RockDocs: The Nation's Favourite Motown Song

There are many pointless things in this world; flies, Police Academy movies, Bryan Adams etc. But none of them really match the sheer desperation of ITV. Everything about it just pisses me off, especially the way they shoe-in references to the rest of their schedule with the most offensively obvious propaganda since Triumph of the Will. I’m not comparing ITV to the Nazis (well, maybe I am a little), but I do have to make this clear right now: I don’t like ITV. I never have. I never will. Loose Women can fuck off. Simon Cowell can fuck off. Piers Morgan can fuck off, come back, and then fuck off again, but HARDER.

Their music programming irks me like no other. They did a special on Elvis last year where they spent more time talking to Gareth Gates about covering Suspicious Minds than they did talking about Suspicious Minds. Lest we forget, Gareth Gates began life on ITV’s own Pop Idol. Not that I’m suggesting that this is why they gave him so much airtime. Except that I am. I am, I am, I am, I am. There! I said it.

So, it was with great trepidation that I approached The Nation’s Favourite Motown Song, the Motown version of The Nation’s Favourite Elvis Song that we sat through last year. Which, in itself, was the Elvis version of The Nation’s Favourite Bee Gees/Abba/Christmas/Dance/[insert whatever in here] Song. Like Elvis and the others, a tie-in album has been released, which essentially makes this whole special one massive advert for the album. But…surprisingly…after bitching about it at length here it wasn’t that bad. In fact it was quite – gulp! – entertaining.

Don’t get me wrong. It wasn’t perfect. In the grand tradition of ITV “documentaries”, it wasn’t aimed at fans of the subject. It was aimed at people who think Motown is a style of music rather than a label and that Motown includes The Drifters and Aretha Franklin. It was very much for the ITV audience so if you’re looking to learn something new here, you’re in the wrong place. And, once again, there were some very confusing interview subjects; Michael Bolton? Boyzone? Like, actually, why? Does anyone really care what Ronan Keating thinks about…well…anything? John Newman clearly had the knowledge of a spatula. When was the last time Suzi Quatro was famous? And I found it especially ironic that Pete Waterman was interviewed for the special. If there’s one guy who was able to take Berry Gordy’s theory for making music, but miss the point entirely, it’s Peter Alan Waterman, OBE. But, overall, it was a vast improvement over what they have had in the past.

After narrations from Liza Tarbuck, Rufus Hound, Kate Thornton and The Nation’s Favourite Simpleton (Fearne Cotton), this time around they went for Craig Charles, who is at least a noted Motown fan. His enthusiasm shone through, making it much easier to get caught up in the whole thing. Not that it would be particularly difficult. The music of Motown hits you in a place like no other.

The songs picked were pretty obvious choices for the most part, and I question some of the positions. The Tracks of My Tears at #13? It’s one of the Top 5 songs ever written! And that’s a non-proven unfact! Diana Ross’ version of Ain’t No Mountain High Enough and not Marvin and Tammi’s? What the hell is wrong with you, Britain?

In any case, here’s the unabridged Top 20, you should buy the album if you think Aretha Franklin is Motown. If not, you probably already have them all anyway.

20. Jimmy Mack (Martha & The Vandellas)



19. Uptight (Stevie Wonder)



18. Papa Was a Rolling Stone (The Temptations)



17. What’s Going On? (Marvin Gaye)



16. My Cherie Amour (Stevie Wonder)



15. I Can’t Help Myself (Sugar Pie Honey Bunch) (The Four Tops)



14. My Guy (Mary Wells)



13. The Tracks Of My Tears (Smokey Robinson & The Miracles)



12. Reach Out, I’ll Be There (The Four Tops)



11. I Want You Back (Jackson 5)



10. Stop! In The Name of Love (The Supremes)



9. War (Edwin Starr)



8. Baby Love (The Supremes)



7. I’ll Be There (Jackson 5)



6. The Tears of a Clown (Smokey Robinson & The Miracles)



5. My Girl (The Temptations)



4. Dancing In The Street (Martha & The Vandellas)



3. Ain’t No Mountain High Enough (Diana Ross)



2. What Becomes of the Broken Hearted? (Jimmy Ruffin)



1. I Heard It Through The Grapevine (Marvin Gaye)




And finally, just to prove that ITV used to do music programming right, this is the legendary Ready Steady Go! Motown special from 1965 that basically introduced the UK to The Sound of Young America, introduced by Dusty Springfield and featuring The Temptations, Smokey & The Miracles, The Supremes, Martha & The Vandellas, Little Stevie Wonder and Marvin Gaye tagged onto the end from a different edition (also…for some reason, this video is out of sequence…but still…)

