Friday 8 February 2013, 08:39
Like most men of a certain vintage, I remember well the first album I ever owned. Age around 10, I found myself in possession of Back In Black by AC/DC.
I got it from my big brother. Well, I was made to buy it from my big brother after I scratched it while listening to it when he was out.
So when it came to directing BBC Four’s documentary When Albums Ruled The World, plenty of memories came flooding back. Good ones of course: Back In Black is a classic.
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These days, an album is a click on a mouse, its tracks soon dispersed into the ether by playlists and the shuffle button.
Back then, an album still meant getting a thick slab of unwieldy vinyl stuffed inside an intriguing cardboard sleeve.
The album was the package: two sides of music listened to in order, while digesting the sleeve notes.
When we were told we had 90 minutes to fill with the story of the 'golden age of the album', we had to ask ourselves two questions: How are we going to fill 90 minutes? And what golden age exactly?
The second answer came first: we soon discovered that from around the mid-60s to the late 70s, the vinyl album – the LP – turned music into America’s most popular entertainment industry ahead of Hollywood and sports.
In these years the vinyl album let artists think about music in new ways, and the albums they recorded – from The Beatles' Sgt Pepper’s to Pink Floyd’s Dark Side Of The Moon not only turned popular music into an art form, but sold by the truck load.
So that was our ‘golden age’ – we’re not talking about albums in general, but the original album - the vinyl album.
Record shop memories from the documentary
Once the second question was answered, the first was turned on its head: it’s not how do you fill 90 minutes? It’s how do you fit all this in to 90 minutes?
Between the mid-60s and the end of the 70s, tens of thousands of albums were released, hundreds of millions sold, and billions of dollars made by record companies and artists.
Where do you start?
We ended up filming with around 40 contributors – from musicians, to producers, to record company executives, to journalists. And still we felt like we needed more.
We tried to keep our own tastes out of it: this isn’t a documentary about the ‘best’ or our favourite albums.
It’s about the albums that had the biggest impact, those that changed music history, forged careers, or set new artistic standards.
In the end, hopefully the story of the vinyl album is a gripping one. It was a privilege to work on a project like this, and I know my music tastes came out of it expanded.
My favourite album discovery? Well, that would be a toss-up between the Small Faces’ Odgen’s Nut Gone Flake and In The Court Of The Crimson King by King Crimson – two records that weren’t in my collection before.
Put the needle on the record... where?
Neither of these fantastic albums is covered in our documentary – we felt that despite their amazing music and packaging, they didn’t help tell us the bigger story of the LP. I’ll be interested to see which other classic albums you may have missed from the story we told.
Of course vinyl is making a relative comeback today, but one moment on the shoot reminded what a thing of the past it is.
One of our researchers – in his mid-20s – went to put an LP on a turntable and asked whether you put the needle on the outside or inside groove of the record. I laughed thinking he was taking the mick.
He wasn’t.
Steve O'Hagan is the producer and director of When Albums Ruled The World.
When Albums Ruled The World is on BBC Four at 9pm on Friday, 8 February. For further programme times, please see the upcoming broadcasts page.
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Wednesday 30 January 2013, 10:58
Friday 15 February 2013, 14:34
Comment number 1.
Iphianassa8th February 2013 - 13:12
"Like most men of a certain vintage, I remember well the first album I ever owned . . .". Tsk! And women too, Steve, and women too! I and many of my friends were just as enamoured with vinyl as you (and the men featured in the trailer to your programme) and we too would spend our Saturday afternoons going from shop to shop, flicking through the racks, oohing and aahing over German import 7"s of obscure bands we'd heard on Peel etc. etc. etc. Inspired by what we had heard, some of us even went on to work in the music industry, be in bands, and run record labels.
This looks like a really good documentary but I hope that there are some female contributors in it because, without them, you'd only be telling part of the story.
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Comment number 2.
artgroove8th February 2013 - 17:18
Steve, the pre info clip is already whetting my acetate buds! I do remember every Saturday from '77 right up to '86 I would travel by tube from my home in north London to visit a record shop in Greek St, Soho & at the right price obtain 'Bootsy?' by Bootsy Collins Rubber Band or indulge in 'This Years Model' by E.Costello. Such musical diversity sitting displayed in a vast variant of quite luxurious artwork LP covers. The artwork alone was worth a bob or two! On 'one up west' occasion I splashed out twelve pounds sterling( nearly whole weeks apprentice wage) on 'Transformer'(L.Reed), 'American Fool'(J.Cougar) & managed to get to 'Woolies' back home & scrape some left over currency to purchase 'Ride A white Swan'(T.Rex) then reminded by my father 'it's an 'MFP' label, no wonder you go it so cheap'!
It didn't matter, they were all mine from 'King of the Rumbling Spires' to 'Vicious' & the weekend was complete.
I'm still a 'crate digger' & had the surprise of my acetate life some weeks back, when i came across 'Ogden's Nut Gone Flake'(S.Faces) circa '68 original pressing, sb a 16015 not mint but in v.g condition, wedged in between two James Last LP's!!
Looking forward to the BBC 4 airing tonight & there must be a Part 2 here for the future, surely?...
Kind regards,
Artgroove
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Comment number 3.
Vanessa Champion Photographer8th February 2013 - 22:08
Great article and feature! I love vinyl too, have hmm a few feet of a collection here too, 12", 7", 78s even! What is it about the "Qschhhhhh" sound as you rest the needle on that smooth silky black galaxy that injects a ripple of nostalgia, excitement and teenage expectation every single time?!! You are right about vinyl having a recent boot up it's popularity. Did you go to the Vinyl Factory's David Bowie preview? It's still on if not (the Chelsea gallery), was heaving, which completely attests to there being a contemporary interest in the black stuff.
Also I covered the Art Vinyl awards recently, amazing cover art. Nothing like holding a BIG cardboard picture, or a gatefold (even better) to chill to the music too...
Ahhh now where did I put Ramsey Lewis that still smells of that Parisien basement I bought it in...... Keep on rocking guys!
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Comment number 4.
WordBirdComment number 4 is an Editors' Pick
9th February 2013 - 10:28
Why could your production team only find TWO women - Grace Slick and Pauline Black - to be commentators on this programme? But then again, that's not really surprising, as the bias towards middle-aged blokes on BBC Four's music programming is breathtaking. The Danny Baker album shows were largely middle-aged blokes and young women in their thirties, chosen from whoever's writing for the broadsheets preferred by the young researchers. The TOTP documentaries invariably feature a couple of blokes from the broadsheet press, and barely any female commentators; bizarre for a programme which was such a female phenomenon.
Why do the teams which make these programmes seem unable to find any female journalists over 40 (and those under 40 who really know their subjects in depth) to appear on their music programmes? They do exist, honestly, and us women viewers in the same demograpic also deserve to have our views heard - why aren't they represented? I'd be very interested to hear from any producers or researchers as to why this is so.
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Comment number 5.
Ross Muir9th February 2013 - 10:59
More than a little pleased I managed to catch the broadcast of When Albums Ruled the World.
I only hope lovers of good music -- from those who were old enough to live through the vinyl era to the later generations picking up on what vinyly was and is becoming again -- caught it, too.
Great programme; proved something I've said on and off for years (and mentioned more than once on my music and review site) -- the strongest, most creative, innovative and, in many cases, concise (when less truly was more) album works rose and fall with the rise and fall of vinyl.
And I got to live through, buy (lots, lol), play 'n' share vinyl experiences through that era, as did many of us.
Now excuse me, I have to plug the record player back in and nip up to the loft and retrieve a box or three of records...
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Comments 5 of 22