➢➢ Shapers of the 80s ➣➣

➤ Nutty scientist finds himself out of his depth in the shallows of pop

Posted on 30 Mar 2018 | Leave a comment

Trevor Horn, pop music, production, science, TV, documentary

Trevor Horn: sharing his own tried and tested secrets of pop onscreen (© BBC)

◼ RECORD PRODUCER TREVOR HORN – who helped shape the sounds of such 80s acts as ABC, Grace Jones, Pet Shop Boys and Frankie – last night shared five keys to being a successful pop artist. During the repeat of The Secret Science of Pop on BBC4 he said:

1 – Be able to write or have access to the best material.
2 – Have a really great voice, across two octaves.
3 – Have personal charm and charisma.
4 – Be physically and mentally strong.
5 – And, you’ve got to want it.

All of which made a deal more sense than the deluded “scientist” – a professor at London’s Imperial College who doesn’t deserve to be named! – who attempted to analyse success in the pop charts of the past 50 years by deconstructing thousands of hit tunes note by note. Nothing he proposed made any sense at all and after wasting 60 minutes of our time he shamelessly admitted he had “singularly failed” to out-flank Horn.

As compensation, Horn’s production team shared quite a lot of their intuitive magic in perhaps 15 of those minutes. Shame the whole documentary wasn’t about them instead.

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Posted in Culture, education, interviews, Pop music, science, Technology, TV

Tagged documentary, pop music, production, success, Trevor Horn

2018 ➤ Judy Blame dies: cherry-picker of cultural detritus

Posted on 21 Feb 2018 | Leave a comment

Judy Blame ,Nicola Tyson,fashion, stylist, photography,

Judy Blame in 1983, photographed by Nicola Tyson

◼ THE VERY DAY THIS WEEK WHEN HM THE QUEEN put a smile on the face of the British fashion industry, by attending London Fashion Week for the first time, also brought the sad news of Judy Blame’s death, aged 58. He (yes, he) was one of those self-taught iconoclasts who was acquiring a luminescent reputation in the electric 1980s when Fashion Week came into being, driven in part by the streetwise youth culture that Shapers of the 80s celebrates.

Blame shared friends with the charismatic Ray Petri whose flair gave kudos to the word “stylist” by injecting attitude and dash into the role of the humble gofer who gathered props and make-up for a photo shoot. This was the generation of creatives who asserted their urban savviness and shifted the word style itself from meaning a suspect and second-rate lure with which marketeers sold their wares. By the end of the decade, style and fashion had become distinct goals in their own right, the first announcing individuality in consumer choice and mainstream media, while fashion confirmed convention.

Blame’s own talents as an image-maker were celebrated in 2016 at an Institute of Contemporary Arts exhibition titled Never Again which displayed his DIY jewellery, objets trouvés, clothing, photomontages, sketchbooks and T-shirts, and gave insights into working with Neneh Cherry and Massive Attack.

➢ Pictures and fulsome tributes to Judy Blame
on our inside page

Born Chris Barnes in 1960, Blame died on 19 February 2018 and the tributes flowed in. Dylan Jones, editor-in-chief of GQ, wrote: “He was an artist, a genuine one, someone who could cherry-pick cultural detritus and then mix it all together to create something new, something lasting.”

Nick Knight, photographer and director of SHOWstudio, wrote: “Always totally unique, always a champion of the underdog, always fiercely anti-fascist and anti-establishment, always inspiring, always so immensely talented and always one hundred % brilliant.”

Scarlett Cannon, Blame’s dearest friend and partner in fronting the Cha-Cha club-night 1981-82, said: “I’m heartbroken but so happy to have had him in my life all these years. He left such a rich heritage of inspiration and touched so many people.”

