Thursday, 13th October 2005.

Change the record

A couple of months ago, I wrote an entry that supplied new lyrics to 'Fix You', detailing a trip to the vet. Almost as an aside (albeit one that lasted for the best part of an entire paragraph), I predicted that the song would almost certainly be used in the next Comic Relief, as backing music for dying African children running in slow motion towards Billy Connolly. "Please give as much as you can. Together, we can make a difference."

It's only October, but already it seems like my worst fears are being realised. Only last week they used the song on The X-Factor (of all things), as the would-be pop stars (embodying as a collective the very essence of Warhol's fifteen minutes of fame concept) made their way home after the final 'closed' auditions before the winners are unleashed on an all-too-suspecting public. Cue numerous slow-motion montages of each contestant making their way into the house to break the news to awaiting families that they were in or out. Each category was given a different song as backing - Simon Cowell's groups had to make do with Mariah Carey, while Louis Walsh's 16-24 year olds were at least graced with the presence of vintage Elton John. But it was Sharon's group who arguably enjoyed the most successful pairing of audio with visuals: some clever editing ensured that lines like "Tears stream down your face" were used to maximum (if not a little manipulative) effect.

And despite this admittedly satisfying payoff, I can't help feeling uneasy. It's not enough that the song gets aired on the radio almost as much as James Blunt's worthy-but-dull 'You're Beautiful' (Steve Wright, for example, seems to add it to his Sunday morning playlist pretty much every week). We're still a few weeks away from Children In Need and you don't need a Masters to work out what's going to be in the CD player when they're fixing up soft-focus appeal videos in the editing suite. It's a good choice, because it is an encompassing, uplifting piece that fits perfectly to a great many situations, musically and lyrically - if it ain't broke, don't fix it. At the same time, the puritan in me is worried that over-exposure is going to kill the song's appeal.

More than this - am I the only one who holds the opinion that excessive use of Coldplay (for example), while it may have its desired effect, is at best just plain lazy and at worst a shameless piece of bandwagon jumping? Maybe I'm getting cynical in my old age, but it strikes me that using popular music like this is akin to Tony Blair namedropping Oasis and Blur in the open letter to his daughter all those years ago - or, indeed, the Labour party's use of popular song for their campaign videos. It's hardly a new thing, and it can have great effect when it catches a public mood (although the potential to backfire is tremendous, as we witnessed in the Reagan administration's irony-free use of 'Born In The USA' - a song that criticised pretty much everything the Republicans stood for). It's just that to use a song like 'Fix You' to hammer home an emotional point doesn't make me think about giving money to charity - it makes me wonder how many times they screened the video with alternative soundtracks before deciding that was the most hip and relevant option.

Even if we give the publicists the benefit of the doubt, it doesn't alter the fact that there is a great deal of lesser-known music out there that's getting ignored for the sake of what sells. In the same way that the back catalogues of wonderful singer-songwriters are more or less abandoned for the sake of yet another Nick Drake compilation, there's a wealth of material suitable for montages and publicity campaigns that can be found merely by digging a little deeper than last year's top forty albums. I don't care that "it's popular and people like it" - if you use something else that works better, even if it's obscure, doesn't that make for a greater impact? The producers of Banzai!, for example, are to be commended for their use of the most unlikely music to accompany the on-screen sadomasochism. Likewise, Dom Joly deserves a knighthood for pairing up Gordon Lightfoot's seldom-heard 'If You Could Read My Mind' with a man in a dog costume begging at the side of the road. There's plenty of room for innovation if you do your homework.

And even if after a little research you find that 'Fix You' really *is* the best choice for the video, there's another factor to take into account: a lot of material is just plain inappropriate on the grounds that someone else got there first. It was Tarantino who pointed this out in an interview printed in Empire magazine way back in 1995, when he suggested that certain songs called to mind certain images that were so powerful that the constant re-use of the songs did nothing to shake this first, overwhelming memory. The most obvious example of this is 'Perfect Day' - no matter who's singing it, whether it's Lou Reed himself, Kirsty MacColl, or Tom Jones in that memorable (if overplayed) BBC recording, nothing will erase my memory of Ewan MacGregor sinking into the floor halfway through Trainspotting. (Actually, Trainspotting holds a monopoly on more than one standard - but more on that in a moment.)

Occasionally, overexposure can be funny - Radiohead's 'Exit Music (for a film)' used to generate gut-wrenching pathos in Romeo and Juliet, and then to get a laugh (through the creation of misery) in Father Ted. Sadly, such occurrences are few and far between, and most of the time what you're left with is a world-weary sense of deja-vu, and the feeling you've been cheated. All of this set me thinking this morning, and I started to make a list of other songs / pieces that have been used too much in the wrong contexts:

'Lust For Life' (Iggy Pop)
Trainspotting was blessed with arguably the finest film soundtrack of the decade (certainly in the top ten), and its influences stretch beyond that of Reed's "Is it about heroin?" anthem. 'Lust For Life' may have been used before it accompanied Ewan MacGregor's done-to-death opening monologue, but to be fair, the hold that the film exerts on the song reaches farther than the first five minutes: references to Iggy Pop saturate the film, and the song is even name-checked in the middle of a funeral. Nonetheless, it's this powerhouse opening that we remember - an opening that's been parodied and imitated so often that it's no longer particularly interesting. You would think that this would deter music consultants from using it in every single episode of Wife Swap since the programme was launched (give or take), but sadly that doesn't seem to be the case. "Choose life. Choose a TV. Chose a channel. Choose anything but that fucking song again..."

