BEHIND THE MUSIC EPISODE GUIDE
Part 4
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4
Send any comments, questions, or corrections to editor@roctober.com.
BLUES
TRAVELER (5/27/2001) I always considered John Popper the worst harmonica
player ever but here I learn that he always thought he was the best harmonica
player ever. In this episode we meet the
band, with Popper at times looking like the fat twin on the motorcycle in the Guinness Book of World Records. It is encouraging for aspiring jam bands that
all these average looking guys (especially the one who died) managed to land
super hot wives (VH1 appreciates this
and has the beautiful women talk on camera A LOT, so that the show looks like
professional TV and not some weird access show with ugly guys sitting around
griping). One interesting thing here is
that the band uses the term “partying” relentlessly as a metaphor for drug and
booze abuse, to the point where narrator Jim Forbes starts saying it. One Traveler died mixing barbiturates,
cocaine and heroin…some party! This show
was hard to watch partly because I didn’t find the music the least bit interesting
but also because Popper (now thinner thanks to a stomach staple) is such a
dick…even his boasting of a semi-heart attack while jerking off to porn is pure
ugly arrogance. (JA)
1981 (6/3/01) Bob Marley is losing his battle with cancer, John
Lennon is gone, Disco is dead, punk is sunk, Eagles and Doobie Brothers are
failing fast. Foreigner, Journey, and Styx
keep on chugging. Paradise Theatre quickly goes to the top and James Young lets us
know that his is the only band to sell out the Checkerdome in St.
Louis. For Ross
Valory, arena touring for Escape,
“was an incredible experience, being on the stage and having all these people
singing all the songs, being so familiar with it.” But hold on to that feeling indeed, because
REO Speedwagon’s chance on a piano ballad ends up the best-selling album of the
year. Video arcades threaten the record industry and it’ll take 200k in sales
to break even. The Rolling Stones take
on Jovan as corporate sponsor. Lee
Abrams leads the introduction of focus groups and surveys to radio, as passion
takes a backseat to statistically maximized profits. Cold, capitalistic, Reaganomic shit, but
essential foregrounding for the era when the next generation will pay for the
new thing, right? It’s not called new
wave for nothing, and after the sketchy implication that Rick Springfield
starring in General Hospital was some
kind of ur-video for “Jessie’s Girl,” the shuttle blasts off, the moon man is
an icon, and video has killed the radio star.
MTV only has 100 videos to fill their daily schedule, and the Buggles,
the Cars, the Police, the Pretenders, Duran Duran, Devo get HEAVY
rotation. And yet, the more things
change, the more they stay the same. MTV
forces the compromise of music for eye candy, and Christopher Cross is but one
of the fugly artists who fell by the wayside. Let’s not forget about the male
gaze as Pat Benetar and Stevie Nicks take the lead with the Go-Gos, Bangles,
Cindy Lauper and Madonna on the way, and Joan Jett’s so hard her video is in
black and white. Kim Carnes’ synthy
“Bette Davis Eyes” is the number one hit of the 80s. Ozzy Osbourne does the
dove thing and reinvents himself with “Crazy Train.” Crüe, Poison, Whitesnake all follow, and
David Lee Roth puts it best: “We’re not interested in broadening anyone’s
musical horizons, we’re not interested in expanding the future of music, we
just want to rock.” Men At Work, U2,
Human League, Billy Idol, and at least ninety-nine different sideburnless
haircuts round out this blowout episode. (EB)
1987 (6/10/01) With a backdrop of
Reagan-era greed and capitalist shenanigans explained by the greatest minds of
the era, including historian Doug Brinkley and economist Tawny Kitaen, we
basically get a treatise on the stupid, unimportant hair metal bands who came
and went but were put to shame by brilliant genius bands like REM, U2 and The Grateful
Dead (?), who were all embraced by the mainstream that year. The problem with this theory is that on other
VH1 rock histories they explain that Grunge is what usurped hair metal, and on
this show they illustrate the absurdity of the glammy bands by showing a series
of acts that came out in ‘88, ‘89 and ‘90!
This episode is a good example of why you actually need an idea before
you decide to make a show, rather than deciding to make a documentary about
something and then coming up with some cockamamie hypothesis after the fact and
manipulating things to vaguely fit the subject. (JA)
1994 (6/17/01) This is one of the
better “year” BTMs, built around a pretty long and well crafted report on
Cobain’s suicide, and focusing the rest on scandals and news that shaped the
attitudes of the public that year. One
reason this is more successful than other “year” shows, particularly “1992,” is
that instead of trying to mention every artist who had a good year they worked
their songs into the background of legit subject matter that helps the
narrative along. Sheryl Crow sings “All
I Want To Do Is Have Some Fun” while we hear Paula Jones’ accusations against
the President. Coolio sings “Fantastic
Voyage” as OJ’s Bronco drives around.
And I learned that white rock critics like Nirvana and Smashing Pumpkins
and Green Day and seem to have rather low opinions of Mariah Carey and Ace of
Base and Boyz II Men. (JA)
RICK NELSON (6/24/01) It may seem that
Ricky Nelson had all the breaks; a T.V. star at childhood, good looks to
compete with Elvis, a father who supported his move to music, plus the
adulation of millions. With that setup he probably could have made it if he
were only marginally talented, but this was not the case. Ricky, much like The Everly Bros., was also a
lot cooler than his detractors claimed. The original sitcom smartass, before
Eddie Haskell, his near-posthumous punk cred would not be attained until The Cramps covered "Lonesome
Town.” Lux and Ivy openly idolized
Ricky, and saw beyond the white bread image he seemed to convey. This segment goes deep into uncovering how
and why Ricky paid the price for "overnight success.” Ricky, of course,
literally grew up on television, playing himself, with his real-life family, on
the beloved series, The Adventures of
Ozzie and Harriett. He was a household name, and had already immortalized
the phrase, "I don't mess around, boy,” before he'd taken a notion to pick
up a guitar. The innocent circumstances surrounding his move toward music could
have made a good T.V. movie on it's own (and I don't mean the
anachronism-packed biopic that coincided with this documentary). Here was a
then-teenaged Nelson, a bonafide T.V. star, who basically had the world at his
feet, but was unable to impress the girl of his fancy, who, like so many
others, had fallen under the spell of Elvis Presley. Though Ricky could
scarcely conceal his own admiration for Presley, it was plain for him to see
that he'd have to follow in his example as a Rock n’ Roll singer to compete in
a world turned upside-down by the object of his lady-friend's adoration. When
Ricky told his father, Ozzie Nelson (yeah, there was a T.V. Dad called
"Ozzie" a half-century ago, and his kids had TALENT!) that he was
interested in getting beyond the boundaries of T.V. comedy, and trying his hand
at this Rock n' Roll thing not only did his Dad give him his blessings, but he
immediately started setting things up so they couldn’t fail. He quickly
assembled a crack band (featuring renowned studio guitarist, James Burton, who
would later find himself in Elvis' employ), and featured Ricky performing his
first song on prime time T.V. Ricky's
rendition of Fats Domino's classic,
"I'm Walkin',” was a huge hit. It didn’t sound as tuff as Elvis, but he
wasn’t mining Pat Boone territory, either. Nelson had established a happy
medium on the first go-round, and would go on to release a plethora of
tasteful, yet rockin', hit singles. As an actor and a singer who could appeal
to both kids and their parents, Ricky proved he could have it both ways. He
later met Lorrie Collins, of the fantastic Collins Kids, and began his first
whirlwind romance, one that threatened both their careers. Who knows what could
have happened? They sure looked good together, and Lorrie was a welcome guest
on The Nelson's show, until the two drew dangerously close to marriage, a move
neither party's parents or managers were too keen on. Lorrie follows
"Sir" Paul McCartney in a latter day interview clip, admitting she
thought marrying someone else without even formally breaking it off with Rick
was a no-class move, but one she was pressured into. Rick took it hard, but how
long did anyone think one of America's
most eligible bachelors was going to let it get him down? I might add, that
while Lorrie looks pretty good in the interview portion, I've met her, and she
looks a LOT better in person. Though his professional life carried on as
before, by the early sixties, he'd hit a brick wall. Unable to come up with a
hit for two years, he managed to bounce back with smash-hits like
"Travelling Man,” promoted, as always, in musical spots on the T.V.
show. The late Ozzie Nelson is
described, accurately, as the creator of some of the first music videos. Ricky
was having his first comeback, and he wasn’t even 21 years old. By the time he
had made 21, he found himself the recipient of an unprecedented twenty year
contract with Decca (who, incidentally, had previously turned down The
Beatles), only to have it all blow up in his face with the arrival of The
British Invasion (D'OH!!). Rick (as he
was then called) was spiraling downward fast. The hits weren’t coming, and the
T.V. show was cancelled, but above and beyond all this, Rick fell in love with
a friend from childhood, Kristin Harmon. The two were married, and set about
raising a family. Their daughter, Tracy, would go on to be a successful
actress, while their twin sons, Gunnar and Matthew would become briefly famous
as teen idols, like their dad, under the heading of "Nelson " (the
less said about that, the better, Rick stayed focused on domestic life, though
the music jones wouldn’t let him alone. He formed The Stone Canyon Band, one of
the first Country-Rock groups, and played The Troubador in Hollywood,
becoming a very popular act, with or without a hit. He was soon booked to play
a Richard Nader Rock’n’Roll Revival show at Madison Square Garden, which should
have been a triumph, with Rock Royalty like Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley sharing
the bill, and with the likes of John Lennon in attendance. But, the dread specter of nostalgia loomed
over the proceedings like a black cloud. Nelson wasn’t well received by some
for his shoulder-length hair and more contemporary attire (never mind that
Little Richard, Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley at least TRIED to dress hip, yet
they were still accepted). His newer material was greeted by silence and boos
from some, though others got it, but Rick was embittered by the whole affair.
