Seven ages of rock

I love dear old auntie Beeb. It is always does music documentaries so well, BBC 6music is my fave radio station, and thats without Later...

I have enjoyed Seven ages of rock like the fanboy i am. All the periods included music i own and enjoy as well as others i don't but appreciate. I cant say i am a huge Jimi Hendrix fan per se, but the nuanced portrayal of his influence in the first show was powerfully made and made me dig out some of the stuff i do have of his (his version of 'Daytripper' by The Beatles is a joy). In the prog/bowie edition, i for the first time started to 'get' Roxy Music and will be purchasing forthwith to add to be wide cannon of Yes, King Crimson, Jethro Tull and early Genesis i already own and love. I forgot how good a band Iron Maiden were, and how influential they were on both sides of the pond, ditto Metallica.

I missed the punk edition, but in truth i find it very difficult to see what more could be told of a story that's been told more times than jack and jill. Remember those 'punks' you see in documentaries- well they are either bank managers or f****ing property developers like Johnny Rotten today so i find it hard to take such fond look of a time that is held as some sort of beacon of youth rebellion. Truthfully i think acid house and the early 90's rave scene had far more of a wider reaching impact on today's music and society as a whole. Whether it be stemming football violence, relaxing drug laws and give Britain a groove- it is far more visible in to days youth culture than 1977 era punk ever will be.

The two programs in the seven ages of rock were of most interest to me were the two most recent ones, left of the dial and What the world is waiting for because i lived through one and the tail end of the other. I was just too young to be around at the time of Nirvana's ascent (although my cousin lending me Nevermind and In Utero had a huge impact on me at the age of 12) but i have huge love of all the music involved. What impressed me about this show was that they used hardly used footage, it avoided the 'obvious' Nirvana footage (Kurt squeezing a lemon, anything off the 'live tonight' video) and made the under reported link between bands like Blag Flag and Nirvana. The link between REM, who i learned much more about, and Nirvana set the premise of the show well and there was just so much good music to enjoy. It is scary to think that 2 Nirvana albums have always been in my top ten favourite albums ever, and this show was a reminder of why. The four 'real' Nirvana albums, Bleach, Nevermind, In Utero and Unplugged (although to be really awkward my favourite song is actually 'Aneurysm on Insecticide) have all graced my top ten, although being the self important 'High fidelity' loving geek i am i am going to re draw my top ten and make sure only one album per artist is allowed. One band 'discovered' thanks to this show was 'The Replacements' so it joined each of the previous shows by getting me to buy more records!

The 'What the world has been waiting for?' show did no such thing, because i pretty much own every album featured. However it was a joy actually seeing gigs i went to, records i bought and stories you read at the time being talked about as rock 'folklore'. The amount of times us 90s/noughties kids have to hear about how the past was when it was happening was beginning to get unbearable. The five bands that i thought linked the whole show well i had a real involvement in, although at different times and for different reasons.

The Smiths are my favourite band ever bar none. Although in truth i would have probably not been a fan if i was old enough at the time because i think Oscar Wilde and A taste of honey references were above my intellectual plain during my teenage years. However as i reached 18 i really began to grasp the real beauty of the Smiths music and message. It was a real pleasure to see live footage of a more rocking and boisterous attempt at Smiths songs in the footage and i simply forget how many great songs the Smiths have. I feel it is very hard to find a better great songs to albums ratio than the Smiths.

The Stone Roses was my salvation after falling out from Oasis post 'Be here now', i think i really began checking them out because Ian Brown's solo stuff was debuting and the NME were claiming how great they was. The first Stone Roses album really began my journey into more experimental music, even though by my standards today it is pretty well about as mainstream as you can get. The Stone Roses could really play and had a groove, and opened my ears to a new concept that technical prowess and originality were sometimes more powerful than 'anthems'. John Squires guitar work is exceptional on both albums they made. Which brings me onto a little secret- i love the 2nd stone roses album, the supposed 'flop' that was the sound of band in freefall. The riffs are massive, 'Begging you' has a beat par excellence, but i must admit that Brown's vocals were crap and there is some real junk that fills up some of the album.

Oasis changed my life in so many respects, but in a way that meant i moved away from them and still find it hard to look back at their music in the way i want to. The facy that five scallys from a council estate could make it really appealed to me over blur, who again i didn't start appreciating until i got a bit older and wise enough to see the subtlety of their approach. Quite simply put, i loved the sounds and sights of Oasis AND i could still go out and play football and not be a 'hermit' like so many Smiths fans must have felt in the 1980's. I remember getting hammered on diamond orange and going to see Oasis on the whats the story tour in the CIA in Cardiff and i really felt like i was 'aving it. I started learning to play the guitar because of Oasis, however i was always much better at football so i spent more time doing that than struggling to play the guitar. I even joined a band that revolved around Oasis and oddly Llama Farmers covers (i implored you to check out the Llama Farmers- dead letter chorus, it has been deleted but is amazing). The day i went off Oasis was the day i bought 'Be here now', a real let down and i began to see the lack of imagination in their music that had been masked by a freshness in their approach. You take the anthemic quality of Oasis' music and you are not left with much. However, 'The importance of being idle' on the last album shows that i would walk over hot coals to hear a Noel Gallagher solo album even after all these years.



Blur were never my thing at the time, too posh, too arty and dare i say it too different for my rather placid taste at the time. However, Blur by Blur changed my whole opinion on Blur and made me a fan of most of their stuff. In truth i think had britpop started tomorrow i would be a Blur fan, but then i suppose i would have been to snobbish to get involved like i did when i was younger, much like my attitude to the Artic Monkeys and the like today.

I give them their belated dues even if their bad points are amplified in the Kaiser Chiefs rotten output!

The Libertines were the band used to tie up the whole show as we entered the mid-noughties and i have mixed feelings about them. I think they were pioneers of a very unpioneering sound, they essentially took the deft 'take it of leave it' cool of the Strokes and added Cockney accents- but they did it very well. I must admit when you really weight it up against the illustrious company i have spoke about here, they simply don't stand up, but maybe that's not the point. The fact that the libertines got out of the toilet scene shows how far indie had come, the fact that they get elevated to such high company shows that indie may have come too far away.