It’s essentially the most fantastic time of the yr for U.Okay. festival-goers: Glastonbury Competition returns this weekend.
A lot of the 200,000-strong crowd – together with a big chunk of the U.Okay. music trade – are already on website at Worthy Farm however, for these unable to get a ticket, the BBC is promising extra protection than ever.
The company scored file viewing figures for Glastonbury 2023, with Sir Elton John pulling in 7.6 million viewers for his Sunday night time farewell efficiency. However the BBC’s head of in style music TV, Jonathan Rothery, says he doesn’t really feel any stress to beat these stats.
“Document figures are all the time good however so long as we’re entertaining individuals, it’s good,” Rothery tells Selection. “Glastonbury protection ain’t broke so we don’t want to repair it, and no matter we add must be to the advantage of the viewer. The factor I’m avoiding is creep, and issues simply rising year-on-year for the sake of it.”
The BBC’s iPlayer streaming on demand platform is including a second Glastonbury channel this yr, which is able to characteristic a rolling line-up of competition highlights and speaking level units for the extra informal viewers, whereas Glastonbury-related protection – commissioned by BBC Director of Music Lorna Clarke, with TV protection produced by BBC Studios Music Productions – began on June 3 and runs throughout TV, iPlayer, radio and BBC Sounds till July 14. And, for the primary time ever, two headline performances (Dua Lipa on Friday and Coldplay on Saturday) will probably be livestreamed worldwide on BBC.com.
SZA completes the headliner line-up and Glastonbury TV presenter Clara Amfo says she’s happy to see two feminine headliners after controversy over final yr’s almost all-male bill-toppers (Weapons N’ Roses keyboard participant Melissa Reese being the exception).
“Seeing somebody like Dua headline on the Friday is absolutely thrilling,” Amfo tells Selection. “Ten years in the past, or possibly a bit longer, there have been undoubtedly individuals who would have pooh-poohed the concept of a pop star having the gravitas and the pull to carry down that slot. There’s nonetheless that mundane dialog about ‘actual music’ being solely 4 guys with guitars, and what constitutes an ideal headliner is a lot extra layered than that. I’m delighted there are many ladies on the line-up.”
This yr’s competition will face stiff competitors for consideration with soccer match Euro 2024 and a chaotic Basic Election marketing campaign getting into its remaining week.
“If the linear broadcast has to work round sure huge information occasions or soccer matches, we’ve nonetheless received eyeballs straight to iPlayer,” says Rothery. “It provides me good consolation understanding there’s an ideal person journey and you may watch no matter you need, everytime you need.”
In the meantime, Amfo declares that, with nice viewing figures, comes nice accountability as she and her fellow presenters – together with Lauren Laverne, Jo Whiley and Jack Saunders – information the nation by the competition.
“Our factor is rarely, ‘Na-na-na-na-na, we’re right here and also you’re not’,” she says. “I don’t like that. It’s not possible for everybody to go, so it’s our obligation to be like, ‘We’re delighted to be right here, we all know how fortunate we’re, so let’s share that pleasure with you and make it as interactive as attainable.’”
“Glastonbury is now this cultural second,” Rothery provides. “It’s not like a drama or a chunk of social media content material you can depart alone or watch for phrase of mouth on; it’s there and it’s instant, and that’s why we’re getting so many individuals watching. It’s the Wimbledon [tennis tournament] of music and lengthy could it proceed.”
Exterior of Glastonbury, each Rothery and Amfo are doing their bit to get extra music on TV.
Amfo just lately stepped down from her vastly influential “Future Sounds” BBC Radio 1 present, however nonetheless options on the station, together with its latest Dua Lipa particular. However she has additionally fronted ITV’s BRIT Awards protection (saying she’d like to return in 2025 if requested) and the channel’s Studio Periods, a dwell efficiency and chat present that featured the likes of Jess Glynne and Yungblud in its first season.
“We’ve had the figures again and so they’re wanting good,” Amfo says. “I’m as hooked on TikTok as the subsequent individual, however there’s one thing to be mentioned for watching your favourite singer carry out a number of songs and delve a bit deeper into their actual opinions. Extra efficiency telly!”