Judy Blame,Scarlett Cannon, fashion, nightclubbing

Judy Blame with his long-standing friend Scarlett Cannon, and little Maude

➢ So much purpose. So much talent – Tribute by Paul Flynn at Guardian online, 20 Feb 2018

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Posted in Clubbing, death, Fashion, History, London, obituaries, photography, Swinging 80s, Tributes, Youth culture

Tagged Dylan Jones, Guardian Online, Institute of Contemporary Arts, Judy Blame, Nick Knight, Paul Flynn, Ray Petri, Scarlett Cannon

➤ Modern pop: godlike Quincy Jones tells it like it is

Posted on 8 Feb 2018 | Leave a comment

Quincy Jones, Vulture, inteerview, pop music, frankness

Multi-talented Quincy Jones photographed for Vulture by Art Streiber

➢ BBC Music’s rolling news site is updated live throughout the week – today it reports Quincy Jones saying The Beatles were the “worst musicians in the world”

◼ HERE’S ONE OF THE MOST exhilarating interviews you’re ever likely to read with a godlike genius of the American music industry who has won 28 Grammy awards and co-produced Michael Jackson’s biggest-selling albums. The Beatles aren’t the only stars to receive blunt verdicts today from Quincy Jones. But then he did train under the celebrated Nadia Boulanger who during seven decades taught hundreds of leading composers and musicians of the 20th century at the elite Paris Conservatoire, so he does know his stuff. Jones also reckons Jacko “stole lots of songs” and claims to know who shot JFK in 1963. Jones is about to turn 85, so what does he have to lose? Read his eye-poppingly frank revelations in a Q&A interview with Vulture, the culture and entertainment site from New York magazine. He does also pay respec’ to six young stars “doing good work”.

➢ Read Quincy Jones’s full wacko interview at Vulture, 8 Feb 2018

OTHER HEADLINES AT BBC MUSIC TODAY:

❏ Zayn Malik tells Elle India that he has recorded a tune in Hindi for a forthcoming Bollywood movie. Bradford-born Zayn is the son of a British Pakistani father and English mother who converted to Islam when they married.
❏ The Libertines to headline Kendal Calling, 26-29 July.
❏ Kylie to play two intimate shows in March in London and Manchester.
❏ Spice Girls ‘to kick off world tour in UK this summer’.

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Posted in breaking news, Britain, interviews, journalism, London, Pop music, Youth culture

Tagged BBC News, Beatles, gossip, Kylie, Libertines, Michael Jackson, Nadia Boulanger, Quincy Jones, Spice Girls, Zayn Malik

➤ A big red hand please for this tiny rare fish!

Posted on 25 Jan 2018 | Leave a comment

◼ DIVERS HAVE DISCOVERED a new population of what may be the world’s rarest fish, possibly doubling the number believed to exist. Only 20 to 40 of the critically endangered Red Handfish (Thymichthys politus) were thought to live off the coast of Tasmania, Australia. Instead of swimming, the strange little fish scuttles along the seabed on four red pectoral fins that look like hands. Another population of at least eight fish a few miles away was announced this week by a team from IMAS and the Reef Life Survey (RLS) at the University of Tasmania. More detail on video here:

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Posted in Australasia, breaking news, science

Tagged endangered species, IMAS, marine life, Red Handfish, Reef Life Survey, Thymichthys politus, University of Tasmania

2018 ➤ Peel on Smith and The Fall: the band by which all others must be judged

Posted on 24 Jan 2018 | 1 comment

The Fall, Mark E Smith, John Peel,post-punk, bands, tributes, songwriter

In tribute to Mark Edward Smith who died today, here’s his biggest fan, the legendary deejay John Peel, who was commissioned to summarise the uniqueness of The Fall in The Sunday Times’s partwork, 1000 Makers of Music, published 25 May 1997:

“ Nothing in the history of pop has been remotely like the Fall. Mark E Smith is not only the writer of lyrics that often boast more ideas in a verse than most bands contrive for an LP, but is also credited with what is often said about Viz, that it isn’t as funny as it used to be. Fall devotees are accustomed to hearing similar assessments of their favourite band but believe that, through a bewildering number of personnel changes, the Fall remains the band by which all others must be judged. Their dozens of records crawl with anger, insults, waspish poetry and roaring guitar/bass/drums/keyboards-driven music some have styled Manc-a-billy after their home town. We the faithful can argue that anything, from 1979’s Live At the Witch Trials to last year’s The Light User Syndrome, might be the best. Smith’s press interviews – ranting against political correctness and students (the song Hey, Student from the 1994 LP Middle Class Revolt is a Fall classic) – make marvellous reading. (Keywork: Hey, Student.) ”

➢ Frontman of the post-punk band the Fall notorious for his deadpan black humour – Guardian obituary: “Smith performed with a total of 66 band members on 63 albums”