again, relentlessly miserable, almost panto miserable, but fantastic.
0:54:24 > 0:54:29Whenever I listen to this, I'll go on Twitter and just announce I'm listening to it
0:54:29 > 0:54:34and it's like a dog whistle for every old goth across Britain, nay the world,
0:54:34 > 0:54:38to remember the times they hung around the town hall steps.
0:54:38 > 0:54:42We're a long way from How Much Is That Doggie In The Window?, aren't we?
0:54:42 > 0:54:43George, what have you brought with you?
0:54:43 > 0:54:46OK, I've brought Hunky Dory
0:54:46 > 0:54:53cos I think it's probably the most interesting avant garde Bowie album.
0:54:53 > 0:54:55Should pop be interesting and avant garde?!
0:54:55 > 0:54:59Absolutely! And the sleeve - the Greta Garbo, everything about it.
0:54:59 > 0:55:05And as I said earlier, it introduced me to Bob Dylan because of Song For Bob Dylan.
0:55:05 > 0:55:09Amazing album and I still play this all the time.
0:55:09 > 0:55:12T-Rex - "Tanx".
0:55:12 > 0:55:17I just remember the controversy of the picture of him sitting on the little tank.
0:55:19 > 0:55:22I think this originally came with a pull-out poster.
0:55:22 > 0:55:26Again, massive Marc Bolan fan - I think this is a stellar album.
0:55:26 > 0:55:30It is a punchy sonic album.
0:55:30 > 0:55:32And then "Desire" - Bob Dylan.
0:55:32 > 0:55:36This was a real turning point for me, hearing this on Hurricane,
0:55:36 > 0:55:41and finding out you could write really intellectual songs about things.
0:55:41 > 0:55:46Bowie and T-Rex was all sort of nebulous and fantastical. This was real life stuff.
0:55:46 > 0:55:50Yeah. And one of the few albums that includes the word "kelp".
0:55:50 > 0:55:54Absolutely. And of my favourite songs is on here, "Sara",
0:55:54 > 0:55:59- which is just so...- I can still hear the sound of those Methodist bells.
0:55:59 > 0:56:03Absolutely. Just a very clever love song and a brilliant album.
0:56:03 > 0:56:07I think Bob would be flattered to know he's still a pop artist as opposed to some statue.
0:56:07 > 0:56:09David, what have you got?
0:56:09 > 0:56:13This is pretty obvious - Beatles, "Hard Day's Night", 1964.
0:56:13 > 0:56:16The first album they made where they wrote all the songs.
0:56:16 > 0:56:23Do you think it is faultless? Betting without the Beatles might overwhelm everything.
0:56:23 > 0:56:29They wrote the first side with songs for the movie and they had to fill the second side
0:56:29 > 0:56:34so they came up with six unbelievable songs, none of which they put out as singles.
0:56:34 > 0:56:38So every British band that has gone in the studio ever since has been trying to match this.
0:56:38 > 0:56:40It can't be done.
0:56:40 > 0:56:43Paul Simon - "There Goes Rhymin' Simon", his second solo album.
0:56:43 > 0:56:48He's a really interesting case because he's an unlovable pop star.
0:56:48 > 0:56:54He's unique. Nobody likes Paul Simon, nobody wants to be Paul Simon,
0:56:54 > 0:56:58nobody dreams about Paul Simon, but by God, Paul Simon is good.
0:56:58 > 0:57:02And the older I get, the more I realise how good he is.
0:57:02 > 0:57:06And finally, Joni Mitchell's "Court And Spark".
0:57:06 > 0:57:11George is also keen on this, which I'm glad to see.
0:57:11 > 0:57:15I started playing it last week. I played it 10 times in a row.
0:57:15 > 0:57:21I've had this record since 1974 and I thought, "Does it fit a pop category?"
0:57:21 > 0:57:25OK, it's performed by a light jazz group, all the tracks are four minutes long
0:57:25 > 0:57:30and the whole record is about waiting for a bloke. How much more pop could you possibly get?
0:57:30 > 0:57:35And it does include the line "stoking the star-maker machinery behind the popular song".
0:57:35 > 0:57:41- And she hates that record!- Well, she's wrong and we're right. - Controversial old bag!
0:57:41 > 0:57:47Right, well, corny though it is, I'm allowed a Baker's dozen, doing the 13 here.
0:57:47 > 0:57:51It comes with the title of the show and I think we'd be remiss in our duty
0:57:51 > 0:57:53if we didn't say yes, this is all interesting takes on pop,
0:57:53 > 0:57:56but one thing really is it and the world has voted on that.
0:57:56 > 0:58:03"Off The Wall" - Michael Jackson. There's not a bit of spare production or tunesmithery on this.
0:58:03 > 0:58:08POSSIBLY the greatest pop album ever made.
0:58:08 > 0:58:10And now we're complete.
0:58:10 > 0:58:14There they are - 13 solid sonic blocks in our wall of sound.
0:58:14 > 0:58:17Thank you very much, Grace Dent, for helping us build it.
0:58:17 > 0:58:21Some heavy lifting there from Boy George, for once.
0:58:21 > 0:58:24And the mighty intellect of our own David Hepworth.
0:58:24 > 0:58:26There you go, everyone, thank you very much.
0:58:26 > 0:58:30I think we've given the X Factor generation something to suck on.
0:58:30 > 0:58:34We might have even given Simon Cowell himself a bloody nose by discussion alone.
0:58:34 > 0:58:37I do hope you enjoyed it and, more importantly,
0:58:37 > 0:58:41experienced just a whiff of what it was like to be 15 all over again.
0:58:41 > 0:58:43Thank you very much. Good night.
0:58:43 > 0:58:46# Trying to change the world with an LP's worth of tunes
0:58:46 > 0:58:49# Trying to change the world with an LP's worth of tunes
0:58:49 > 0:58:51# Trying to change the world with an LP's worth of tunes
0:58:51 > 0:58:54# There's something at the heart of it that's simply awful
0:58:54 > 0:58:57# A man who makes a living off a plastic waffle
0:58:57 > 0:58:59# There's something at the heart of it that's simply awful
0:58:59 > 0:59:02# A man who makes a living off a plastic waffle
0:59:02 > 0:59:05# There's something at the heart of it that's simply awful
0:59:05 > 0:59:08# A man who makes a living off a plastic waffle
0:59:08 > 0:59:12# Trying to make a living off an LP's worth of tunes... #