It Appears ITV Are Going To Piss On Motown's Legacy

I hate ITV. I hate everything about it; the lousy, predictable crime dramas. The lousy, predictable talent shows. The lousy, predictable daytime “human interest” talk shows. But most of all, I hate it when they decide to try their hand at music programming. Some of the problems they have are not their fault, per se. On the few occasions they’ve tried festival coverage, it has been incredibly minimal and repetitive. But that’s due to the difficulty they have in acquiring those sorts of rights (unlike the BBC, who have always had a deal with the musician’s union). But they have no excuse for their “documentary” programmes.

I put the word “documentary” in quotation marks because these aren’t really “documentaries”, they’re clip shows. The two most recent ones I can think of is a documentary on Pete Waterman’s Hit Factory and the genesis of the Now That‘s What I Call Music compilations (the subject matters should tell you enough). Do you want to hear what you’ve just been watching said again and again? Great! Because they’ll do it after every ad break, as if you’re an imbecile with an inability to remember what happened 3 minutes ago. Do you want to see Simon Cowell treated as the go-to guy and God of all that is important in music? Great! Because that’s exactly what you’ll get, and not at all because he produces the two cornerstones of their schedule! Do you want to know what Deirdre Barlow from Coronation Street thinks about Bananarama? You do! Excellent…then this is the “documentary” for you. Because, like all ITV shows, what’s the point in having something on your channel, if you can’t promote the rest of your schedule while you’re at it? (That’s actually a trick ITV do all the time; look out for it next time you watch Ant & Dec, or if they do a documentary on the Moors Murders and Peter Andre is one of their interview subjects).

They’ve had a series running called The Nation’s Favourite…. Each time they wheel it out, a different beloved music icon (Abba, the Bee Gees, Elvis, Christmas) is subject to a public vote as to what the nation’s favourite song by that artiste. And by “nation”, of course, I mean X Factor viewers.

I actually watched the Elvis one last year, and was a little taken aback. Here’s what I couldn’t understand; they interviewed Elvis’ wife Priscilla, they interviewed his buddies in the Memphis Mafia, they interviewed members of his band, they interviewed the great Darlene Love (who was, for a time, one of his backing singers), they interviewed his producers…you name it. So why, oh why, did they feel the need to spend an entire segment interviewing Gareth Gates (who was famous 12 years ago) about singing an Elvis song once? Who gives a fuck? Tell us how the songs were written. Tell us Elvis stories. NO-ONE GIVES A TOSS ABOUT GARETH GATES. His mum probably even refers to him as That One From Pop Idol. No, Not Will Young.

So, it’s with great sadness that ITV have announced that this summer they will tackle one of the subjects dearest to my heart; Motown. I assume this tribute to the greatest record label that ever existed is an overdue apology to label founder Berry Gordy, whom Louis Walsh once declared dead rather prematurely on The X Factor back in 2011 (seriously, an expert judge on a supposed music show, folks). I do remember ITV dealing with Motown before, on a special presented by Ian Wright called Motown Mania. It had S Club 7, Dane Bowers, Steps, A1, something called a “Samantha Mumba”. This is the basic, soulless standard;



Yes, it’s ITV’s favourite, Westlife. And it appears they are trying to summon Satan by being bland, boring and showing about as much emotion as a spatula. Not even an emotional spatula. Just a boring fucking spatula

Anywho, the company producing this new special is appropriately named Shiver, and the press release tells us that they are responsible for hard-hitting documentary series, and then has the BALLS to list Paul O’ Grady: For The Love of Dogs, May The Best House Win and Come Dine With Me as being amongst their most popular and respected long-running shows. These things? Really? So, not responsible for BBC Four’s Britannia series? Or some of Sky Art’s excellent interview series? No? Just May The Best House Win, then. In fairness, they did list The Other Side of Jimmy Saville in there too, but that was the only thing that could be seen as hard-hitting. And even that essentially picked up where an unaired Newsnight investigation dropped off.

This is going to be seriously bad. And yet I won’t be able to look away. I can’t help it. I’m drawn to anything with the word “Motown” on it. But, I can take solace in the fact that, no matter how much they rush through interviews with Smokey Robinson, no matter how many times it repeats itself, no matter how predictable the whole shebang might be…at least I might find out what Deirdre Barlow from Coronation Street thought when Diana Ross left The Supremes.