Still, Rick would have the last laugh, as he wrote a song about this
experience, "Garden Party,” which turned out to be a monster hit. Still,
this would prove to be yet another comeback gone sour. In a few years, Nelson
was broke, and his father's death, and his own impending divorce, would only
compound his depression. Still, he soldiered on, giving his fans what they
wanted. An appearance on Saturday Night
Live served as a potential vehicle for another comeback (he had learned,
early in his career, that life was a series of comebacks). Rick was remarkably
good humored about the whole thing, telling the T.V. viewers that if they
didn’t recognize him from the old days, that they should adjust their set from
color to black and white (You could do that, back then). He also did a great
"Twilight Zone" parody, portraying himself, searching for his T.V.
home and running into The Cleavers and The Ricardos along the way. It seemed
like he'd really found his home again, through television, but his version of
Bobby Darin's "Dream Lover,” the hit that should have been, wasn’t
released until five weeks after he performed it on SNL, killing it's momentum.
Around this time, however, Rick started flirting with Rockabilly again, a
personally, if not financially, rewarding move. He assembled a crack Rockabilly
group, reportedly his best band since the James Burton days, and set out on the
road again. Then the band made the incredibly poor decision to hire a World War
II-era plane (that almost couldn’t be started at all) to take them to Dallas
for a New Year's Eve concert. Even if
you'd never heard the story, you could guess what happened next. The plane
became engulfed in flames before the pilots could attempt an emergency landing.
The plane crashed into a field, and everyone but the pilots (who were both
critically burned) were killed. The image of Rick as a polite, milk-drinking,
All-American Boy could only be tarnished in death. Even though his ex-wife
brought cocaine use to her list of complaints when she filed for divorce, the
report that Nelson had experimented with drugs while his career went in and out
of decline never made for big print. That is, until he was no longer around to
defend himself. I remember, personally, how the vultures in the press had a
field day, playing on the (never confirmed) suggestion that Nelson had been
freebasing cocaine on a plane that probably would have gone up in flames if
somebody had lit a cigarette on board. Friends and family members deny the
allegations in taped interviews, and even if (and I say IF) they were merely in
denial about what happened, how many Rock n’ Roll stars, much less former child
stars, fell prey to occupational hazards? As it stands, the circumstances
surrounding the death of Rick Nelson, and the members of his last, great,
backing band will remain one of the great mysteries in Rock n’ Roll, comparable
to Bobby Fuller and Brian Jones before him, or Del Shannon and Johnny Thunders
after him. Bottom line: Rick was true to the Rock, even after Elvis had
virtually disassociated himself from it. He kept his cool and did his thing,
and he did it well, something this program succeeds in demonstrating. "You
see, you can't please everyone, so you've got to please yourself…” (JB)
NOTORIOUS B.I.G. (7/8/01) We can’t get enough of the early photos
(especially those with a flat top, and they never do tell us that the baby on Ready to Die ain’t Biggie) but they end
in the pre-teen years, long before Christopher Wallace makes the transition to
Biggie Smalls. His mother Voletta makes
everything past the stoop off-limits, but once Christopher starts hustling, he’s
addicted to the game. The street video
of the 17-year-old realizing his skills as a battle rhymer on the corner is a
treat. A demo tape made with friend 50
Gran makes Unsigned Hype, whetting the appetite of the newest and youngest
A&R at Uptown Records. Still
hustling to support baby mama Jan and little Tianna, Puffy advises Biggie that he “don’t need (drug dealing), that
right there is short money, right there.” Love at first sight with Faith Evans
leads to a marriage on August 4, 1994. As Ready
to Die blows up, Biggie builds a suave, sophisticated image and as Method
Man points out, “it got to a point where you forgot he was fat or ugly, then it
got to a point where he wasn’t ugly.”
Their friendship was common knowledge,, but you may not have known that
Biggie slept on Tupac’s couch when the latter was debuting in Juice in NY. The explanation of East vs. West is mostly
alright, hitting on Biggie and the Junior M.A.F.I.A. working in Quad Studios as
Pac is shot in the building lobby, “Who Shot Ya?” followed by “Hit ‘em Up,” Big
avoiding the answer record for a real conversation, then backstage in a scuffle
at the Soul Train awards, when Pac whispers that this beef is only a marketing
tool, and a rather effective one at that.
The Twin Peaks-style minor
chord progressions that accompany the onstage volleys between Suge, Biggie, and
Snoop at the ‘95 Source Awards are a bit much. Viewers who knew where they were
on March 9, 1997 may get
bored when Behind the Music starts
acting like Unsolved Mysteries. Voletta’s loss is clear and unending, and the
footage of all of Bed-Stuy reminiscing over him would’ve made a more touching
R.I.P. to this story of B.I.G. (EB)
GREEN DAY (7/15/01)
This one is great because to have any controversy they have to focus on the
idea that his band is considered a sell out by its d.i.y. punk rock fans. But to explain that, this corporate Viacom
show has to explain to the viewers what d.i.y., punk and “selling out” mean as
if they are explaining it to Martians.
While light on controversy and tragedy this features an articulate band,
some decent music and best yet, a romance with a woman who looks like a regular
pretty lady and not a model (as seen in most BTMs). Trivia: Green Day cursed
the second most of any band on Behind the
Music (27 times) which is fifty less than Oasis. (JA)
NEIL DIAMOND (7/22/01) Neil Diamond started from relatively
humble beginnings. Raised by loving and
musical parents (known for crashing weddings just to dance to the bands!) in
Brooklyn, acquiring a thirst for musical knowledge while at camp in Upstate New
York, eventually winning a scholarship (though for fencing, not music), and
even a wife, having written his first original song in the form of a marriage
proposal. There didn’t seem to be a single bump in the road, at least, not
until Neil dropped out of College to work as a songwriter in Tin Pan
Alley. Young Neil had answered his true
calling, to be sure, but with competition like Goffin/King and Mann/Weill, who were all stars in their field
already, Neil would not be able to attain the kind of recognition they had
overnight. Even after he'd penned a
minor hit for Jay and The Americans, he was quick to dismiss his early efforts
as "sophomoric.” With a wife, and now, a child, to support, Neil decided
that his only option was to come up with a bonafide hit. Ellie Greenwich and
her husband, Jeff Barry, collectively one of the most prolific and successful
songwriting teams of their day, got Neil signed to Bang Records (an Atlantic
subsidiary). His first release on Bang, "Solitary Man,” was not the
breakthrough he'd hoped for, though it was well-received, and would go on to
become his signature song. "Cherry, Cherry" soon followed, and it's
irresistible rhythm pattern became the patented "Neil Diamond Sound.”
