The Secret History of Entertainment

David Hepworth

• Publisher: Fourth Estate
• Year: 2010
• Print ISBN:
  9780007190119
• eBook ISBN:
  9780007396122
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Music History & Criticism

A must for all Pop Culture junkies.

'Myriad weird and weirder showbiz stories with which to amaze, astound and possibly bore rigid close personal friends down the pub or in sheltered accomodation. A must for intellectuals and anoraks alike.' Mark Radcliffe

Did you know that those aren't Julia Roberts' legs on the 'Pretty Woman' poster? In fact the only things that are Julia's are the head and the incandescent smile. Everything from the neck down belongs to Shelley Michelle, a model, actress and body double.

Okay so maybe you knew that one, but how about these: Who – or rather what – won the very first Best Actor Oscar? What life changing discovery did Jack Nicholson make about his sister in 1974? And what in the devil's name is the 'Wilhelm Scream' and how does it link 'Planet of the Apes', 'Star Wars', 'Reservoir Dogs' and fifty-seven other movies?

Unlike most of what passes as 'trivia' – who really cares who's had the most number ones? – these one hundred amazing, unfathomable, absurd and often implausible stories point towards some greater truth. This is the secret history of entertainment.

If 'Schott's Miscellany' is the book of useless facts to be read in the smallest room in the house, then 'The Secret History of Entertainment' is the book of useful stories to devour and wow your friends with over a pint in the pub.

David Hepworth has launched (and written for) some of the most successful magazines of the last two decades – including Q in 1985, Empire in 1988, Mojo in 1997 and Heat in 1999. He is the only person to have won both the Writer of The Year and also Editor of The Year awards from the Periodical Publishers Association. He has presented programmes for the BBC and VH1 and makes regular contributions on BBC Radio 4.

GOT THEM ALT.NEO BREAKBEAT HANDBAG LOUNGECORE BLUES

Writing about music, said Frank Zappa, is like dancing about architecture. What he would have made of this dictionary of musical genres we can only guess.

A

A capella

Unaccompanied vocal group. As in: ‘Only You’ by The Flying Pickets.

Acid House

Booming American dance music meets repetitive, hallucinatory European synthesisers, sparking rave boom of 1988. As in: ‘We Call It Acieed’ by D-Mob.

Acid Jazz

Sly re-branding of Jazz funk to take advantage of the Acid House boom in 1988. As in: ‘Jus’ Reach’ by Galliano.

Acid Rock

From 1966 onwards, the blues played on drugs. As in: ‘In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida’ by Iron Butterfly.

Alternative

Originally indicated any act from outside the radio/retail mainstream. Became meaningless with the success of U2, REM, Nirvana, etc. Now hangs around as a token of one’s identification with the outsiders. As in: ‘Loser’ by Beck.

Alt.country

Country-ish sound made by pasty-faced guitar bands who pose for photographs in trailer parks. As in: ‘Sweet Jane’ by the Cowboy Junkies.

Alt.rock

The alternative to Alternative, embracing every harder-to-get-into variant on the white boys with guitar template. As in: everything from Tortoise to Tool.

Ambient

Ethereal electronic background music. As in: ‘The Pearl’ by Brian Eno and Harold Budd.

Ambient house

Version of house music without the drums. Quite druggy. As in: ‘A Huge Ever-Growing Pulsating Brain That Rules from the Centre of the Ultraworld’ by The Orb.

Americana

Country music that doesn’t do big numbers. As in: ‘Car Wheels on a Gravel Road’ by Lucinda Williams.

AOR

Adult Oriented Rock. As in: Seal.

Arena Rock

Heavy metal with gristle removed. As in: ‘You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet’ by Bachman Turner Overdrive.

B

Baggy

Car thief music, the sound of summer 1991. As in: ‘Step On’ by Happy Mondays.

Beat Music

American rock and roll songs played by tinny English guitar bands circa 1963. As in: ‘Needles And Pins’ by The Searchers.

Big Beat

Loud, bright, very layered, chart-friendly dance music favoured by FHM readers in the late 1990s. As in: ‘The Rockefella Skank’ by Fatboy Slim.

Blue-Eyed Soul

Soul music sung by white men. As in: ‘She’s Gone’ by Hall And Oates.

Blues

Elementary, twelve-bar guitar-based music invented by economically disadvantaged African-Americans (like most of the stuff here). As in: ‘Mannish Boy’ by Muddy Waters.

Breakbeat

Any loop of sampled drums, as used in hip hop and dance music. Also generic catch-all for less lairy end of Jungle and Big Beat. As in: ‘Smack My Bitch Up’ by The Prodigy.

Brill Building

Yearning teenage pop from era before The Beatles. Named after offices where publishers were based. As in: ‘It Might As Well Rain Until September’ by Carole King.

Britpop

1990s phenomenon in which Oasis and Blur self-consciously emulated The Beatles and The Kinks and London swung (allegedly). As in: ‘Country House’ by Blur.

Bubblegum

Bright, light, factory-made pop music of the late 1960s aimed at pre-teens and often based on playground chants. As in: ‘Yummy Yummy Yummy (I’ve Got Love In My Tummy)’ by Ohio Express.