POINTLESS LISTS: Top 5 Badly Advised Music Movies

Status Quo have made a movie. No, really. I have no reason to make that up. Apparently it’s out. Not that anyone cares. I often make excuses for Status Quo, I just wish they’d stop making it so damn difficult for me.



I thought it was as good an excuse as any to look at other badly advised musicians in movies. It’s actually funny in itself how many of these are vanity projects that went awry. A couple of them are just knockabout hi-jinx. But, the best ones are the ones were somebody’s ego just wouldn’t let it go…


5. All of Elvis’ Movies (1960-1969)

Starring: Elvis Presley



Primarily the movies he made just after he left the army. I’ll give a pass to Jailhouse Rock and Kid Creole. They actually weren’t that bad. But not long after those, Elvis was drafted into the army for two years. When he finished his time his manager “Colonel” Parker pushed Elvis into making shitty, formulaic musical comedies.

Though, unlike some people on this list (I’m looking at YOU, Mariah Carey), Elvis had the charisma to pull this off. I’ve actually always viewed Elvis as charisma first, singer second. Because he was essentially a pretty white face to sell black music to mainstream America. But the sheer amount of these movies takes the novelty off it. There’s really no time to go into them…but, suffice to say, all of them were made on a miniscule budget. So, you can imagine what we’re talking about here.

In fairness, if viewed as merely a marketing ploy, then at least the first half of the decade had some decent soundtracks behind them (come on…Viva Las Vegas?). But even that major positive had worn down by the end of the decade, and Elvis wouldn’t have a decent song again until the release of Suspicious Minds in 1969. In fact, by 1967, Elvis was seen as a bit of a punch line, largely due to these ghastly films. At least Cliff Richard was always a bit of a joke, which makes Summer Holiday kinda funny in a way. With Elvis, it was a bit of a sad downfall.

4. Glitter (2001)

Starring: Mariah Carey



I hate Mariah Carey. Oh, sure…she’s a great vocalist. But, I think we need to draw a distinction between a vocalist and a singer; a vocalist can hit all the notes, but a singer makes you BELIEVE it. But I at least get who her music is made for, I get it’s purpose. I have no idea what the purpose of this is. Hell, I’m not even sure what the story is.

The whole thing is a mess. I actually don’t know where to start. It’s set in the 80s for no reason at all (seriously, I see no significant references to the 80s, and the music sounds like it’s from the early noughties). It’s a typical rags-to-riches story that implies being a famous singer is the only important thing in the whole world, but so incompetently put together that it actually beggar‘s belief. Every time you think they’ve planted a plot seed, it turns out the scene goes nowhere. As she gets successful, she begins to drift from her friends. This is solved three minutes later by a shopping spree. She’s told to show more flesh, and you think they’re moving into an area where she has to contemplate whether it’s worth compromising your integrity for fame. Instead she just wears a bikini.

Weirdly, the whole film is about [insert character’s name]’s career and her relationship with her boyfriend/producer (who, for some reason, is played by Max Beasley), and yet the big climax is her reuniting with the drunk mother who we saw for about 2 minutes whilst the opening credits rolled. What the actual fuck?

The movie tanked (obviously). Mariah - who has the emotional range of a spatula as an actress - has openly blamed this on the fact that the soundtrack album was released on September 11th 2001, and the movie ten days later. In actual fact, the movie and the music suck.


3. Michael Jackson’s Moonwalker (1988)

Starring: Michael Jackson, Sean Lennon (for some reason)



The trailer says “nothing could prepare you for his movie”. You got that right, mister. This is basically the beginning of Michael Jackson’s self-important, egotistical, floating a statue of himself down the Thames period which basically lasted until the day he died. The film begins with a performance of Man In The Mirror, which ends with world leaders signing peace treaties. The implication seemingly being that Michael Jackson made this possible? What follows is twenty minutes of Jackson reminding you of how awesome he is. I’m not kidding. The first twenty minutes or so is just CLIPS of music videos, live performances, glorified slide shows, him collecting awards…etc…he almost starts to come across as having some kind of inferiority complex. “Please like me…please like me…I’ll do anything for you…JUST LOOOOOOOVE MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE”.

Following those twenty minutes is the full video for the song Leave Me Alone. Are you freakin’ kidding me? Let me put that into context. He just went; “look at me, hey…over here…look how amazing my songs are…look how popular I am…look at how awesome my dancing is…look at me. Now, fuck off.”