There's some great footage here from that period, which demonstrates why he
came to be known as "The Jewish Elvis.” He presented himself as an
introvert, with seemingly limited facial expressions, but, when he hit the
stage, something very exciting happened that could only be compared to Presley
in his heyday. He had good hair and sported some cool, sparkly shirts, too
(critics would later berate his stage clothes, but Diamond practically thanked
them, as their petty whinings left them little time to put down his music). Don Kirshner, then in the early stages of
developing The Monkees, contacted Diamond about writing a song for his new
protégés. The result, "I'm a Believer,” went on to become his first # 1
hit record as a songwriter. Meanwhile, Neil continued to chalk up more hits for
himself and The Monkees, and even Deep Purple would have an early hit with his
"Kentucky Woman.” Despite his
apparent crossover appeal, Neil could have been forgiven for going into culture
shock when he found himself having to follow Herman's Hermits AND precede The
Who(!), well into their gear-smashing phase. "I would never smash a
guitar, I like 'em too much..,” sez Cool Head Neil, "But, I thought,
‘Yeah, they can follow me.” Though his
marriage and his relationship with Bang soon came to an end, Diamond soldiered
on, releasing his first Top Five single, "Sweet Caroline" for Uni
Records. Eager for new challenges, Neil
tried his hand at acting. In the midst of a very rough time in his life (no
doubt attributable to the loss of his family), he auditioned for the role of
Lenny Bruce, a part he no doubt felt an affinity for, despite his
then-unfashionable disassociation with the drug scene (in fact, he'd previously
written an unintentionally hilarious anti-drug song called "The Pot
Smoker's Song,” which incorporated actual testimonies from recovering addicts
in an early form of "Cut and Paste" songwriting). The precious little
footage from his audition show him to be a natural for the role, bringing to
mind the laid-back, "dirty" stylings George Carlin (himself a student,
and onetime friend, of Lenny Bruce) was making popular at the time. Still,
Diamond's efforts posed no threat to Dustin Hoffman, who'd eventually score the
part. Still, it is a real joy to hear Neil Diamond say "shtup" on
T.V.! While still at the peak of his popularity, Neil did the unthinkable, and
announced that he was retiring from the concert stage, wanting to devote more
time to his new wife and child than he could have afforded the others during
his ascent to fame. He stayed out of the
limelight for four years, later calling it the best period of his life. Neil
had developed a reputation as a loner, someone who follows his own chosen path,
but his willingness to put a lucrative performing career on ice either confirms
or dispels that description, though it's hard to say which. His farewell live
LP, "Hot August Night" was a huge success, as was his soundtrack to
the movie, "Jonathan Livingston Seagull" (though the movie
bombed...how many movies consisting entirely of untrained birds ever were a hit
at the box office?). By the time he returned to the stage, and began recording
more frequently, he found himself still the object of scorn where the critics
were concerned. His performance in the remake of The Jazz Singer was panned, though the soundtrack outsold pot in
some states. Like Rick Nelson at about this time, he knew his best bet was to
ignore the critics and just give his fans what they wanted. Shaking his less
than hip image, however, proved to be a less than Herculean task. In time,
younger fans got hip to the fact that Neil was already hip himself, and a new
generation of musicians found inspiration in his mastery of the lost art of
songwriting, and his gravelly but resonant voice. Neil Diamond isn’t a Neil
Diamond joke anymore, a point that was driven home to me a few years ago when I
saw him for the first time, courtesy of the Roctober editor's mom, who scored a
bunch of free tickets for her family and the rest of us freeloaders. Even from up in the very last row, none of us
could deny the man's charisma, and his ability to reach everybody in the place.
Even on the slower songs, Neil ROCKED. I came out of there with a better
understanding. Besides, if you ever went on a road trip with your family in the
early-to-mid seventies, you no doubt heard a lot of Neil on the car radio. Now,
he can be the soundtrack for the good times you're still having. (JB)
BOYZ II MEN – VH1 says
this episode exists, and I know it was worked on (a found an online diary of
someone who crewed on it) but I don’t think it ever aired.
PAT BENATAR (8/5/01)
This episode features the most shocking moment in BTM history. As we are hear of the salad days of Benatar’s
career we learn that she and her guitarist Neil Gerardo became an item and were
married. Cut to a contemporary interview
and there Benatar and Gerardo are sitting together…THEY ARE STILL MARRIED! I didn’t see that coming, and for BTM that
was a real twist, Also nice here is Pat’s supportive attitude towards her
daughter who is in an unremarkable girl teenybopper vocal act. (JA)
REO SPEEDWAGON (8/12/01)
For a multimillion
selling arena rock band from the early eighties, this band's fall was really
dramatic, and this BTM doesn't sugarcoat the facts. In the early nineties, when
other such bands were smart enough to fade from view, this band was touring
abroad...playing in a small dive bar...on
the same bill as a ventriloquist.
All while various pundits were claiming 1993 as one of several Years
That Punk Broke. But then, they struggled so long that quitting wasn't in their
vocabulary. As with several other stadium rockers on BTM, there's a tension
between the poppish lead singer (Kevin Cronin) and the hard rocking lead
guitarist (Gary Richrath), to the point where relations were still strained
when this ep was filmed. As far as visuals, REO were really good about saving
mementos, including a hilarious candid of one member in shorts talking on the
phone (and even a hippie era shot of another member sprawled out on his bed
listening to Clear Light!). This episode is really prime, since they seem to
spend as much time on the struggling years (1971-79) as they do the commercial
heyday (early 80's). As with the Doobies, Journey and other such bands profiled
on this show, the crowd shots tell it all. In the seventies, they're
rocking hard for Jeff Spicoli/Jim Anchower-ish stoners, but as soon as they
started hitting their stride with the power ballads, clean-cut preppie chicks
took over the front row. If you want a primer in how the music business changed
over 20+ years, hunt down this episode. Not only to see how 70s hard rock got
eased out by 80s new wave, but also to see how patient record companies were
back then. Epic, REO's label, stayed with them an unfathomably long time, with
almost a decade of mild-selling albums before they finally made #1 on the
charts. These days, they would have shown REO the door if they didn't start
moving Thriller-style from the
beginning. (JP)
TWISTED SISTER (8/19/01)
"Twisted Sister became the poster child for everything wrong with rock and
roll," laments Dee Snider in reference to Twisted Sister's notorious 1985
'battle' with the PMRC. Well, maybe. The Parent's Music Resource Center picked
a band they figured would be a slam dunk in the effort to convince record
labels to put warnings on music. I mean, look at the singer. He looks like a
reject from the 'Road Warrior' cast, and he's wearing women's makeup. And this
video where the father (brilliantly played by Mark Metcalf, who I think should
get at least half the credit for any success the band had) gets thrown out the
window. This is just terrible. Dee, however, had a dark
secret he was ready to unleash on Tipper Gore and company. "I'm 30 years
old, I'm married, I have a 3 year old son. I was born and raised a Christian
and I still adhere to those principals. Believe it or not, I do not drink, I do
not smoke, and I do not use drugs." And while the censors were totally
underwhelmed by this revelation, the bands' fans, who had related to the
anti-establishment messages, were quite willing to give them the heave ho.
Dee's testimony before the PMRC is the "and then tragedy struck"
moment of this Behind The Music
episode. But what amazed me were the attempts made at redemption. I don't
remember this, but in 1986 Dee had his front teeth filed
into fangs. The first single from the next album was a cover of 'Leader Of The
Pack.' MTV wouldn't play a video they made with Alice Cooper. They were pretty
much finished by '87. (CB)
HAIR (8/26/01)
The highlight of this odd BTM about the infamous play/not infamous movie is
cast member Andre Deshields (Broadway vet who played the Wiz in The Wiz) relentlessly naming specific
types of acid and marijuana they used.
Unlike the Grease episode that
focused on the triumph of the writers getting their play made this is framed as
the transformation of a socialite millionaire who was liberated from corporate
life and embraced the hippie ways by becoming the producer of Hair.
They act as if he changed, though he did a mainstream Broadway play and
twice fired his cast for un-“cool” reasons
(once because they missed a show to attend a cast
member’s funeral, and once when they missed a show during a huge
demonstration). Look for nice cameos by
Melba Moore, Meatloaf, The Fifth Dimension and the Cowsills. (JA)
BLIND MELON (9/9/01) Wow.
A truly great episode. Blind
Melon’s Behind the Music is deeply
moving and boasts a great soundtrack to boot—Blind Melon’s own music is
featured, of course, alongside some surprise selections from Shannon Hoon’s
Indiana homeboys Guns’n’Roses. Perhaps
the episode’s strongest and most unique feature is the inclusion of a large
amount of footage from Shannon Hoon’s personal home movies and tour
videos. These tapes, in combination with
bits read aloud from his surprisingly poetic journals, serve to paint a sweet,
vivid picture of the late singer. VH1
has an established penchant for transforming a given band’s BTM episode into a biopic of the lead
singer (See Genesis, Goo Goo Dolls, Everclear...), and that same pattern is
certainly at work in Blind Melon’s installment, but here the unremitting focus
on Shannon is not problematic. The
episode plays like an affectionate, effective and ungrudging memorial to Shannon,
constructed through the virtual gathering of his family and friends. A canonical addition to the BTM pantheon, and not to be missed—you
don’t have to be a Blind Melon fan to love this episode, and that may be just
about the highest praise that can be bestowed on a BTM installment. (EF)
JUDAS PRIEST (9/23/01) Behind
the Music clearly had a lot to work with here, and they did rather well
with it: Rob Halford in the closet, a subliminal-messages lawsuit, a tribute
band singer replacing his idol, and a Marky Mark movie tie-in. While they spend a disproportionate amount of
time on Rob’s drug crisis and homosexuality, there’s also a lot of discussion
of Judas Priest’s often neglected early period (“Rocka Rolla” especially). There’s nothing in the fan suicide-pact
wrongful-death litigation part that isn’t covered more thoroughly in David Van
Taylor’s Dream Deceivers, but the
ambulance-chaser who filed the lawsuit against Judas Priest and CBS is given
ample screen time to betray the laughable foundations of the 80s-era hysteria
over heavy metal and D&D dork culture. (TA)
SEAN “P. DIDDY” COMBS (10/7/01) After
father Melvyn is shot in Central Park in a deal gone wrong, the surviving Combs
family moves on up from Harlem to Mount Vernon.
