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Music for
Grown-Ups Newsletter
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09/01/2008 Anglo Pop for Grown-Ups
Hot on the heels of praise for Paul Morley as the BBC’s ubiquitous Manchester post-Punk correspondent, it’s time to praise him again, in a slightly different role, as the BBC’s English pop music correspondent. Morley’s new one-hour documentary, Pop! What Is It Good For?, broadcast on Tuesday on BBC Four, was a stylishly articulate, richly detailed manifesto for the peculiar genre that is Anglo Pop. Sections on The Smiths and Adam Faith were particularly challenging, though my attention wandered when it turned to inessentials such as Kylie, the Kinks and the Sugar Babes. Morley’s programme is the grown-up highlight so far of BBC Four’s current Anglo Pop series. The other stuff has been re-runs of trashy, ultra-lite series - Juke Box Jury, Top Of The Pops, Old Grey Whistle Test and other such fluff - and weak movies starring actors with the gravitas of Cliff Richard. The first (pre-Beatles) programme in the three-part Pop Britannia series - desperate, because accurate - confirmed what we already knew: that ‘50s Britpop was third-rate, a dire, parochial cloning of the exciting US template. Morley’s engaging doc confirmed, yet again, that music for grown-ups can come from any genre – Smiths … Everlys … Roxy are as worthy of scrutiny as Puccini or Coleman Hawkins – and that most music, in all genres, especially pop, is unsuitable for grown-up consumption. You can view Pop! What Is It Good For? online, on the wonderful new BBC iPlayer service. Recommended (Morley’s programme and new iPlayer service). Gerry Smith
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