'O Fortuna' (Carl Orff)
Two things irritate me. First of all it's the fact that everyone gets this mixed up with The Omen when it has absolutely nothing to do with it: the music you're looking for is Jerry Goldsmith's 'Ave Satani'. The Orff chorus is a clear influence, but a completely different piece: it's like saying that 'Never Gonna Give You Up' and 'I Should Be So Lucky' are the same record. So that's rant one. Rant two is the fact that this is used in everything. I'm not exaggerating. I could just about live with the Old Spice thing, and it actually works pretty well on a literary level in Excalibur if you examine the libretto. But it's been subsequently featured in adverts for Nescafe (intense orchestration...intense flavouring? Hmmm, tenuous), and trailers for any action film that's due to be screened on BBC1 (or at least the ones that don't feature Verdi's 'Dies Irae', but let's not go there). Then there was the introductory video for Michael Jackson's live show (a montage of screaming fans, heavy security and crotch-grabbing antics from the former clown prince of pop, entitled 'Brace Yourself'). Exciting, sure, and the musical equivalent of an orgasm...but next time Lethal Weapon's on, find something new to advertise it!

'Porcelain' (Moby)
'Porcelain' was one of those songs that was already starting to wear out its welcome before it was accompanied by the sight of Leonardo Di Caprio jumping off a cliff (and sadly avoiding a grizzly death on the jagged rocks below). Actually I'm of the conviction that the use of the song in The Beach wasn't its defining moment, but even if we leave that aside, the fact remains that it's been grossly overused in documentaries and dramas ever since its original release. Such is the seemingly endless appeal of Moby: the truth is that the entire Play album has been used extensively in advertising everything from Galaxy chocolate to Nissan Cars, from Intel to...Maxwell House. Even some of the hippy vegan's earlier work hasn't escaped the work of the advertising board, with the quite wonderful 'God Moving Over The Face Of The Waters' making an incongruous appearance in a trailer for the BBC's Bronte Sisters before being extensively used in a recent installment of The X-Factor, as well as finding time to advertise Rover - and all this when everyone knows that it was implemented most successfully at the end of Heat. The price you pay for making nondescript instrumental music, but Moby doesn't seem to mind. Who can
blame him, given the size of his royalty cheque?

'Adagio For Strings' (Barber)
And here's another one. Yes, it was perfect in The Elephant Man, particularly over that final "Nothing ever dies..." monologue. It was even pretty good in Platoon (miserable piece of music + miserable film = Prozac manufacturer's heaven). By the time we'd reached Red Dwarf VIII, however, things were getting a bit silly. The fact that this is the only piece of Barber you ever hear anywhere outside of Radio 3 or the occasional lunchtime recital says less about the composer's abilities (he really was very talented with a remarkable gift for harmony) and more about the fact that people just aren't willing to delve any further into poor Samuel's back catalogue. So out comes Barber's Adagio again - nix the "for strings" part; it'll mean we can assume a false air of familiarity. Never mind the fact that there are better, more moving pieces out there that can be uplifting as well as heart-rending - instead of just horribly depressing. And as for playing it on the Last Night of the Proms for all the September 11 victims...honestly, what the hell was that about?

'Battle Without Honor Or Humanity - Part One' (Tomoyasu Hotopei)
While Hotopei-San's guitar-driven industrial jam might not have been written for Kill Bill, few could argue that it was Tarantino's most recent work that sealed its reputation. One of those pieces that most people recognise but relatively few can actually name, 'Battle...Part One' provided a perfect accompaniment to Lucy Liu's slow-motion walk through her swanky club. Here, you realised in the midst of gigantic power chords and ear-thumping drum machines, was a figure of menace - a woman who could look good as well as kick some serious butt, who moonlighted as a child prostitute to avenge her father's killer, who thinks nothing of beheading sharp-suited executives in the middle of board meetings, and who only narrowly loses a fight to the death with Uma Thurman. The Japanese connection between setting and composer only served to intensify the relationship: it was an electrifying moment, and it's therefore very sad to see that the piece is now used with alarming regularity on most fly-on-the-wall documentaries to announce the slow-motion arrival of...a child care specialist. Or a decorating team. Or even (hold your breath, folks) a Life Coach. Excuse me while I snigger a bit.

John - who sits diagonally opposite - says that half the problem is the BBC. He used to work there and I suspect that a lot of it is bitterness (he can't stand Robert Winston or Jeremy Vine) but he has a point: the bulk of this does seem to be down to a simple lack of imagination or any sense of adventure. The safe, reliable option is the one that sells. It's not exclusively a BBC problem, but I can't help feeling it's at its worst on Her Majesty's network. We shouldn't be surprised - the lack of musical imagination reflects the lack of imagination when it comes to the programming schedules, and the irony is that there is less innovation than ever (Doctor Who aside) at a time when they're about to hike up the license fee again. It's enough to have you weeping into your pillow at night. Well, almost.