The Anatomy of Pop

I came across this article by chance in amongst some old Melody Maker clippings from the 70s. It appeared in a December 1970 edition previewing a new music series to be broadcast by the BBC in January 1971. Other than the words you see below the only other information I have been able to find about this long forgotten series is that Soft Machine recorded their contribution on 19th October 1970 at the BBC TV Studios, London performing As If (from Volume 5) as well as being interviewed.

Five programmes on pop are going out on Sunday mornings (11.35am - 12 noon) on BBC1, starting on January 10th under the guise of Further Education. The series called Anatomy of Pop will feature Soft Machine, Madeline Bell, George Martin, Frank Zappa, Muff Winwood, John Peel, Richard Neville, Charlie Gillett, Canned Heat and umpteen others.

Tony Cash, the producer, is not unduly weighed down by the Further Education label, "Nobody gets educated by something boring anyway," but each of the five programmes is built round a definite theme.

The January 10th programme deals with the roots of modern pop with Soft Machine, Zappa, Madeline Bell, Alexis Korner, Marmalade and others performing and/or discussing which elements - lyrics, structure, tone etc. - came from which sources - gospel, blues, folk, classical, jazz and so on.

The second programme on January 17th goes into the studio set up by examining the roles of group, solo singer, engineer, session men, and the way these vary wildly from the group in control (exemplified here by a group called Bronco) where they do the mixing and balancing themselves, to the 'product' situation at the other extreme. It has George Martin being non committal about his fifth Beatle label.

January 24th is about the con trick to pop - writing to formulae, record pluggers, non discriminating DJs - the commercial machine in general. Muff Winwood, John Peel and a couple of radio producers talk about the problems, and Frank Zappa gives the answer "The Beatles' songs have been copied not because they're good but because they've sold. If Nixon's words sold people would copy them, and his make up!"

Potentially most interesting is the fourth programme, about the tribes that gather round different types of pop. It's meant to investigate how far music defines sub cultures, and whether it really is a force for revolution. It has films of hip kids in Hyde Park and skinheads in Wolverhampton, followed by a discussion between Richard Neville of Oz (next in line as a martyr of the alternative culture if the police have their way) and Nigel Fountain of Rolling Stone.

Lastly on February 7th there's a what will happen next talk with worthies like Steve Race, Richard Williams and Charlie Gillett going through the musical structures of McCartney and Bacharach showing some beautiful clips of Joni Mitchell, to demonstrate the very specific and personal nature of her words, and Randy Newman, showing his humour. It comes to the general agreement that Soft Machine type complexity, typified here by Egg, won't seem at all strange in 20 years time. Only the BBC could come up with a series with Zappa, Neville, Soft Machine and the Beatles with a calm prediction about 20 years' time……

A very dodgy quote from Frank Zappa. Does anybody out there remember seeing this series? Probably not, the scheduling was terrible, I mean who is watching TV at 11.35am on a Sunday?