The incredibly glamorous Mrs. Janice Combs works three jobs to keep her
brood afloat while a young and enterprising Sean John pulls his weight by
negotiating a takeover of the neighborhood newspaper route. Later, went to clubs to dance, and soon gets
scouted to dance in videos for Stacy Latisaw, Father MC, and Fine Young
Cannibals. And he can dance. After meeting Andre Harrell on a video set,
Puffy’s dedication to the game isn’t fazed by the four-hour commute from Howard
University to Uptown Records. The Heavy D charity basketball trampling
tragedy made Puff think suicide? Biggie
knew Puffy harbored a desire to rap, and always encouraged him to get on the
mic, and it proved essential to the grief process. Regretfully, the Club NY assault scandal
proves fatal to J-Lo’s love for Diddy.
But he’s got lil’ Justin and he’ll always be fellow hustler Martha Stewart’s
favorite neighbor from East Hampton. Don’t worry, complaints have been filed
regarding the absences of Bentley Farnsworth and Ma$e. (EB)
AALIYAH (10/14/01) Produced shortly
after the young R&B singer died in a pointless plane crash (this documentary
looks into why so many people were jammed into the small plane) this is an
eerie episode in that the “archival” footage of the deceased subject looks, and
is, just as new as any interview you would see with a living star. In fact, other than some very Jon Benet type footage of her on Star Search as a kid, nothing has any air of history or weight to
it, it all just seems like very run of the mill promotional interviews and
incidental footage with a current mid level star. This is partly due to the fact that the video
shoot on which she had her fatal accident was being documented by B.E.T. (VH1
has all that footage at their disposal, since Viacom had acquired B.E.T.). However, part of Viacom’s plan in bringing
MTV, VH1 and B.E.T. under the same umbrella was to make B.E.T. a Black MTV,
with their own versions of TRL, Cribs and Making the Video, but all done noticeably cheaper. Thus, we have this amazing footage shot just
before Aaliyah died, but it doesn’t seem like it was earmarked to be important
footage. However, the film crew being
there does capture vibrant, living footage of the non-celebrities from her
entourage who died on the plane with the young star, so at least they get a
fitting tribute. One thing that is wonderful here is that you learn that people
really liked her (their testaments are more convincing than the ones you hear
about most dead folks on this program).
Other than some vagueness and smoke and mirrors from her ex-husband R.
Kelly, you hear nothing but wonderful, touching things, especially from her
beautiful brother, from Missy Elliot (it is something else when Missy laments,
“So real…so sad…”) and from the prominent choreographer Fatima who was on the
video shoot with her. The only moment where
I thought this show got super weird was when Fatima
shows a picture of Aaliyah and tearfully talks about how in this picture she is
“so beautiful.” It is a picture of a nice looking girl made bizarrely grotesque
by a smathering of thick pink makeup. It
is a weird thing to include because though you are certainly sad for Aaliyah’s
friends, family and fans, it feels like a cruelly comic moment. (JA)
SINEAD O’ CONNOR (10/21/01) O’Connor’s
striking face and expressive eyes make for a pretty attractive talking head,
but she doesn’t have much of a story to tell.
Her career ascendancy was halted when she made a covert anti-Pope
statement on live American TV, and while that event is depicted here, it pretty
much spoke for itself. This episode
gives much more voice to the specifics (or unspecifics) of O’Connors very
difficult relationship with the Catholic church (by BTM’s closing notes she has
been ordained as a renegade priest) but there is nothing here that is as
powerful a television moment as her notorious one. While her story does involve some Rock n Roll
romantic shenanigans and a hard comeback trail (which doesn’t go anywhere) and
maternal conflicts, it doesn’t really have enough action or arc to make it one
of the better BTM’s. (JA)
BRIAN SETZER (11/01) There's a certain integrity with this episode
that I don't normally see on this show. Setzer (ex-Stray Cats) does have tales
of unsuccessful comebacks and marriages (this one's pretty light on drinking
and drugs), but you get the impression that Brian would have been in the mix
even if he didn't become a superstar. Why? Because unlike most of the artists
on this show, Setzer wasn't following a popular trend of the day. He wasn't in
some broke-down metal band that lost its audience to grunge, he wasn't some
producer's toy with more looks than talent, he was just some guy playing the
roots music that he loved. As this ep points out repeatedly, he revived older
music forms at least twice. He didn't do it singlehandedly - there were other
latter-day rockabillies besides the Stray Cats, and more neo-swing bands
besides the Brian Setzer Orchestra. It was mainly through image, marketing, and
right-place-right-time that he blew up as big as he did. If he hadn't had hits,
he would have still been in the game with a solid niche of his own. Because he's
a working musician who managed to keep his focus (and his fans), this doesn't
have the out-and-out scandal and shame of most BTMs. (JP)
SALT N PEPA (11/01) This episode is not
a perfect BTM because there’s no real tragedy or controversy or even meteoric
rise or fall. They never got too big and
they never fall too far. But it’s very
fun to watch for several reasons. The
girls have a mentor who assembled them, basically as a school project for music
class. Hurby Luv Bug is such an arrogant
dick the whole time, with no shame, that this show is pretty amusing. He even boldly states that he had a sexy girl
DJ initially but that caused jealousy, so he hired Spinderella because she was
too ugly to cause problems! I’m almost
positive this is the only BTM where the magazine covers they show to indicate
the group’s ascension to fame are Jet,
Black Beat, and Right On! Another key
moment: Pepa went to Utah as a youngster and somehow that influenced her to get
into AC/DC (and thankfully not the Osmonds). (JA)
LINDSAY BUCKINGHAM (11/11/01) Is this really
necessary after a Fleetwood Mac and Stevie Nicks episodes? Maybe not necessary, but certainly
worthwhile, as Buckingham (as opposed to Mr. Fleetwood or Ms. Nicks) is
strange, timid and sensitive, with a weird gentle speaking voice and an odd
perspective on the whole journey. As a
young teen, while lost in the shadow of his Olympics swimming star brother, he
won a talent contest singing “Black Slacks.”
He briefly met Stevie in high school (they sang a duet of “California
Dreaming”) and eventually he had her join the band he was in The Fritz Rabyn
Memorial Band (the name cruelly mocked a living schoolmate). Fritz was led by a Chicano, and possible L
& S were the only Anglos in the band, so it’s a little uncomfortable that
at one point a producer decides that they are the only ones worth anything and
has them break up the act. BTM shows us
an 8-Track tape of the unsuccessful Buckingham Nicks album, the failure of
which leads them to join Fleetwood Mac, who
already had 20 albums out when the “classic” lineup materialized! The drama about “Rumours” being the best
selling record on earth and Stevie and Lindsay breaking up their romance and
“Tusk,” Lindsay’s arty statement, tanking at only 4 million copies sold, is sort
of old hat after the two previous episodes, but Lindsay’s solo career, with him
as an intense “studio hermit” is pretty interesting. One odd
note is that though they all took drugs, by the mid 80s he could
function better under the influence than the others, so he was more together
than the other Macs. A real highlight is
Buckingham sending messages to his former bandmates through solo albums, and
he’s sure Mick Fleetwood got his message from an insulting tune, but Mick seems
to have never even considered it (possibly never even listened to the record).
LB ends the show in typical BTM fashion. happy and married with child, but
clearly his underappreciated solo work leaves a bit of a hole in his life. (JA)
MARY J. BLIGE (11/18/01) The marriage
of passion and pain is evident early on.
Mary’s parents may abuse each other, but they still dote on the
children. Early promise becomes clear
when jazzist father Thomas introduces her to funk: “Mary, one year old, singing
Earth, Wind & Fire and hitting
the notes.” In ’88, Mom’s new
boyfriend’s coworker Jeff Redd gets Mary’s mall-karaoke-booth-recorded demo
tape. He hears “a lot of pain and a lot
of pain and a lot joy at the same time, which was and still is the voice of
young America.” Andre Herrell gets the tape
in ‘89, but Uptown hasn’t signed a female artist and doesn’t know how to market
Mary. She befriends young intern Sean
Combs, and when Puffy turns an opening in A&R into a promotion, his beats
to back her and Mary Queen of Hip-Hop Soul is born. Soulful and street, “Real Love” climbs the
charts as Mary still climbs the stairs of the Slowbomb projects in the spring
of ’92. What’s the 411 arrives in the
summer and quickly goes platinum. Mary
moves the family into Jersey suburbs and half-brother Bruce has trouble getting
used to the quiet… and the crickets.
