This year’s nominees for Illuminati puppet of the year: Lil Wayne … Azealia Banks … Miley Cyrus … Katy Perry … Lady Gaga … being vacuous, soulless and shallow never looked so good or so endearing. JoyCamp: Grammys: Illuminati Puppet of the Year
Journalist: Madonna, what’s the new single like?
Madonna: The old one. Spitting Image s6e1, ITV 1989
The Mankees: Fabulous Comeback Tour: ‘Hey, hey, we’re the has-beens … and we’ve got nothing to say … ibid.
‘We want to be the biggest band in our street.’ The Stone Roses: Made of Stone ***** band member, 2013
‘The Roses became embroiled in a dispute with their record company.’ ibid. news
‘Our plans are to shake up the world.’ ibid. Ian Brown
1986: After a disagreement with manager Gareth Evans guitarist Andy Couzens walks out of the band. ibid.
June 1987: bassist Peter Garner also leaves the band. ibid.
After years building up a loyal Manchester following suddenly they’re darlings of the music press and number one in the independent charts. ibid.
Parr Hall, Warrington, capacity 1,100. ibid.
Stone Roses Amsterdam Bust-Up. ibid. headline
It just never was the same. ibid. second album
We found out a lot of money had gone missing. ibid. band
‘It was the first festival [Monterey] of its kind, the first pop festival.’ The Jimi Hendrix Experience: American Landing, Sky Arts 2017
1966 London: ‘Chas came in with this guy … we were just totally enamoured.’ ibid. Chris Stamp
‘What were they doing when they had time off? They were tracking Jimi Hendrix.’ ibid. Andrew Oldham
‘I was shocked. I had never seen anything like this in my life.’ ibid. witness
Elvis Presley, country boy, died in a mansion in a street that was named for him.’ Storyville: Orion: The Man Who Would Be King, news, BBC 2015
Is Orion Really Elvis? ibid.
Soon The Beatles had conquered much of the world. But back in the USSR the repressive old men in the Kremlin tried to resist the Fab 4. They were defeated by their children. This is the untold story of how The Beatles helped to destroy communism. Storyville: How the Beatles Rocked the Kremlin, BBC 2019
Across the USSR The Beatles virus spawned hundreds of tribute bands. ibid.
Reviled by the Soviet authorities as Western pollution. ibid.
Let’s take a trip through the most visionary period in British music history: five kaleidoscopic years between 1965 and 1970 when a handful of dreamers re-imagined Pop music. In the mid ’60s a counterculture swapped the white heat of technology for an older Britain of Edwardian fantasy and bucolic bliss. From out of the Bohemian underground psychedelia took over the Pop mainstream. Psychedelic Britannia, BBC 2017
In 1965 the Yardbirds release Still I’m Sad: it was the sound of British R-n-B loosening its moorings. ibid.
LSD25, a legal substance introduced to Britain by America in 1965, began ripping through the Bohemian underground in 1966. ibid.
While UFO, LSD and Pink Floyd were galvanising the freaks, a group of misfits from Canterbury were developing a sound along parallel lines: Soft Machine. ibid.
The Move: I Can Hear the Grass Grow. ibid.
The concept album became de rigueur. ibid.
In July 1980 at the age of 39 John Lennon was sailing to Jamaica when his boat hit a storm. With the crew crippled by sea sickness it was John who had hardly ever sailed before who took the helm for six hours. Great Britons s1e3: John Lennon, Alan Davies, BBC 2002
They occupied the top five slots of the American charts. ibid.
I’m an award-winning music agent with over 25 years in the business … I’ve seen countless acts come and go. Hits, Hype & Hustle: An Insider’s Guide to the Music Business, BBC 2014
Making a star is a team effort: there are managers, producers, PR and image consultants. ibid.
‘What makes live music so special is that it’s unpredictable.’ Hits, Hype & Hustle: An Insider’s Guide to the Music Business II: On the Road, John Giddings
‘From a bunch of amateurs making it up as they went along into a billion pound global industry.’ ibid.
By the mid 1970s most bands didn’t tour just to earn money from ticket sales … The rules of live music were still being written. ibid.
At the height of their success The Police were playing over 100 shows every year; their relentless touring around the world paid off … They set the benchmark. ibid.
Artists need to get along but it doesn’t always work out that way. ibid.
‘Our first gig we got beat up by the support band.’ ibid. Alex James of Blur
The inevitable reunion … With reunions, relaunches and revivals so fashionable I’m going to look into why so many bands are getting together. What’s different this time around? Hits, Hype & Hustle: An Insider’s Guide to the Music Business III: Revivals and Reunions, Alan Edwards
The music we grew up with never leaves us. ibid.
Blondie: The band had now been back together for over twenty years. ibid.
Making new music is the ultimate test of any band reunion. ibid.
Police: They made nearly £300 million. ibid.
The rise of the retro-festival. ibid.
Me and my musical chums dressed up to play a track about the Arthurian legends: grandiose music, a heroic subject, outlandish costumes. This could only be the ’70s – heyday of that much maligned creature, the concept album. When Pop Went Epic: The Crazy World of the Concept Album, BBC 2018, Rick Wakeman
The concept album didn’t stop with the ’70s. ibid.
The concept album in its most ambitious form yet – the rock opera. ibid.
Tommy was released in May 1969 as a double album. ibid.
Marvin Gaye: What’s Going On is not a question, it’s a statement. ibid.
No-one did it better than David Bowie … Ziggie didn’t just exist on the album cover. ibid.
1973 Pink Floyd: The Dark Side of the Moon … The biggest selling concept album ever. ibid.
The concept as total theatre was now a hot ticket. ibid.
A funk universe every bit as creative as Prog Rock. ibid.
Along came Punk and burst our bubble. ibid.
1979: The Wall was one of Pink Floyd’s best selling albums. ibid.
Public Enemy: It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back. ibid.
Goring, Oxfordshire, Christmas Eve 2016: George Michael is holed up in his country mansion. Biopics: George Michael aka The Double Life of George Michael, Channel 5 2018
In the last ten years of his life George Michael became known more for run-ins with the tabloids and the law than he did with his music. It was a period marked by reckless behaviour, personal crises and a downward spiral. ibid.
One man who lived two lives. ibid.
George and Andrew: they were schoolboy buddies. ibid.
By 1984 Wham was unstoppable. ibid.
In 1986, 80,000 fans saw Wham perform for the last time. George had called time on the band. ibid.
‘I just wanted to be filthily famous.’ ibid. George
As an older man George Michael was openly gay. Going to a park in north London for sex became a ritual. ibid.
He wanted to find love. ibid.
The battle with Sony was but the start of self-destructive behaviour. ibid.
George increasingly shut himself away … known more for his drug use than his music. ibid.
George disappears from public view to nurse his mother. ibid.
Outside reached number two in the UK charts. ibid.
In 2006 George was involved in a series of driving incidents. ibid.
His first world tour in fifteen years. ibid.