Since returning to the BBC from Channel 4 two years in the past, Rothery has overseen extra TV content material, together with documentaries and BBC2 themed nights, plus the visualization of radio franchises and occasions similar to Radio 1’s Huge Weekend and Radio 2 In Live performance.
“Music TV has been on this round journey,” he says. “It’s a style that’s punching above its weight, whether or not that’s within the dwell occasions house like Glastonbury or within the docs house. There’s an actual will on the BBC to position music and do it effectively.”
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In the meantime, one in all final summer season’s greatest U.Okay. dwell occasions is coming to the large display.
“Blur: To the Finish”, a brand new fly-on-the-wall documentary charting the band’s 2023 reunion album and tour, culminating with two headline exhibits at London’s Wembley Stadium, hits U.Okay. cinemas on July 19, with a U.S. launch to observe. A full live performance movie, “Blur: Dwell at Wembley Stadium” has additionally been made and will probably be launched on Sept. 6.
Each movies have been directed by Toby Langley, higher often known as Toby L, additionally co-founder of the impartial Transgressive Information label. Transgressive has beforehand launched non-Blur initiatives by the band’s frontman (Damon Albarn) and guitarist (Graham Coxon) and L has additionally directed music-related movies similar to “Liam Gallagher: Knebworth ‘22” and “Olivia Rodrigo: Bitter Promenade”.
The director says it was vital that the Blur documentary confirmed the true story of the band’s reunion.
“There are too many stage-managed documentaries,” he says. “I’m not a fan of shiny docs, as a result of is it actual life or is it not? If it’s not, simply do a hyper-real, fictionalized model of your life, don’t fucking fake it is a documentary, it’s a special factor. Fortunately, Blur are of a sure disposition of honesty and reality the place they’re like, ‘Yeah, we would like this to be fucking actual’.”
The top result’s each hilariously humorous and surprisingly emotional because the Britpop band overcome early tensions to rediscover the spark and bond that made them one of many greatest bands in Britain through the ‘90s.
“Once I noticed them first get in a room collectively, it felt like “Avengers Assemble”,” says L, whose first gig as a toddler was Blur at Wembley Area. “These 4 superheroes with utterly totally different personalities and skills that emerge and turn out to be this unit, then retreat into their very own worlds once more.”
The band’s comeback album, “The Ballad of Darren” hit No.1 within the U.Okay. final yr however, regardless of the success of the file and the tour, it’s unknown whether or not the band will keep on – and the documentary intentionally leaves issues open.
“Does it matter?” asks L. “These moments dwell ceaselessly, as a result of you possibly can preserve retelling and watching them. Finally, the band members have their very own view on whether or not the band will proceed or not, and that’s for them to work out. However I personally can benefit from the ambiguity.”
L says he’d like to work with Rodrigo once more (“She’s the actual fucking deal, the total bundle”), however intends to focus on “the day job” in Transgressive’s 20th anniversary yr. A sequence of particular releases, gigs and occasions will rejoice the milestone beginning at Glastonbury Festival this weekend and together with a New York Metropolis Celebration at The Knitting Manufacturing unit on September 24.
“We’ve now outlived Creation Information and that’s fucking nuts,” says L, who runs the label with fellow companions Tim Dellow and Lilas Bourboulon. “I really feel very fortunate and motivated to maintain it going, as a result of the trade’s gone insane once more and nobody has any solutions. After we’re an underdog or issues are powerful, that’s after we make extra sense as an organization.”
“Should you’re in it for the proper causes, each as an artist and a music firm, there’ll all the time be a method to battle by, you’re simply going to have battle a bit tougher,” he provides. “With independents it’s all the time been that manner. I’ve by no means had a month the place I’ve sat again and thought, ‘Issues are alright’. I’ve all the time fearful in regards to the subsequent meal, and that’s OK.”
The label, which additionally has publishing and administration divisions, has launched the extremely acclaimed likes of Arlo Parks, the Thriller Jets and Sophie through the years and bought a minority stake to Firebird Music Holdings in 2022. However L says the group has no plans to promote up or pack issues in anytime quickly.