Defining what it means to be ghetto fabulous, Mary’s public persona
walks with a similar gait: you can take the girl out of the ghetto, but you
can’t take the ghetto out of the girl.
The duet with K-Ci Hayley of Jodeci on MTV Unplugged in ’93 lets everyone know they’ve got passion and
intensity, while Mary’s extra-long intermissions world tour let Andre know
they’ve got beef, too. Arriving late,
drunk, demanding and sunglassed during interviews becomes the norm, but it’ll
take the dark but multiplatinum My Life,
a chance encounter with an apologetic Dad at a Michigan show, Veronica Webb
implying alcoholism in Interview, and
a drug binge where the devil shows up and threatens to kill her before Mary learns
to love and respect herself. Mary decides not to compete with Faith Evans
for Puffy’s production attention. Share My World follows, and Aretha,
Elton and Clapton line up to get on board for Mary. And now there may be No More Drama but she’ll always have
material. But wait, who forgot to get a
quote from Meth? (EB)
SUBLIME (12/9/01) This is a pretty interesting episode,
because though it has real BTM tragedy (the main figure in the band, frontman
Brad Nowell, dies on an overdose) it falls out side of BTM’s scope because the
band was not a mainstream success while it existed. Brad died before the band’s breakthrough
record was released and they don’t really have much pro-shot footage of the
act, certainly Nowell never was videotaped by paparazzi or at an awards show or
by MTV. The one interview they draw from
looks like it was done for public access.
But not being able to use publicist engineered interviews as source material
results in a very honest show. The
surviving bandmates (two of the ugliest guys ever to play rock, and that’s
saying something), his young widow and especially his grief struck, put
pragmatic (they knew he was a junkie) parents tell a story too grounded in reality. We
learn how an ADD suffering surfer kid dealt with his parents divorce by taking
some drugs, but also by taking a sailing trip with his dad to the Caribbean
where he got hooked on Reggae. He
started a totally terrible band that played house party after drunken house
party and seemed to have little ambition other than to rock Long Beach parties,
smoke pot, surf, and eventually do some heroin.
Their non-ambition is betrayed by Brad’s decent looks (not cultivated,
he was always a little doughy and shirtless and stayed dirty and unkempt) and
more importantly his ability to write incredibly catchy ska-ish songs that
addressed the horrors of contemporary California lowlife (lots of rape and
abuse in his tunes), as opposed to the sunny pop of earlier eras. One dumb journalist calls them the “Beach
Boys in a postmodern era,” which doesn’t mean anything. There are many definitions of postmodern, but
she means “in a fucked up era” where drugs and dysfunction and shitty stuff
happens (and though their music didn’t reflect it, try to find more dysfunction
or drugs than the Beach Boys experienced…they helped Manson!). Anyhow, the band becomes more popular and
signs a modest contract but still has to do grueling, bad tours, which we know
because the motel that Nowell overdoses in is a shithole. After his death the record comes out and is a
multi platinum smash. While I suppose
that counts as a sort of redemptive ending it really isn’t. There are a number of very strong elements to
this episode. One is his rotund, bearded
father and his mom describing their failed interventions, giving a very
tangible look into the family of an addict.
The other is the amazing story of Lou who makes the show a super
success. At some point Brad adopts an
abused Dalmatian named Lou who becomes
his sidekick and the band dog. Not only
do they mention him in numerous songs but the pooch is on stage at his master’s
feet at every concert! It is the coolest
dog you’ve ever seen. Now, undoubtedly
these guys were the type of dudes who would think it was funny to get a dog
high or drunk, which I usually hate, but I guess it’s better than being put to
sleep, or being physically abused, and this dog really loved Nowell. I guess you
can look at Lou as symbolic of why you shouldn’t take heroin and die. It’s tragic for parents to outlive their
child but it’s fucking crazy to also be outlived by your dog. (JA)
THE CULT (1/20/02) The Cult story starts when young Ian
Astbury moves from the UK to Canada and becomes obsessed with Native Americans
to the point that when he returns to England as a punk teen he starts Southern
Death Cult, a band he fronts in Native American couture, moccasins and face
paint that could belong to a KISS member named The Indian if such a member
existed. As a BTM Native American he is
no Robbie Robertson or Shania Twain!
After hooking up with Billy Duffy (Theater of Hate, Slaughter and the
Dogs) The Cult eventually becomes a driving hard rock band, with Ian’s Jim
Morrison-meets-Tonto shtick leading the moody, spiritual way. Though there are
a few unusual audience projectile shenanigans (Metallica fans pelt the band
with piss bags, and Ian’s sensitive girlfriend is taunted with live fish hurled
onstage for her to rescue) mostly this is an uneventful tale of tedious
dissatisfaction, not the most compelling narrative. This was done before Ian became Jim Morrison, fronting the reactivated Doors, which might
have been a more interesting ending.
HALL AND
OATES (1/27/02) I guess the most shocking revelation of this episode
is that at some point over the last couple of years Darryl Hall took the off
ramp from the Cute
Highway and
parked his ride at the corner of Haggard and Aged. Not that he lived a hard life that left his
mind and soul frazzled, on the contrary, he seems like a sharp nice guy. He’s just not as pretty a she used to be. John Oates is a bit upset about how they were
manipulated visually during the MTV age, but he mostly comes off as a
well-rounded, together guy as well. The
most interesting part of this is the story of Sara, as in “Sara Smiles” (shades
of the real life Donna in the “Day The Music Died” episode). Apparently Sara’s relationship with Darryl
was pretty strained by the band’s ascension up the Blue Eyed Soul charts and
she wasn’t smiling the whole time. (JA)
BUSTA RHYMES (2/17/02) The main theme (to me) of this episode is
that despite a musical reputation as an absurd clown, Busta considers himself a
very serious person who has been through many “sufferations.” Growing up as a
West Indian 7th Day Adventists, who was often disciplined by his dad
before pops took off, Busta was a dancer who started a rap act after moving to
Long Island and being encouraged by Chuck D. (Chuck named him after a college
football player who had that exact name).
I once saw his act Leaders of the New School perform, and they were the
jumpingest act I’ve ever seen in my life, bouncing around like popcorn. But it wasn’t all happy jumpin’ around! After the 17 year old dropped out of high
school to record an LP about being in high school his band had limited success,
which was rough when he got his girl pregnant (their preemie baby died). The band self-destructs when group leader
Charlie Brown denounces his bandmates on Yo!
MTV Raps. Busta then has years of
solo success, with many seriously titled LPs (invoking Biblical apocalypse imagery
and anarchy) and he has grief with gun charges, a paternity suit, and problems
with child support. One odd thing here
is that instead of becoming an excellent dad because his father wasn’t there
for him he instead seems to bond with his father and forgive him because he now
understands how easy it is to be a sub-par dad.
Also note that unlike the sad Leif Garrett episode where drugs were
always his problem and the fact that he is clearly baked during his interview
is tragic, here drugs are never considered a problem in his life, so his
blunted, eyes-nearly shut state during most of his interviews seems
unproblematic. (JA)
ANTHRAX (3/10/02) Scott Rosenfeld’s mom wanted him to be a dentist,
but he used his bar mitzvah money to record a heavy metal demo, changed his
name to Scott Ian, and Anthrax was born. This wasn’t one of my favorite
episodes. I got the distinct impression
that VH1 didn’t feel this band merited an episode of BTM but gave it to them
only because of the fact they share a name with an infectious disease spread
through the mail in September of 2001.
The introduction was the same hackneyed “kid from the neighborhood”
bullshit. I mean, I love KISS as much as anyone, but how many times do I have
to watch Jersey kids in Ace Frehley makeup throwing the goat interspersed with
scenes of Gene Simmons spitting up blood? The answer- every time a band from
New Jersey (or the boroughs) is profiled on VH1. I predict that in ten years,
we’ll all be watching footage of Kurt Cobain smashing his guitar in the “Smells
Like Teen Spirit” video repeated endlessly on each and every episode of BTM. If
the beginning was weak, it got worse in the middle, when I was treated with
reused interview footage from both the Metallica and the Megadeth episodes
about the recording of “Kill ‘Em All” and the tragic death of Cliff Burton plus
additional stock footage of the Chernobyl meltdown (apparently they were on a
European tour at the time) to pad out the twelve minute segment. Let me say,
too, that VH1’s blatant self-contradiction in this episode did not go
unnoticed. In both the Aerosmith and the Run DMC episodes, it was claimed that
“Walk this Way” was the birth of rap-metal, but in this episode, the Public
Enemy/Anthrax collaboration “Bring tha Noise” gets the credit/blame. Will we
ever settle the issue of who’s responsible for Korn, the Deftones, and their
ilk? Like another great national tragedy, the JFK assassination, no one can
believe a lone gunman could have brought down such devastation on our cultural
landscape. The big climax, accompanied by 9/11 news clips and headlines and the
obligatory midnight visit to ground zero, was Anthrax deciding not to change
their name to “Kornhol’d” or “ The Mook-lords” in the wake of the five anthrax
related deaths in 2001. I wasn’t caring by then, and the prospect of an
incremental spike in record sales based on newfound notoriety for this washed
up metal act didn’t have me rooting for them. Where was the anguish here? One
of the guy’s nephews was shot and killed, but we didn’t even know him, and they
fired their lead singer when he was two years sober! The pieces are here (sort
of), but they’re put together all wrong. I’ll give it a C. (BC)
SHERYL CROW (3/17/02)
This is a great
episode. The story itself is juicy enough that VH1 doesn’t have to subject the
viewer to ominous music followed by the words, “and then tragedy struck.”
