The Media and Anniversaries
We're back now and blearily getting ready for a new series. The starting date is still a reassuring two months away on November 18th. As we gear up, do get in touch and let us know what and who you'd like to see on the programme. I can't promise we'll deliver on everything you suggest but we really want and need your suggestions. I think otherwise there's a risk that we'll drift into covering the slightly predictable and the heavily hyped...
I'm always struck by how fascinated the media, and TV and the arts media is by anniversaries. Do they matter? Who decides which anniversaries are important and which can be overlooked? The 400th anniversary of Milton's birth is coming up in December. Robbie Burns turns 250 in January. The 500th anniversary of Henry VIII's accession to the throne is coming up next year. And all sorts of cultural venues will be marking a Baroque Super Anniversary throughout 2009: Purcell having been born in 1659, Handel dying in 1759, and Haydn dying in 1809. And in January it'll be 50 years since Berry Gordy set up an obscure record label in Detroit called Motown...
So which anniversaries should we cover? Some? None? All of them? Just the ones which really resonate and affect powerfully our cultural life today? Or just the ones which the rest of the media might overlook?
Get posting and let us know. I promise to read all responses, and see if we can get some of the ideas onto the programme. And next year we might do an item marking the First Anniversary of this blog.
© MMIX~RS~q~RS~~RS~z~RS~43~RS~)
Comments
More Karl Pilkington please....
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Journalists like anniversaries because an anniversary is a news item that is thoroughly predictable and can be written up in advance ....... so not really news at all and rather dull.
My advice would be to avoid using anniversaries as hooks on which to hang programme items.
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A great idea would be to do a documentary about XTC – Swindons best gift to the world.
Next year is it 30 years ago their hit "Making Plans For Nigel" even caused commotion at Brittish Steel...
...and these days many of the new bands owe a lot to XTC. Just ask Franz Ferdinand, The Fratellis, Dogs Die in Hot Cars and so on. Also "older" acts like Robbie Williams and The Blur have been affected by XTC.
In other words, what we need is a good classic BBC documentary about Englands most underrated popband. I know it would be both very interesting and cool. Thanks in advance!
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Oh yes! Another vote for XTC, one of the UK's best bands.
They've influenced myriad modern groups, and have a very fine body of work stretching back to the late 1970s; I think XTC would be of interest to many of The Culture Show viewers (as a critic once remarked 'XTC are a cult band - but it's a big cult').
It would indeed be great to see them acknowleged by The Culture Show.
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Thanks for the comments, keep them coming as we are starting to talk about items for the new series.
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I'd like to suggest re-visiting some musicians/singers from the '60s and '70s, and possibly '80s, to see what they're doing these days. I've recently seen some performers from that era (mostly at music festivals) and have found that either my pre-conceptions about them were totally wrong, or that they're now making amazing music that I hadn't been aware of first time round. Many singers/musicians are still only remembered for one commercial hit single that is totally unrepresentative of what their work was really about then, or is now. One musician that immediately springs to mind is Gordon Giltrap, who until this summer had simply been a name I recognised from the pages of Melody Maker back in the early '70s. I'm sure there are many more such performers, and there are an awful lot of us "baby boomers" out here who will remember them and be interested to know what they're doing now.
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
I would love to see XTC on The Culture Show... they are indeed underated, yet have influenced many bands. Andy would make a great interviewee, and it would be great if you could get contributions from the likes of Colin Moulding, Dave Gregory, Barry Andrews & Terry Chambers.
How about it?
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When I say Andy - I do mean Andy Partridge! :)
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