How To Ruin a Good Idea

BBC Four is currently running a series of programmes on Pop music. There are some gems in there, but also some real clunkers. An example of a gem was Paul Morley’s examination of his obsession with Pop music in his excellent programme: Pop! What Is It Good For? In many ways, it was a TV reworking of his book Words and Music, which I think is the best book ever written on Pop music. Both the programme and the book used Kylie Minogue’s song Can’t Get You Out Of My Head as the starting point for a meaty discourse on the genre.

 

And an example of a clunker? Well, that would have to be last night’s How Pop Songs Work. The basic idea was good: what are the elements that go to make up a memorable pop song. And the central idea was to have Charles Hazlewood, a conductor, examine the music of pop songs. He’s done this before – I remember seeing a TV programme where he dissected the skills of Lennon and McCartney and successfully demonstrated their genius at its best. There, it was just Hazlewood and a piano, and it was shot without fuss, to let the ideas come through.

 

Last night’s programme, though, was completely ruined for me by the director’s insistence of filming Hazlewood at the piano with multiple cameras – all but one at very odd angles and viewpoints – and then constantly cycling between them. The nadir was one camera lurking behind piles of CDs and spying on Hazlewood. It was at that point that I very nearly threw something through the TV screen. This was gratuitous tricksy TV, which completely undercut any argument that Hazlewood was making as far as I am concerned. Awful, awful crap.