Instead, we are taken through Sheryl’s life with substantive interviews and
lots of great behind the scenes and music video footage of the artist’s career
from her early days singing duets with Michael Jackson to the height of her
success, singing duets with Stevie Nicks. The strength of this episode is the
wealth of pictures and video the producers were able to dig up. They even had
pictures of her from her high school drama club! Unlike some of the other bands
documented on BTM, Sheryl Crow rose to fame in the hyper-documented world of
pop music in the 1990’s, giving the producers ample raw material to work with
and re-edit, and the show is better for it. Because there’s just not enough
scandalous revelations to warrant an A, I give this one a B+. (BC)
GARBAGE (4/7/02)
This is sort of presented as the inspiring story of a powerful woman, but on
the other hand, it seems pretty clear that this is a band that is made up of
talented male musicians too old for the industry who hire a pretty face to
front their music. That said, Shirley
Manson looks much better on camera than Butch Vig and the boys, so I’m glad
they focused on her. The band was so
recently minted when this was shot that there was little band drama to play up,
but the text and subtext of this show finds Ms. Manson struggling in her life
with the not-so-serious problems (she was in a fucking awful, way embarrassing
band) to the serious (she has a mental illness/compulsion where she cuts
herself on purpose) to the profound (she recently changed her hair color
again). (JA)
FOREIGNER (4/28/02) I
watched this episode twice. The thing that impressed me about it the first time
was the spot-on use of Foreigner songs to highlight the various twists and
turns in the band’s career. The question is- does the fact that “Head Games,”,
“Midnight Blue”, and “Jukebox Heroes” represent certain episodes in the
Foreigner story so well say more about the BTM producers’ talents or the
self-obsessed songwriting of Mick Jones and Lou Gramm? I’m willing to give some
credit to VH1 on this one. It’s hard to make the dynamics of two drug-fueled
rock and roll egos at loggerheads with each other not end up as a
recapitulation of the Lennon/McCartney or Jagger/Richards story. Foreigner:
Behind the Music escapes this pitfall by putting the band in the context of
the arena rock era and its’ self-congratulatory culture. I give it an A-.
(BC)
BOB MARLEY (6/30/02) When BTM
originally began there was a companion series called Legends which differed in that it lionized great rock stars,
presenting them in an ultimately positive light, not trying to dwell on any
tabloid gossip. This episode should have
been one of those shows. The BTM theme
of being ripped off of the money you deserved is familiar, but because of the
admiration that his family, friends and fans have for him, other facts that
usually would be highlighted with an ominous BTM musical note (his drug use,
his adultery) are presented without any negative connotations. Even though this episode doesn’t fit into the
series, it is an impressive Marley documentary, deeply invested in speaking
with as many living principal figures as possible and sparing no expense at
location shooting and research. Interviews include Bunny Wailer, Rita Marley,
Bob’s mother, Bob’s children (including Ziggy) and in an echo of what weakened
the Peter Tosh episode, Keith Richards, giving credibility to Marley by giving
the Rolling Stones’ stamp of approval (though Keith makes a funny joke about
how blonde Norwegians skank about to Marley’s music, proving its
universality). I’ve seen far worse
Marley documentaries, and I’m pretty sure this is the only VH1 show to get an
NAACP Image Award nomination. However, the most negative thing I can say about
his show is that I’ve seen a better Marley documentary…on VH1! VH1 had a show
called Ultimate Albums that featured
Marley and gave a much more intense, revealing look at him by focusing in on
specific recording sessions and music creation. (JA)
BTM 5TH
ANNIVERSARY (Parts 1-6, 7/26-7/31/02)
These six 30 minute episodes celebrated the series five year mark by virtually
assuring that there would not be five more years if quality programs. More of an ironic epitaph than a celebration,
these shows each focused on one scandalous subject matter (near death
experiences, band break ups, going broke, crazy sex) and listed the top 10
nuttiest examples as seen on BTM. Sure,
everyone laughs at the absurdity of these hard luck stories, but for BTM itself
to present drug overdoses, car accidents and things that drove artists to
consider suicide in a tongue-in-cheek manner hurts the integrity of the program
(one of the hosts, Cedric the Entertainer, a non rock figure, made goofy jokes
as he counted down the awfulness). The
only “important” episode of the six was an update episode that showed the
further slide of some BTM subjects since their episode aired (poor Leif,
ridiculed again). The update show was
hosted by Jillian Barbiere, who at least has skanky rock chick cred. Overall these specials, while paving the way
for a number of popular VH1 series of countdowns and lists that have followed,
dragged BTM farther from A&E
Biography and closer to E! True Hollywood Story.” (JA)
AEROSMITH (9/1/02) Given a bountiful two hour format
this leisurely tells the tale of the Boston bad boys
and is afforded the luxury of telling two parallel stories that meet up in the
end. In one we get to really follow the
day to day life of an older megastar band as they tour around, work their
families into the schedule and appreciate adulation and excess without any
actual debauchery. This being Aerosmith,
a band that has hit bottom several times after reaching the top, means that,
yes, you see a giant, corporate Rock inc. show, but not the same as with the
Stones…this band appreciates what this success means. This footage alternates with a very detailed
history of the band and their drug abuse, creative highs and lows, management
issues, multiple impregnations and the complex love affair between Joe Perry
and Steven Tyler. While this isn’t good
enough to be a theatrical documentary that you would pay money to see, it is
one of the most ambitious episodes of BTM and it breaks the rote formula successfully. Everyone is interviewed extensively, but
fantastic archival interviews are mined, including an amazing early 80s clip
where Tyler wishes good luck to Joe Perry’s post-Aerosmith band and pledges
that the Perry-less Aerosmith is A-OK, but his face unambiguously tells another
story. There is also very convincing
footage demonstrating how awful Tyler could be live when he was at his druggy
worst. One of the amazing subtexts of
this thing is the fact that all the members of the band currently function and
are coherent after the years of excess.
After they describe the drug cocktails they consumed like air during one
recording session in a spooky mansion you wonder why they don’t have permanent,
obvious brain damage at this point!
Ultimately Perry and Tyler, even clean and sober and doing Dianne Warren
songs, are awesome at striking the pose of Rock & Roll Gods on stage, and
that is what this is all about. I
wouldn’t say this is the best BTM (they were lucky enough to never experience
the kind of tragedy or depths of failure that would allow it to be), but it is
one of the most compelling.(JA)
CYNDI LAUPER (9/8/02)
What is most striking about an episode featuring kooky Cyndi is that it is
mostly about dignity. Cyndi today is
such a grounded, together, proud woman that you realize she always has been
together and just because she acted nutty doesn’t mean she was a mess. Cyndi has a nerdy manager/mentor/lover named
David Wolff (he appears in her old videos) and I was sad when they broke up,
but then Cyndi had a little girl and I was happy again. If you can watch this and not root for Cyndi
you have a cold heart! (JA)
HOOTIE & THE BLOWFISH (9/22/02)
Hootie (Darius Rucker) explains that ''the most important thing is the music
but the second most important thing is not to compromise…believe, believe
believe!” So it’s a little hard to watch
this and be invested when I don’t believe in the music so it’s not important to
me at all. Then again, I’m not that big
a fan of Chicago, but at least their long career provided ups and downs and
twists and turns that made for a good story.