“We’ll preserve going so long as there’s a want from everybody concerned – the artists that need to work with us, the group behind the scenes and the viewers that finally listens to the music,” he says. “We will be the most important impartial music firm on the planet. I don’t imply that in an egotistical manner, it’s simply based mostly on the data we now have, the relationships we’ve invested time, love and fervour in, and our moral strategy.
“That’s why Transgressive has survived,” he provides. “As a result of, placing enterprise fashions and trade bullshit apart, it’s all the time been a pure entity.”
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Legendary publicist Alan Edwards has seen most issues in a 50-year music trade profession that has seen him signify the likes of David Bowie, the Rolling Stones, Prince, Blondie, the Spice Ladies, Intercourse Pistols, Amy Winehouse and Luther Vandross.
And he’s now written a a vastly entertaining and insightful e book, “I Was There: Dispatches from a Life in Rock and Roll” about his experiences behind the scenes of the media and music industries.
“I’m a bit like Forrest Gump,” Edwards quips. “I’m simply there when this stuff occur. It was nice to be on the side-lines to witness issues occur which change the music trade.”
Edwards – founding father of one of many U.Okay.’s main PR companies, The Exterior Organisation – has definitely seen loads of momentous occasions. On his first day working as a PR for Keith Altham, he watched helplessly as legendary Who drummer Keith Moon trashed Edwards’ boss’ workplace. When Altham returned, he merely murmured: “Moon’s been in, has he?”
“I believed, ‘Fucking bizarre job, this!’” laughs Edwards, who later fashioned his personal company and established a popularity as a punk PR, and now oversees an organization that handles quite a few high-profile world accounts. His e book comprises quite a few tales about his celeb shoppers – Debbie Harry takes care of him on the street, guaranteeing he will get a scorching meal; whereas Mick Jagger fires after which rehires him – however Edwards was decided it wouldn’t simply be one other tell-all rock’n’roll memoir.
“I didn’t need to simply inform a load of salacious tales, I needed a much bigger tapestry,” he tells Selection. “I’ve learn books the place you learn 4 or 5 chapters, they exit with Lou Reed after which Geezer Butler and everybody will get off their heads… Sure, however what? What’s the context, what did it imply? I’ve lived by unimaginable altering instances and I’ve seen some extraordinary issues, so I used to be making an attempt to inform a much bigger story.”
The trade has modified immeasurably since Edwards began out however, regardless of many file labels meting out with in-house publicists and the decline of music magazines, he insists press and PR stay important to music careers.
“You want PR as a result of, to face out from all of the hubbub, you must be intelligent, fascinating and have one thing to say – and only a few artists are going to have the ability to craft all of that on their very own,” he declares. “Not having a narrative is a false economic system as a result of, if you happen to don’t develop a story, are you actually going to promote [an artist] long run? I don’t suppose so…”
Edwards admits PR is undervalued by the music biz (“If you open the commerce mags and there’s an image of everybody with the gold disc, the PR may be very not often there”), however says the trade’s obsession with “storytelling” ought to be left to the professionals.
“Storytelling isn’t just being a parrot or repeating what the supervisor informed you,” he says. “A PR ought to be like a journalist, you’re investigating a narrative, dismantling it after which re-assembling it in a manner that’s extra fascinating.”
One shopper who understood that was Bowie, who Edwards labored with for many years in numerous capacities, proper up till the star’s premature demise in 2016. Within the e book, Bowie typically questions Edwards’ technique, nevertheless it normally works out, though Edwards says he discovered rather more from Bowie than vice versa.
“I discovered rather a lot about expertise from him,” he says. “When e-mail got here in, David was utterly on it. He was ringing me up usually to inform me off saying, ‘You’ve received to make use of this and embrace it’. He compelled me on a regular basis to stretch my pondering in sensible methods,” he provides. “We’d like David Bowie right here to inform us what’s going to occur within the subsequent 50 years…”
For now, Edwards is considering movie and TV provides for the e book, however says he has no plans to retire from his PR function.
“I did strive enjoying golf a few instances and that didn’t go effectively,” he laughs. “That is such an fascinating function to be in – I’ve received nothing else I’d relatively do.”
“I Was There: Dispatches from a Life in Rock and Roll” is out now, printed by Simon & Schuster.
