Here’s an interesting fact (may be true, may be fabricated, you’ll never know). For Mandela’s funeral and ensuing festivities, ITV sent 17 people over to South Africa to cover the event.
The BBC sent 120.
What the f–???

Because they don’t care. Because its public money (my frikkin money, let the truth be told) and they’re happy pissing it away on ridiculous golden handshakes to parastical ex-executives, and on sending a batallion out for Mandela week. Its what they do.

But what they also do is make better tv than anyone else. Much better tv. Particularly documentaries. Which are free from over-sensationalisation, free from hype, free from adverts, free from all the other bollocks that we have to put up with on other channels.

So when I find myself in front of a tv at midnight on a saturday, that screen will often find iteslf showing BBC4. Virtually always about music. And last night it was about ‘albums’. Those great big, clumsy, flimsly things we used to play but who’s real purpose was to provide the perfect surface for rolling a joint. Which was, as I found out last night, almost essential for the progress of the development of albums. How wonderfully circular was that? And circular were they.

Until the mid-60s everything was about singles. Get 2.5 minutes of the catchiest, sing-along-est, chirpy, happy rubbish and it will sell. More importantly it will be played on the radio. They didn’t do ‘long’ on the radio, particularly American radio before FM.

So last night I learned the wonderful tale of evolution in music.

Whilst singles told quick, fast-food, sound-byte tales of love and break-up and dead dogs, albums allowed proper stories to be told, allowed for a high degree of self-indulgence by the musicians but the freedom paved the way for progressive rock and longer tracks linking together to provide a continuous narrative.

But before that could happen, there had to be a vehicle for album tracks to be heard, and one FM station in San Francisco did just that, playing long, intricate tracks into the night when only the stoners were awake (or, what passes for ‘awake’) to listen. Soon radio stations all over the musical world were doing similar, including our own pirate radio ships where John Peel was introducing my generation to album tracks.

Sergeant Peppers’ was one of the first albums to tell a continuous story, followed by albums by all and sundry, from the Stones to Jimi Hendrix to everyone, playing proper, head-banging, psychedelic type music. Thus drugs weren’t invented by Nigella, but came about to provide the catalyst for proper music to be developed; to enhance the reception by the music listening public.

Led Zeppelin made their eponymous first album and became the biggest band in the world by NOT releasing singles.
Dark Side of the Moon came out and was yet another game changer.
Carole King’s Tapestry album paved the way for singer-songwriters to join the domain of the progressive rockers.
Deep Purple, Yes, Jethro Tull, Emerson Lake & Palmer, The Small Faces, all album bands, all long tracks. Even King Crimson. They played 21st Century Schitzoid Man on the programme and I was transported back in time.

Mike Oldfield had written an album. 2 sides. 2 tracks. No-one would produce it. Until he found a record shop owner called Richard Branson. Who set up a production company and the rest, for both Oldfield and Branson, was history.
Thus if it wasn’t for Tubular Bells we’d all be paying much more for transatlantic travel.

What goes around comes around.

Happy Sunday, even though its nearly finished.

A xxxx