For anyone who thinks I’ve blogged too much in the last few weeks about air disasters…
From 1964, I give you Les Parisiennes (avec l’orchestre de Claude Bolling) with an awesome promo which will make you feel a whole lot better about flying. Flying Air France, in particular.
In that era I think they’d have described this as “lively and gay”.
This might seem like a strange statement from someone who’d write and publish 891 words about a specific model of railway ticket machine.
But I love punchy, concise writing.
It’s one of the reasons I fell in love with print advertising when I was a kid – and decided I wanted to be an advertising copywriter when I grew up.
The writing that inspired me most wasn’t flowery fiction or purple poetry (though I worked my way through plenty of that in my teens).
It was thrillingly economical prose like Bill Bernbach’s VW ads of the 50s, 60s and 70s.
The ad career never materialised, but a writing one did. And that’s when the sobering truth struck home. Writing as sparingly – yet effectively – as the likes of Bernbach did is hard. Really hard.
So when I come across someone who can do this, and do it well, I’m filled with a mix of admiration and (yes) jealousy.
My latest find is a guy called Ken Rockwell. He runs a photography website filled with tips, suggestions and product reviews. I stumbled across it while looking for more details on a camera we’ve recently acquired at work.
I think Ken’s reviews are terrific online writing: taut prose with zero fat.
Most importantly, they read like they were super-easy to produce. Which is – as we’ve established – the trickiest thing of all to pull off.
Read Ken talking about the Canon G11, and see what you think.
Posted in Advertising, Interwebs, Magazines, Nostalgia
Sad news today of the death of Sir John Dankworth.
Though I’ve always been a fan of certain types of jazz, I can’t pretend to know much at all about Dankworth’s legacy.
But here’s the thing I most associate with his name – the original title music for Tomorrow’s World. It’s brilliant – and impossible to imagine even being considered as TV theme fodder these days.
Here’s the full version in stereo for your further enjoyment:
And finally, for good measure, the short version on piano.
“Complex” and “approachable” aren’t always easy attributes to combine in music – but this is a textbook example of how that formula can work. If you’re a bit of a genius, that is.
Thinkbox is the marketing body for commercial TV in the UK. Apparently this ad has been around for about seven months, but I’ve only just seen it (on National Geographic). It’s rather good.
Mind you, consider this. I spotted it while whizzing through the ad break (via Sky+) at 30x speed – but only rewound to watch because I glimpsed the thinkbox logo, and am a media industry geek. It’s one of the least arresting ads at high speed I’ve ever seen.
Posted in Advertising, Nostalgia, TV
Christmas TV spells glitz and glamour. Or at least it did when I was growing up in the variety wonderland of the 70s.
These days I’m inclined to think the excitement and production values have gone out of Christmas telly. (Admittedly I haven’t actually watched any in the last decade, but go with me on this.)
So I thought I’d take the law into my own hands and inject a moment of class into your Yuletide experience, via a special piece of music.
Friends, I give you Laurie Johnson’s 1952 composition ‘Gala Performance’.
I invite you to click play, close your eyes and picture – as the title would suggest – immaculately-dressed ladies and gentlemen entering a glittering West End theatre, perhaps shaking hands with minor royalty on the way. Red velvet seats, marble busts and gilded balconies may come into your mind’s eye. A sea of bow ties, mink stoles and opera glasses.
Or, if you’re of a certain age, you might involuntarily imagine Eamonn Andrews “disguised” as a bus conductor, scrabbling up the stairs of a Routemaster to greet a surprised John Conteh.
Either way this is a stunning tune. Merry Christmas, one and all.
Hot on the heels of Philip Hayton’s first day on the One o’clock News, and Sue Lawley’s studio invasion, here’s another TV nightmare.
This time we head back to the Eurovision Song Contest, 1977.
In the hot seat: Stewart Morris, a respected light entertainment director for the BBC throughout the 70s and 80s. This is a highly pressurised production with millions watching worldwide – and not everything is going according to plan, especially at 2:21 when the caption roller is accidentally triggered ahead of time.
Here’s the live programme’s talkback. This clip contains, as they say, “strong language from the start”.
And here’s how the final few minutes of the programme looked on screen – this time, expletive-free…
Forget Google’s 80 minute Wave walkthrough. Forget Steve Jobs coaxing the Macintosh into speech for the first time.
In fact, forget just about any other computing demonstration from the noughties, 90s, 80s or even 70s.
I’ve just been watching The Mother Of All Demos – and it’s nearly 41 years old.
On 9 December 1968, to quote wired.com:
An obscure scientist from Stanford Research Institute stood before a hushed San Francisco crowd and blew every mind in the room. His 90-minute demo rolled out virtually all that would come to define modern computing: videoconferencing, hyperlinks, networked collaboration, digital text editing, and something called a “mouse.”
Doug Engelbart was that scientist. And it’s his introduction to the mouse – just a snippet from his historic talk that day – that you can view below.
I thoroughly recommend you watch the whole presentation if you get the chance. Its heightened degree of innovation puts announcements like “we’ve added a camera to the iPod Nano” or “Windows 7 doesn’t crash very much” firmly into context.
Amidst all the excitement (and furore) about Google’s move to scan more and more of the world’s books, one part of their offering seems to have gone largely unnoticed.
Google Book Search has, for just under a year now, been gradually adding a selection of magazines to its mix: all fully scanned and searchable.
Now, this scores for me on many levels.
First - let’s not be coy – I heart the hell out of magazines. I love reading them, I used to work in them, and they’re an incredible source of social history which has largely been unsearchable until now (at least for consumers without access to expensive specialist tools).
