Archive for the ‘otis redding’ Category

Pop on the box: A comparative history

August 23, 2007

People keep asking why Top Of The Pops, CD:UK, Popworld, and all the other decent pop programmes have died and gone to telly heaven. I think I have a theory…

Exhibit A: Otis Redding performing I Can’t Turn You Loose on ITV pop show Ready Steady Go, 1966.

To gee himself up for an appearance on national TV, Otis burns his hand on a stove, licks a car battery and shoves a frog up his bottom. That’s why he dances like an epileptic windmill. It’s invigorating stuff:

I put it to you, the jury, that music television went wrong when we stopped making singers flail around like demented baboons and decided that exhibiting any sort of enjoyment somehow “devalued” the “music”.

I blame Oasis, myself.