Bring Back Top Of The Pops?

Over the last ten to fifteen years it’s become more difficult to gain access to new, up and coming, good quality music.  That isn’t because there’s less of it around; far from it, but there seems to be a far less TV shows and so on that actually feature it.  As far as the media is concerned, we seem to be stuck in middle-of-the-road, middle-brow, mediocre loop that seems to favour only a certain type of artist, who will be comfortable appearing on the BBC’s The One Show and allowing Jools Holland to molest their material with boogie-woogie piano solos.  This is perhaps reflective of a music industry that won’t invest in new talent but instead favours releasing the same back catalogue in increasingly elaborate formats.

I bring this up because I often hear people of a similar age to myself complain about the lack of decent bands around at the moment.  Personally speaking, I don’t feel that is the case at all.  The problem is the lack of opportunities available for new bands; there is a very good live circuit which is in better shape than it has been for years, but too many bands seem to subsist at the same level, without ever breaking through to bigger venues.  For various reasons – not just illegal downloading – it is prohibitively hard for artists to earn any money from recordings and instead have to rely on revenue from other sources, such as; touring, merchandise, etc.  I can’t actually remember a more difficult time than now for musicians to earn money.

Popular music has always been as much a visual experience as an aural one.  I remember when I was growing up that people often complained about shows like Top Of The Pops, The Tube, etc, but at least such shows were a shared experience, the occasional band would offend our parents and provide us with a rallying point.  Where are such shows today? How can new bands find the same sort of spotlight?