C

Cajun

The accordion-based formal dance music of southwest Louisiana. As in: ‘Step It Fast’ by Nathan Abshire.

Chill

As Neil Tennant has it, ‘music for listening to in the bath’. As in: ‘In The Bath’ by Lemon Jelly.

Complaint rock

Alt.rock offshoot centring on injustices perpetrated against teens by adults, government, religion, etc. Identified in the film Clueless. As in: ‘Jagged Little Pill’ by Alanis Morissette.

Country

The folk-song-derived popular music of the rural whites of America. As in: ‘The Fighting Side of Me’ by Merle Haggard.

Country-rock

Rock bands playing country songs in truck drivers’ clothes. As in: ‘Six Days on the Road’ by The Flying Burrito Brothers.

D

Dancehall

Rapped reggae over drum machines. Rude, usually. As in: ‘Boombastic’ by Shaggy.

Death Metal

Heavy metal about death. As in: ‘Greed Killing’ by Napalm Death.

Delta Blues

Blues from the delta of the Mississippi river. As in: ‘Crossroads’ by Robert Johnson.

Disco

Records made to be danced to in establishments solely dedicated to dancing. As in: ‘Disco Inferno’ by The Trammps.

Doowop

Street-corner vocal quartets with voice imitating bass (hence the name). As in: ‘Get A Job’ by The Silhouettes.

Drill’n’Bass

Borderline unlistenable, fast variant on Drum’n’Bass from UK avant-garde/mickey-taking producers. As in: ‘Hard Normal Daddy’ by Squarepusher.

Drum’n’Bass

(1) (1970s) Minimalist reggae – does what it says on the tin. See also Dub. As in: ‘King Tubby Meets the Rockers Uptown’ by Augustus Pablo. (2) (1990s) Reggae and R&B Breakbeats accelerated, often rapped over. Aka Jungle. As in: ‘Inner City Life’ by Goldie.

E

Electro

Early hip hop, concerned with partying and pretending to be a robot/from space rather than money/women/shooting people. As in: ‘Planet Rock’ by Afrika Bambaataa and Soul Sonic Force.

Electroclash

Return of Electro in early twenty-first century in new-found fashion/gay finery. As in: ‘Emerge’ by Fischerspooner.

Electronica

What Americans call dance music. As in: everything from Air to Meat Beat Manifesto.

Emo

When hardcore bands go lyrical. As in: ‘Margin Walker’ by Fugazi.

Europop

Shrill crowd-pleasers by cross-channel artistes in the universal Esperanto of gobbledegook. Little appeal to the over-fives. As in: ‘Blue (Da Ba Dee)’ by Eiffel ‘65.

F

Filtered Disco

Take a chunk of an old Disco record, mess it about in the studio, presto. The French were especially good at this. As in: ‘Music Sounds Better With You’ by Stardust.

Folk Rock

Started off meaning folk-songs played on electric guitars. Ended up denoting songs composed on acoustic guitar and performed by an electric band. As in: ‘Mr Tambourine Man’ by The Byrds.

Fratrock

Dumb party music for guys in togas to dance to without spilling their beer. As in: ‘Woolly Bully’ by Sam the Sham and The Pharaohs.

Funk

Originally described the smell of sex, it was used in the 1970s to describe the sound of black music moving away from songs towards grooves. As in: ‘One Nation Under a Groove’ by Funkadelic.

Fusion

See Jazz Funk.

G

Gabba

Punishingly fast Dutch variant on Techno, pronounced ‘habber’. As in: ‘Poing’ by Rotterdam Termination Source.

Gangsta Rap

Rapping about being a gangster. As in: ‘Nothing But A G Thang’ by Doctor Dre.

Garage

(1) Bog-standard, DIY American pre-punk from the late 1960s. As in: ‘96 Tears’ by? And The Mysterians. (2) Loverman-ish, song-based New Jersey variant on House. Aka Deep House. As in: ‘That’s The Way Love Is’ by Ten City. (3) UK Garage: House tracks plus stuttering, hip hop drum machines and reggae MCing. Aka Speed Garage (pronounced ‘garridge’). As in: ‘21 Seconds’ by So Solid Crew.

G-Funk

Mid-1990s hip hop discovers the ancient grooves of P-Funk. As in: ‘Regulate’ by Warren G.

Glam-Rock

Bizarre, essentially British school of early 1970s pop in which groups adopted spangly clothing that belied the Watney’s Red Barrel flavour of their sound. As in: ‘Blockbuster’ by The Sweet.

Gospel

Sacred music of the American South presented as entertainment. As in: ‘Jesus Hits Like An Atom Bomb’ by The Pilgrim Travellers.

Goth Rock

The doomy sound you make after overdoing the hair products and painting your light bulb red. As in: ‘Wasteland’ by The Mission.

Grunge

Amalgam of hard rock sound and punk attitude developed by a generation of Americans who’d spent time with the educational psychiatrist. As in: ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ by Nirvana.

H

Hair bands

Arena Rock bands dressing up for MTV in the 1980s. As in: ‘Bad Medicine’ by Bon Jovi.

