TV Pop Diaries
Pop Music on British Television 1955 - 1999

BBC Radio One's Roger Scott had conducted a series of new interviews for his Saturday afternoon/evening show The Saturday Sequence in the late 1980s based on a selection of what are now acknowledged as classic albums. The show examined the great pop/rock albums, talking to the artists involved. After Scott's death in the early nineties colleague Richard Skinner took up the reins for a further series. A similar concept had been taken up with an American radio series, In The Studio in the late eighties, but these series just restricted themselves to the artists talking about their work, not the physical process itself with examples of session recordings.

The idea of a Classic Album had taken root in the CD era, with people hearing albums complete in one go without the nonsense of splitting the album into halves, switching sides halfway through like a football game. It was important to get insight from the artists responsible, rather than just relying on critics and reviewers to fill in the gaps.

Independent production company Isis was created to help produce a South Bank Show special, broadcast 14th June 1992, The Making Of Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, which involved the surviving Beatles and George Martin explaining the recording process and playing back the multi-track tapes for the first time since the recording sessions. The show was a revelation, and a new strand of music documentary was born. But it would take another few years for the company to persuade other acts to get involved in something similar. Eventually agreements were made and a deal was done with the BBC in the UK and other broadcasters around the world to produce a whole series based on the same premise.

The first show featured The Jimi Hendrix Experience album Electric Ladyland, followed by Paul Simon's Graceland on 28th July 1997, The Grateful Dead's American Beauty and Anthem Of The Sun were featured 4th August 1997, Stevie Wonder's Songs In The Key of Life on 11th August 1997 this time featuring Stevie playing new live versions of some of the songs, The Band's second album on 18th August 1997, with Fleetwood Mac's Rumours completing the first series on 25th August 1997.

The show switched to ITV for the second series of five shows with Meat Loaf's Bat Out Of Hell broadcast 23rd October 1999, Phil Collins' Face Value on 30th October 1999, U2's The Joshua Tree on 27th November 1999, Who's Next on 4th December 1999 and Steely Dan's Aja on 12th December 1999.

Many of the early shows were released on DVD by show distributor Eagle, some with exclusive bonus material.

The series continued to be broadcast by the BBC and later on Sky Arts into the 2020s.

At the time of writing the show is available on Sky Arts in the UK and Netflix.

CLASSIC ALBUMS

BBC1, ITV, Sky Arts/Isis Productions

21st July 1997 - date