Then there’s the main event of the movie. A short film starring Michael Jackson playing the incredibly complex role of…Michael Jackson. He’s playing catch in a park with three orphans and a dog, when the dog goes missing. Michael and the girl go off to find the dog, but instead stumble across Joe Pesci talking to some spiders and laying out an alarmingly detailed plan about how he’s going to sell drugs to kids. He sees Michael and sends his henchmen to find him. During a lengthy chase scene that comprises of the same two shots re-cut, Michael gets cornered. So, he decides to turn himself into a car (who hasn’t done that in our hour of need?) and drive to a secret club to meet the kids. The kids aren’t there. In a spur of the moment move, the club decided to turn itself into a mafia club from the 30s. Despite knowing that the kids are probably in danger, Michael decides to sing an extended version of his hit Smooth Criminal. Then the girl gets captured, but the other two kids aren’t (for some reason). So, they go to rescue the girl, and Michael turns himself into a killer robot, and finally a spaceship and flies away. He then comes back to perform some kind of weird Beatles tribute show, possibly to take advantage of the fact that he’s just bought the rights to The Beatles back catalogue. Fin.

This story MAKES NO SENSE. None of it is explained. WHY can he turn himself into cars, robots and spaceships? Also, why is it called Moonwalker? I know he moonwalks in it, but it could have just as easily been called;

Michael Jackson’s Tip Toe Stander
Michael Jackson’s Twirly Fucker
Michael Jackson’s Crotch Grabber

The game that tied in with the movie was cool, though. But in hindsight, a game where Michael Jackson walks around picking up kids might be in poor taste.



2. Graffiti Bridge (1990)

Starring: Prince, Morris Day, George Clinton, Mavis Staples, Tevin Campbell



PRINCE is a musical genius. Seriously, there’s nothing the guy can’t do. Musically. Because he certainly can’t act, screenwrite or direct movies. And the proof is in two particular brands of pudding; 1986’s Under The Cherry Moon and this monstrosity.

Set in some kind of parallel universe were Prince is apparently twinned with Jesus Christ (and I thought Michael Jackson was the one with the Christ complex), an angel comes down to…uh…actually, I don’t know why the angel comes down. It’s not really made clear. She’s just there. And he fucks it. Regularly. Then she dies. Which is weird, because I was always under the impression that angels were either dead already or immortal.

The movie was supposed to be a sequel to 1984’s vastly superior Purple Rain (a movie so successful that pretty much every “pop star movie” now rips it off to a less successful extent…in fact Eminem’s 8 Mile is basically a remake), but other than Prince’s character The Kid talking to his dead dad and the presence of Morris Day (who couldn’t even save this piece of shit, no matter how ironically awesome he is), it has absolutely fuck all to do with it. This is so bad MADONNA turned it down. And if you’ve ever seen Madonna’s movies, you will know why that is so shocking.

Thankfully, unlike Under The Cherry Moon, the music is very much in the forefront rather than incidental. Although the music is nowhere near as strong as Under The Cherry Moon and especially Purple Rain, there’s still some pretty decent performances in it, as well as cameos from legends like George Clinton and Mavis Staples. Which is a nice distraction.


1. KISS Meets The Phantom of the Park (1978)

Starring: Paul Stanley, Gene Simmons, Ace Frehley, Peter Criss (KISS)



Imagine The Beatles A Hard Days Night. Mix it up with Star Wars. Put KISS in it. What do you get? Crap.

This was released during KISS’ absolute commercial peak in 1978. They were everywhere in the USA of America. And they were looking for ways to capitalise on this. So, despite the fact that KISS can’t act, the management thought it would be just a downright cracking idea to put them in a movie about a man who runs a theme park trying to turn humans into cyborgs.

To be fair, if any band should have made a movie, it’s KISS. They just shouldn’t have made this one. The one thing they do right is keep up the pretence of KISS as superheroes. But, that’s all they did right. Guitarist Ace Frehley spends most of the movie saying “ACK!” and little else. Plus, he apparently couldn’t be arsed with the movie, and so is in most scenes replaced by his African American stunt double. Meanwhile, drummer Peter Criss’ dialogue was apparently so incomprehensible that they overdubbed his voice with some other miscellaneous dude’s.

Singer/guitarist Paul Stanley gives us an acting master class with the immortal line “you’re looking for someone…but it’s NOT KISS”. He also constantly pouts at the camera. Including mid-way through a fight scene. And bassist/singer Gene Simmons actually breathes fire. Well…I say he actually breathes fire…he breathes something that appears to have been taken out of a cheap anime. It’s so realistic that I almost didn’t not fall out of my chair.