Secondly, what’s great about the Google scans is that you get the whole package. This isn’t somebody’s idea of “the best of” Life magazine. This is every last trivial, forgotten article and ad. Often (in fact most of the time, in my view) it’s through these small, low-key details that the true colour of an era emerges.
If you’re anything like me you’ll happily waste hours poring through this stuff, but let me pick one publication to highlight: Billboard. This has been the US music industry’s journal of record since 1894. (OK, so Google doesn’t quite stretch back that far, but will 1942 do you?)
I’ve had fun this weekend tracking entire musical genres back through Billboard history. What’s especially cool is unearthing their earliest moments, when we find the magazine poking gingerly at them with the quaint, quizzical tone of the bush anthropologist.
Here’s one example, from July 18 1980 – Rap Records Inducing Listener Participation.
Rap Records’ distinct appeal is found in their ability to induce listener participation. As rap product proliferates, this unique lure may be finding its way to a larger audience.
This is the observation of industry principals, who note that rap disks can cause more stir on the dance floor than conventional dance records. “The rapper and the audience often exchange the jive talk,” says Robert Ford, coproducer of popular rap artist Kurtis Blow.
“Or sometimes a rapper will call out dance steps,” he continues. “It’s like a square dance.”
Then there’s the June 21 1986 musing – House Music: Will It Join Rap And-Go-Go?
What is house music? [...] As with all local music scenes, Chicago house music makers have their own jargon. For example, instead of dancing to the music one ‘jacks’ one’s body to it.
A typical house recording may feature a simple thumping drum-machine pattern and a voice sample of the artist saying, “It’s house” or “It’s time to jack,” with some synthesizer parts providing background.
Older readers might appreciate May 28 1977′s news report $250G ADVANCES – Virgin Pacts Pistols: 3d Deal In 6 Months (extra points to Billboard for the Variety-style headline):
Previous contracts with EMI and A&M were cancelled by the companies following allegations of “unprofessional” behavior by group members. Now the Sex Pistols’ first product on Virgin is the single God Save The Queen (not the National Anthem).
But in case you thought “punk rock” might be a fad, November 19th’s edition in the same year puts you straight.
In his feature PUNK DISPLAYS: Sales Of New Wave Product Go Up As Visibility Increases, Roman Kozak in New York reports:
Record stores around the country are finding that if you display punk rock product, you will sell it. Some are devoting entire sections of the stores to new wave.
Even dealers who do not provide elaborate punk displays are reporting that while the music has not sparked a run on the product, sales are good and they are growing.
Larry Herman, branch marketing coordinator for Warner Bros. in New York, says that the label considers punk part of pop music in general, but is interested in special punk sections since it brings it closer to the people. [...] One store, he says, has put up its own Sex Pistol awning.
Spot any other jewels in Billboard’s archives? I’d love to hear from you.
But if music’s not your forte, don’t worry. You can also browse Popular Mechanics, Boys’ Life (“the official youth magazine for the Boy Scouts of America”), American Cowboy and Log Home Living to name but four.
Consider it a virtual dentist’s waiting room.
Posted in Interwebs, Journalism, Magazines, Nostalgia
I hardly watch any “live” TV these days – apart from in hotels, where there’s no other option. Pretty much everything else is timeshifted, thanks to Sky+, so schedules don’t mean much anymore.
But remember when the schedule was everything?
Remember when an announcer (in “moderately-excited expectation” mode) would voice a menu at the start of each evening’s viewing?
Actually, for all I know, it may still happen. But I bet it isn’t done quite like this.
BBC1, 1984
What a line-up! I can’t wait to finally set my VCR clock so I can tape Electronic Office. (Not We Got It Made, though, that looks like dreck.)
Look Around You, 2005
Only one programme could satirise something so trivial, yet so deep-seated in the cultural memory of a generation. Hats off to Look Around You‘s Peter Serafinowicz and Robert Popper.
BBC VT Christmas Tape, 1979
The Christmas Tape is a fine broadcasting tradition, and the BBC’s in 1979 (aka Good King Memorex) is legendary.
For reasons of language and mild nudity, this is Not Safe For Work. Unless you work in VT, of course – in which case, fill your boots.
I have a new favourite album: Electric Love by The Electric Concept Orchestra.
It’s typical of a genre I like to call Moogsploitation.
Unfamiliar with the term? This MySpace page handily explains all:
In 1968, the all-Moog Synthesizer album Switched On Bach was released. While the modular synthesizer had been around for up to 3 years previous to this release, it was this release which exposed the unique and beautiful sound of the Moog Synthesizer to the general public. The general public was enthralled… which made dollar-signs in the eyes of music producers everywhere. Between 1968 and about 1974, there was a torrent of albums released featuring the new audio technology. Sadly (or not so sadly), many of these releases were overly-sugary, hastily recorded, and massively exploitative.
I remember my parents owning one such album – an LP of Scott Joplin ragtime music played on desperately low-rent synths, probably purchased from Tesco’s homeware department for 35p (the album, that is, not the synthesisers). You can find other Moogsploitation gems on YouTube – like this queasy electronic take on Wichita Lineman from the Moog-with-a-stetson-on album Nashville Gold.
So with this questionable lineage, Electric Love should be absolute garbage, right?
Wrong. I think it’s quite gorgeous. And if you like woozy, string-soaked electronica, you may well do too.
Plaudits for the video go to YouTube user cosmocorps2000 – I’ll be highlighting more of her inspirational stuff in weeks to come. And if you’d like to hear the whole album, try here.
Posted in Interwebs, Music, Nostalgia, Social Media