This is a little interesting because Rucker has had to deal with racism,
his mom’s death and with his band becoming reviled after they became #1, and it
is admirable how loyal all the members are to each other, and they all seem
pleasant. But really, there’s not much
story here. (JA)
MATCHBOX
TWENTY (11/17/02) What a deathly boring story about completely
uninteresting musicians. It is almost
only about the lead singer, Rob Thomas, and maybe they decided to not cover the
other guys lives because perhaps they might have been interesting or
something. Thomas “struggled” for years
in a shitty band called Tabitha’s Secret, then made it big with a band that may
actually be worse. (JA)
BRITNEY
SPEARS (11/9/03) Obviously it is ridiculous to have a Britney Spears
BTM. As a totally overexposed media icon
there is nothing we haven’t seen or haven’t heard her say. As a performer so close to her salad days she
has no perspective (not to mention that her “people” would muzzle any genuine
secret-revealing). And she also hasn’t
experienced any real tragedies or failures…she hadn’t even been fake married at
the time of this episode, and that was more of an inconvenience than a
tragedy. Instead of a regular BTM, then,
we are treated to Britney giving us the backstage stories of her most famous
professional moments, which are mostly award show performances. If you consider it profoundly interesting how
it felt to touch a big snake, or whose idea it was to kiss Madonna (Madonna’s)
and that the most nervous she ever was performing was at the Superbowl halftime
with Aerosmith, than this is the BTM for you.
I guess Britney seems sort of dumb as she’s talking, but that may not
mean she is actually dumb, she just doesn’t have anything to say and they are
treating her like she does. They do sort
of make her look bad by showing her clumsily plunking away like a five year old
at a piano that is a stage prop in her tour.
Sitting behind the piano is the universal symbol for rock genius (that’s
how we know that Alicia Keyes is the real deal) so perhaps showing that Britney
can’t play (reviews of her concert noted that she mimed the piano solo) is a
symbol of her being a non-genius. The
show ends with Britney beaming with pride describing her bizarre ten-day camp
for ghetto kids in which she has her personal choreographers and vocal coaches
prepare them to do a show for Britney’s family.
So if you think poor black children are enriched by learning how to do
the “Hit Me Baby One More Time” dance than you need to recognize Britney’s
greatness and she deserves this career retrospective. (JA)
SPICE GIRLS (11/23/2003)
When this aired BTM was not really in production and only the Britney show had
been made in the previous year. So it
seemed like perhaps a Spice Girls show might be a long-in-the-works, high
profile attempt to jump start nostalgia for 1997. Instead this is a real cheap knockoff
episode. They tell the Spice story in a
very rudimentary way and don’t interview all of the Spices, mainly basing all
the spoken parts on a recent interview with Sporty Spice, who in many ways has
the least investment and least to say (Scary and Geri were the leaders and
controversial members and Baby and Posh had the racier sex stuff, with Baby
allegedly romancing management and Posh retiring from the biz by marrying a
sports superstar). Most telling of the
half-assedness of this episode is the interview segments with Geri Halliwell
all seem to be five year old footage left over from their unaired (in the US)
BTM2 episode about her. (JA)
TLC: THE
FINAL CHAPTER (3/13/04) This sequel (it opens with, “as anyone who’s seen
their first Behind The Music knows…”)
follows TLC through the bizarre twists and turns that followed the release of
“Fan Mail” (the album their first BTM was designed to sell). Basically what happens was Lisa “left Eye”
Lopes goes deeper off the deep end then ever before, following a healer/guru
named Dr. Sebi in the Honduras, fasting for a month and a half, hooking up with
Suge Knight, disappearing whenever she is needed for TLC business and making it
very clear that she did not seem to like or respect T or C. Throughout all of this, even though she is
obviously making reckless, dangerous decisions that seem to point to her being
too much for this world and destined to crash and burn, you can’t help but be
drawn to Lopes. The wilder she gets the
more beautiful she seems to become, and there is footage here where she is so
striking that she is almost glowing. She
also makes everyone around her seem boring and kind of weak (Tionne didn’t want
to come live in a hut in the Honduras commune not for the obvious reasons but
because they don’t have TV there and she can’t miss CSI). This BTM is very
successful, but does feature a new low for the series: one of the talking heads
is MTV host Carson Daly, who wasn’t a friend or active participant, but is
presented as an “expert.” Eccch. Which brings us to some amazing footage of T
and C appearing on stage together at the MTV awards soon after Lisa’s untimely
death in a Honduras SUV accident: The women are crumbling and weeping, in
obvious deep pain (though they were pretty estranged from Lopes, these tears
seemed very real). Cut to the audience
and not surprisingly, Britney Spears’ reaction is a vacant stare, but Mary J.
Blige is feeling profound empathy, her face cracked with pain. Then cut back to the stage, and pathetic
Carson gives the most impotent one-second long tiny pat on the shoulder to one
of the girls, seemingly giving no comfort or support to them or anyone
watching. Though he obviously appeals to
some demographic, Daly always struck me as soulless and unpleasant. This footage really confirms my opinion. (JA)
THE JACKSONS
(2004?) Indications were that this was in production at press time.
BTM2: Launched as a companion to Behind The Music
that would tell tales of popular new stars too young in their career to warrant
full, melodramatic BTM treatment, this show was stylized and young but not very
compelling. The problem of presenting
interesting biographies of stars at the beginning of their careers was solved
later with the series DRIVEN that
features childhood friends and colleagues from pre-fame recounting the tale of
how the subject made it to their current state of greatness. BTM2 lasted less
than a year. (all reviews JA)
MARY J.
BLIGE (2/15/00) This tells Blige’s rough and tumble story, but
became moot when Blige later became the only BTM2 to graduate to BTM. However this episode does establish the
short-lived signatures of BTM2: photos taped to trees and lamp posts, bad theme
music, the moving around, “verite”
camera during interviews and an inferior announcer than BTM’s Jim Forbes.
ENRIQUE
IGLESIAS (2/00) This half hour
special has little time to do anything but fawn over EI’s beauty, try to paint
a picture of some kind of tension between he and his father and introduce us to
Enrique’s hunkier brother, Julio Iglesias, Jr.
DIXIE
CHICKS (3/7/00) This episode about the traditional-bluegrass-band-turned-flashy-country-superstars
is pretty interesting because you see that they were a legit roots music act
and you meet the woman they had to kick out to go pop, and she’s not as bitter
as you would expect. When they add the
brassy, younger Natalie Maines (a music exec’s daughter) they become big stars
but this episode seems to demonstrate (through nervous, insincere laughter, and
awkward joking around) a tension (stemming from something between resentment
and hatred) between the original Chicks and the Joey Heatherton of New
Country. Ultimately the Dixie Chicks got
some very traditional songs on the radio, so it would be unfair to say they
sold their souls to make it, but that is certainly one of the subtexts of this
episode.
SMASH MOUTH (3/14/00) Highlights include the lead singer boasting
with defiant obnoxiousness about not only stealing to get gear and selling
drugs to get gear but also stealing drugs to sell to get gear. Also we learn that their main champion is the
never charming Carson Daly, who was an LA deejay at the time of Smash Mouth’s
ascendancy.
TORI AMOS (3/21/00) Amos, according to
this show “a rebel who became a role model,” proves to be an unhelpful subject
in that while she obviously had inner turmoil that she got out in song, Ms.
Amos had a happy childhood, studiously became good at music, never became a
drug addled mess and handled everything in her career with dignity. She was in a rock band that failed, but the
failure was relatively quick and painless followed immediately by her becoming
the Tori Amos her fans know today. Even
her romance with her producer was something untorrid that ended mutually with
Tori’s modest heartbreak channeled into a hit album and not a bottle. This
shows why the half hour format is reasonable: any longer and they would have
really had to stretch to keep up any semblance of drama. Tori has talent and
devoted fans but her music is what is compelling (if she compels you) and
certainly not her life story.
COUNTING CROWS (3/28/00) I’m glad this was
only a half hour because I couldn’t take any more of that Counting Crow guy
whining. Poor baby, you went septuple
platinum!
PAULA COLE (4/5/00) Other than good footage of her as a
precocious youngster performing they had VERY little to say about this woman and
her one hit song.
BUSH (5/2/00) It is less than four years later and the music has
not aged well. My favorite thing here is
you learn how they were insulted in the day, as “Nirvanabes” and “Teabag
Grunge” and told that their first album had “no singles, and no album tracks”
on it either. They seem like nice guys,
and Gavin deserves to be cocky (he’s pretty, he’s good at rocking out on a
stage, and his wife is hot) but this is not an episode featuring fascinating
people and there’s not much drama here. However, I will give Bush member Nigel
Pulsford credit for having the Britishest name I ever heard.
BECK (5/22/00) This worked as a half hour show, because the
primary resource material allowed them to make some points very
succinctly. They demonstrate his
bohemian background (his Warholian mommy raised Beck in a home where all the
punk. arty and weird youth hung out) by showing old footage of his
grandfather’s conceptual performance art pieces. To demonstrate the creative, strange
excitement of Beck’s early D.I.Y. aesthetics they can just use his underground
film-like cheap early videos. And to
show that he became a funky dancer they show him dancing funky. Other things I learned were that “Loser” is a
“modern masterpiece,” his first LP which went Platinum cost $350 to record and
his brother is handsome. (JA)
GERI
HALLIWELL (2000) I don’t think this
episode ever aired (I watched every time it was scheduled and it was always
replaced with something else at the last minute). The interesting thing about the promos on the
VH1 website for this was that they were distancing themselves from the show,
saying things like, “Why would we do a BTM2 about the ex-Spice Girl? We don’t know.” I’m pretty sure the footage from this
reemerges in the Spice Girls BTM. (This definitely aired in the UK, by the
way).