Handbag

Light, disco-inflected variant on House, beloved of hen parties and transvestites, named after the thing you dance around. As in: ‘One Night In Heaven’ by M People.

Hardcore

(1) Strictly moralistic 1980s US punk. As...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• INTRODUCTION
• ELTON GOES SHOPPING
• ROCK AND ROLL WAS INVENTED BY A LOOSE LUGGAGE STRAP
• THE MAN WHO DIED ON A TV CHAT SHOW
• THE MAN WHO WAS MEANT TO BE BOND
• THE MYSTERY OF ‘WHAT’S THE FREQUENCY, KENNETH?’
• ALEC GUINNESS’S STAR WARS PENSION
• KENNETH WILLIAMS’S LAVATORY
• DAVID BOWIE’S EYES ARE DIFFERENT COLOURS
• THE VOICE OF GOD
• THE POCKET SUPERSTAR
• THE BABYSITTER WHO INVENTED COUNTRY ROCK
• MONKEE MOMMA MAKES MILLIONS
• ENGLISHMEN WERE THE GODFATHERS OF AMERICAN ROOTS MUSIC
• WHICH ONE’S PINK?
• BROWN M&MS AND OTHER ROCK STARS’ RIDERS
• DELIA SMITH MADE THE LET IT BLEED CAKE
• CHANGING SEX IN SHOW BUSINESS
• ‘HAPPY BIRTHDAY’ IS STILL IN COPYRIGHT
• SOME OF THE BEST LINES ARE MADE UP ON THE SPOT
• JACK NICHOLSON GREW UP THINKING HIS MOTHER WAS HIS SISTER
• THE TRAGIC LIFE AND LONG DEATH OF JACKIE WILSON
• THERE’S ONLY ONE MANCUNIAN IN FRASIER (AND IT’S NOT DAPHNE MOON)
• KEVIN COSTNER MADE NICK LOWE A MILLIONAIRE
• MADONNA CO-WROTE A HIT WITH A DEAD MAN
• HARRISON FORD HAS THE RUNS
• BRUNO BROOKES, BOB HARRIS AND 35,000 RECORDS
• FARGO IS NOT A TRUE STORY – BUT THIS IS
• THE ROLLING STONES ACTUALLY HAD SIX MEMBERS
• THE WORLD’S ONLY CELEBRITY DOG
• THE HISTORY OF FUCK AND THE MOVIES
• ICI ON PARLE HIP HOP
• RICHARD GERE OWES HIS CAREER TO JOHN TRAVOLTA
• WORKING TITLES
• THE LONESOME DEATHS OF FRANKIE HOWERD AND BENNY HILL
• THE TERRIBLE EARLY LIFE OF RAY CHARLES
• THE AMAZING STORY OF ‘BITTER SWEET SYMPHONY’
• LITERARY ANCESTORS
• I’D KNOW THAT SCREAM ANYWHERE
• THOSE AREN’T JULIA ROBERTS’S LEGS ON THE PRETTY WOMAN POSTER
• THEY KNEW IT WAS DIRTY BUT THEY DIDN’T KNOW HOW
• NOBODY LAUGHS IN THE SIMPSONS
• THE NUDES IN THE DISNEY CARTOONS
• CHOLLY ATKINS IS THE TRUE FATHER OF MODERN POP
• ICI ON PARLE HOLLYWOOD
• THE KENNY G PAT METHENY SPAT
• A BAD DAY TO DIE
• WHY ELVIS NEVER TOURED OUTSIDE THE USA
• THE LOST WORDS OF STAR TREK
• SORRY, BUT THEY NEVER SAID IT
• DYNASTY
• SHIRLEY MACLAINE AND WARREN BEATTY ARE SISTER AND BROTHER
• WHO WAS ‘YOU’RE SO VAIN’ ABOUT?
• HIT MOVIES ARE DECIDED IN THE FIRST WEEKEND
• BOB DYLAN’S SECRET SECOND WIFE
• THE MOST CONNECTED ACTORS
• THE FACE THAT LAUNCHED A THOUSAND RIFFS
• HOW TO MAKE MONEY WITHOUT HAVING A HIT
• THE SIMPSONS AND THE GROENINGS
• WHEN THE BBC CLOSED FOR BATHTIME
• DOWN ON HIS LUCK, SINATRA PLAYS BLACKPOOL
• THE OSCARS REHEARSAL
• AMERICA DOESN’T GET BRITISH COMEDY
• PEOPLE WHO COULDN’T LEARN LINES
• ROCK STARS WHO SERVED THEIR COUNTRY
• THE ALBUMS PREVIOUSLY KNOWN AS…
• NOBODY THOUGHT THE WALKMAN WOULD WORK
• THE FOUR TOPS’ FIFTY-YEAR CAREER
• MOM IN A BOX
• HOW TO RENT A SUPERSTAR
• JUMPING THE SHARK
• RHYMING SLANG
• THEY DIED WITH THEIR SLAP ON
• GOT THEM ALT.NEO BREAKBEAT HANDBAG LOUNGECORE BLUES
• Acknowledgements
• Copyright
• About the Publisher