TV music experiences

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Has anyone had a great (epiphanic) TV music experience? I was watching a documentary about lions and I couldn't believe the music, then it turned out to have been scored by the Residents. (But then there is a lot of music on TV and 99.99% of it is - degrading.)

― Maryann, Monday, 4 June 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

i was once watching a dreadful canadian porn-lite movie and all of a sudden the cocteau twins' 'lorelei' comes on to sundtrack some lovemaking. i changed the channel after the music ended so i don't know how the movie ended. i miss cbc.

― keith, Monday, 4 June 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

Nick Drake+Pink Moon+Volkswagen=One Of The Best Commercials I'd Ever Seen.

― JM, Tuesday, 5 June 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

Sopranos + Tindersticks: me falling off my chair.

― Stevie Nixed, Tuesday, 5 June 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

Watching a small (five minute) documentary about drag racing simply because the soundtrack was "The Loom" by Bark Psychosis.

― Rob M, Tuesday, 5 June 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

All Different Things by Bark Psychosis appearing on a Newsnight piece about the history of the troubles blew me away at the time.

― Richard Tunnicliffe, Tuesday, 5 June 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

Alan Yentob's 'Cracked Actor' documentary about David Bowie is my all- time favourite musical TV moment, precisely because it refuses to be limited to the musical. It's about mythology, self-mythologising, Japanese woodland creatures, white men pretending to be black, Englishmen coked up to the nines on American afternoon chat shows, sex on Sunset and Vine, flies drinking milk, and all sorts of other fascinating things. It always beat me that Yentob went on to be controller of BBC 2, and yet we never saw anything quite like this on our screens again.

― Momus, Tuesday, 5 June 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

Worst TV musical moment: an extract from Keith Jarrett's 'Koln Concert' being used by BBC1 over Princess Di funeral footage.

― Andrew L, Tuesday, 5 June 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

At least they didn't play the whole thing, Andrew.

― mark s, Tuesday, 5 June 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

Based on the snippets I've seen of _Cracked Actor_, I have to second Momus there, that's got some truly bizarre stuff in it. The fly in the milk sequence is one of the most artful evasions/explanations I've ever seen.

Odd soundtracking moment -- Dead Can Dance's "The Host of Seraphim" played over archival footage of Stalin's funeral. Eh?

― Ned Raggett, Tuesday, 5 June 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

Well, there's one very obvious example for anyone British, but I think I'm more or less too young to give it; by the time I came in, the Radiophonic Workshop had gone corporate. Oh, John Baker's "Festival Time" was still being used, though, as was his version of "Boys and Girls", so I suppose they had an impact.

But the real answer: The Chart Show, Saturday 27th May 1995, 12.15 pm, Pulp's "Common People" video. I knew pop was calling me, and I never let up.

― Robin Carmody, Tuesday, 5 June 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

Talk Talk's "Runeii" on a 'foot and mouth' report on a late night news thingy. Very gnarly parly cc..

― Dave, Tuesday, 5 June 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

The Smiths South Bank Show - I liked them before I saw it, but I loved them afterwards.

― DG, Tuesday, 5 June 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

Hearing Time of her time, Ride Carnival of Light in the background of Entertainment Tonight's interview with Tom Cruise.

― ty@hotmail.com, Tuesday, 5 June 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

Worse TV moment: a Grolsch ad with Dummy/Maxinquaye/Blue Lines sound- a-like background music, and realising a sound I'd grown to love had just died.

Best TV Moment: In retrospect seeing the Sex Pistols as a bairn and being scared.

― Stevo, Tuesday, 5 June 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

Yeah, I was eight when Sid Vicious died and they showed a clip of the Pistols on the news. It seemed so violent and alien, I'm not sure I ever recovered from that initial blast of shock.

― Venga, Tuesday, 5 June 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

Have just heard Jim O'Rourke's version of 'Something Big' from 'Eureka' used on a British Gas advert.

― Andrew L, Friday, 8 June 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

There was an episode of X Files where Mulder is seein g all these ghost children . there is a nice song in the background. I somehow got it by accident from napster. Anyone know who does it? It sounds kind of sampley/keyboardey.

― -- Mike Hanley, Friday, 8 June 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

I saw an ad with Autechre's Clipper in it the other day. I think it was another VW one.

― bnw, Friday, 8 June 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

autechre? which country is this? i'm assuming not britain, then again, our tv is so fucked, i don't really watch it that much, and everyone else watching the tedious big brother again, i don't really want to anyway...

― gareth, Saturday, 9 June 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

"our tv is so fucked":
A: Compared to WHOSE?
B: Compared to WHEN?
C: How would you improve it?

― mark s, Saturday, 9 June 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

As I deliberately watch less of it than ever, I don't see how I can fairly and accurately comment here.

― Robin Carmody, Saturday, 9 June 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

A: Compared to WHOSE?
everyone elses

B: Compared to WHEN?
when we had one that worked

C: How would you improve it?
chuck it in a skip and get one that we can watch properly...

― gareth, Sunday, 10 June 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

Cor - that was *funny*. It was like the conceptual / conversational equivalent of one of those mishearings-which-is-more-interesting-than- the-original that Nicky D was going on about.

― the pinefox, Sunday, 10 June 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

:-O

― mark s, Sunday, 10 June 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

thirteen years pass...

I just found out about "Sunday Night"/"Night Music" and the lineups on some of these episodes are insane - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunday_Night_%28American_TV_program%29.

Like:
The Pixies
Sun Ra
Syd Straw
Arthur Baker
Al Green
Sister Carol

or:
Bob Weir
Rob Wasserman
Warren Zevon
Artis the Spoonman
John Lurie and Nana Vasconcelos
Bongwater
Screamin' Jay Hawkins
Modern Jazz Quartet

Did anyone actually watch this when it was on? There are clips and some full episodes on YouTube.

― Immediate Follower (NA), Thursday, 25 September 2014 16:58 (nine years ago) link

I remember seeing Pere Ubu when they were on, but I always forgot that this show existed and/or couldn't stay up that late because of school the next day.

― Montgomery Burns' Jazz (Tarfumes The Escape Goat), Thursday, 25 September 2014 17:03 (nine years ago) link

I used to stay up late for this. I remember Nick Cave playing and the members of Sonic Youth were in the audience.

― Now you're messing with a (President Keyes), Thursday, 25 September 2014 17:07 (nine years ago) link

three years pass...

it's really amazing that this show was on NETWORK TELEVISION: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunday_Night_(U.S._TV_program)

― brimstead, Wednesday, 5 September 2018 22:06 (five years ago) link

lol didn't even see for NA's older revive!!

― brimstead, Wednesday, 5 September 2018 22:07 (five years ago) link

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