CAEDMON’S CALL (11/31/00 on VH1 Europe) Obviously this only
aired in the U.K.
as I (a voracious American consumer) have never even heard of this band, let
alone seen the episode.
RELATED VH1 SHOWS:
SWEETWATER: A TRUE ROCK STORY (1999)
VH1’s first “movie” was the story of a band too obscure for a BTM but with a
story perfect for one. Using attractive
actors playing the parts of this normal looking 60s rock band that opened
Woodstock but then had a series of misfortunes derail their career, this ended
with a special Behind The Music-style
feature with archival footage and the real band members being interviewed. There were subsequent Behind The Music dramatic movies of Meat Loaf, M.C. Hammer and Def
Leppard, which were not nearly as compelling as the original BTMs. They also made movies about the Monkees and
Ricky Nelson, but in those cases the BTM’s were made as promotional tools for
the movies, rather than being the inspirations for the movies. (JA)
BEHIND THE MOVIE: VH1 looked at their
BTM’s of Saturday Night Fever and Grease and decided that they worked as
something else, a new series called Behind
the Movie that was structured identically to BTM. The non-Travolta episodes include BEHIND THE MOVIE: TOP GUN, BEHIND THE
MOVIE: CHICAGO, BEHIND THE MOVIE: RISKY BUSINESS, BEHIND THE MOVIE: AMERICAN
PIE and BEHIND THE MOVIE: ANIMAL
HOUSE.
CHRIS GAINES
– BEHIND THE SCENES (11/24/99) When
Garth Brooks decided he was going to release a poppy non-Country LP he came up
with the high concept idea of releasing it under a different persona…a dreamy,
mysterious singer with a poetic name fitting a moody enigma…Chris Gaines! Basically choosing a boring name for his
alter-ego was indicative of the weaknesses of the endeavor; everything about
the Gaines project was a misstep other than that the idea itself which was
funny and promising. VH1 cooperated by
making a fake Behind The Music (which
they wisely called “Behind The Scenes,” saving a bit of integrity). The whole thing was embarrassing to Brooks
because the ideas were so bad, but VH1 shares the blame for executing this so
poorly. Gaines was supposed to be in an
80s band Crush that was big until a member died and Gaines disappeared, had an
accident that required plastic surgery that apparently made him uglier and
fatter (thus Brooks emerges replacing the handsome young Gaines) and returns
with a brilliant album (Don Was reminds us of his greatness again and
again). This was super sloppy. The 80s photos of Crush have all the clothes
and hair wrong and when the show the Billboard charts with Crush’s fake hits
they didn’t even bother to get an 80s chart, the other songs on the chart are
from the 90s. But little things weren’t
the problem, basically this should have been funny, a “mock”-umentary is
supposed to have humor and satire and this had nothing. (JA)
POP UP
VIDEOS BEHIND THE MUSIC SPECIAL
(1/2000) This combined two of VH1’s most popular shows, featuring Pop Up Videos text commentary on the
great Leif Garrett episode. We learn all
kinds of crazy stuff that perhaps demystified BTM too much for them to repeat
this experiment. For example, we learn
that VH1 totally knew he was still drugged out.
They show us that he is wearing a hat in one interview session and a
bandana in another and they remind us to be aware that one session is under the
influence. We also learn that during his
tearful reunion with his wheelchair friend Leif’s mom secretly asked the
motivated, together wheelchair boy to help get Leif off drugs. (JA)
KISS BEHIND THE MAKEUP (7/1/01) KISS
likes to control the presentation of their history and before this VH1 had
aired some of KISS’ own productions with a little tinkering so they looked VH1
shows. This, however, is the full
BTM-type treatment. Bigger than a BTM
this was a two hour special that celebrated the band but also asked a few
“tough” questions here and there, making it more than a promotional puff
piece. It did not use the exact BTM
format or announcer or signatures, however.
(JA)
BEHIND THE MUSIC PARODIES: Because of the absurdity of the hard luck
tales and the rigidity of the classic BTM story arc, there were numerous BTM
parodies. Most dedicated was BEHIND THE MUSIC THAT SUCKS, a
web-toon (an internet based series of short, cheap, computer animations) that
made fun of pop, Metal and rap stars within the framework of a BTM send
up. While not super funny, and sometimes
racist, this series has been seen on cable and has made it to the video shelves
in compilation VHS and DVD releases. Of the many other parodies only a few were
“official” (where they actually used Jim Forbes as the narrator and used the
name “Behind the Music” and not a derivative like “Behind the Beat,” which was
on The
Jamie Foxx Show). The best known was THE SIMPSONS episode that
perfectly sent up BTM as they also addressed the show’s own vulnerabilities
(like the disturbing amount of real violence Homer subjects Bart to). SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE did two full on parodies if BTM,
one about Fat Albert and the Junkyard Band that was mainly notable for the
grotesque costumes and prosthetic fat suit Tracey Morgan wore. Behind
the Music: Rock ‘n’ Roll Heaven was a skit that told of the dead musicians
jamming in a band in heaven and awkwardly fit that into the BTM format. However, one of their most famous skits of that era was set up as a BTM episode, though it really did not conform to any BTM tropes or make any sense as a BTM, and that would be the Blue Oyster Cult recording session where Will Ferrell is a jamming cowbell player and Christopher Walken keeps insisting "more cowbell" (Walken's character is named Bruce Dickinson, but he's not supposed to be BD from Iron Maiden, by the way). Most absurd was Behind the Music: George Washington on the Comedy Central show TV
FUNHOUSE, which boldly made no historical sense and had nothing to do
with music. There is also a 2001
episode of THE CHRIS ISAAK SHOW where
his band tries to get him on BTM by giving juicy gossip to the possible
documentarians.
BEHIND THE MUSIC HOME VIDEOS: There
have been VHS and DVD releases of several BTM episodes. Behind the Music: Shania Twain
was a bestseller, and Behind the Music: Blondie, Behind
the Music: Motley Crue and Behind the Music: Megadeth (an
extended version on DVD) were also released.
BEHIND THE MUSIC CDS: In 2000 and 2001.
when VH1 was exploring BTM as a brand, they decided to lend their name to a
bunch of “best of” compilations. It had
been noted that artists who were BTM subjects had a huge spike in back
catalogue sales, so this seemed like a natural, though they may have shortened
the life of this experiment by focusing too much on MOR boomer acts instead of
some of the classic rock acts. CDs
included Behind the Music: Harry Chapin, Behind the Music: Jim Croce,
Behind the Music: John Denver, Behind the Music: The Go Gos, Behind
the Music: Hall and Oates, Behind the Music, Jefferson
Airplane/Starship, Behind the Music: KC and the Sunshine Band,
Behind
the Music: Gladys Knight and the Pips, Behind the Music: Rick
Springfield and strangely Behind the Music: Julian Lennon. There was also a general BTM comp titled Behind
the Music that you could buy only at Target that had tracks (including
live rarities) by Lenny Kravitz, Sheryl
Crow, Barenaked Ladies, Melissa Etheridge, Stevie Nicks, Goo Goo Dolls and
Alanis Morissette.
BEHIND THE MUSIC BOOKS: During the BTM
merch boom of 2000-2001 there was an attempt made to get TV viewers reading
with a series of books based on the show.
The Day The Music Died
by Quinton Skinner and Scott Schinder told the tale (quite accurately) of the
Buddy Holly, Big Bopper. Richie Valens plane crash. But at little over 100 pages with tons of
photos, this is more of a companion to the TV show than an extension of
it. Skinner also wrote Casualties of Rock, an
encyclopedia of dead (and a couple of living but damaged) rockers that is
impressive for opening with G.G. Allin’s obit, as well as a number of other
obscurities. Wayne Robins’ Behind The
Music: 1968 told the tale of that tumultuous year, possible aiming for
a high school audience. The most
ambitious book was Willie Nelson:
Behind the Music by Clint Richmond, an attempt at a major biography
under the BTM brand name. It is a good
book, covering Nelson’s tax problems that occurred after his autobiography came
out. If this had been successful this
could have spawned some interesting rock scholarship.
BEHIND THE MUSIC
RADIO: Hosted by the voice of BTM Jim Forbes this syndicated Westwood One
radio show (which also aired on VH1.com radio) offered 30 minute audio versions
of BTM episodes. This has been
discontinued, though VH1 and Westwood One still have a radio broadcasting
partnership.
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4
