Man dies and reincarnates as wife's dog! This is not a variation on the definition of news (man bites dog) but a sample of the kind of pitch that writers made to producers of American television shows in the 90s. Working on such shows was looked down upon by the Hollywood fraternity and many of the writers, directors and producers considered their work with self-loathing.
However, as Brett Martin chronicles in Difficult Men , something changed in the late 1990s. The launch of shows such as The Sopranos and The Wire ushered in a golden age of programming that overturned all assumptions about the kind of shows people were willing to watch at home.
It was the birth of cable and pay channels such as HBO that broke the stranglehold networks had on content and in their desperation to acquire original programming, they were even willing to allow writers full control of their shows. Thus was born a new breed of auteur — the writer-showrunner, an event unprecedented in an industry where the scribe was way below in the pecking order. Difficult Men is thus the story of how these creative producers — David Chase ( The Sopranos ), David Simon ( The Wire ), Matthew Weiner ( Mad Men ), Alan Ball ( Six Feet Under, True Blood ), Vince Gilligan ( Breaking Bad ) and others — helmed shows that broke new ground in terms of theme and treatment and featured characters that were more often anti-heroes struggling with their inner beasts. Filled with behind-the-scenes anecdotes and profiles of the main players, Martin’s book is a must-read for anybody who has been engaged by the shows that defined the coming of age of television.
In the 1990s, the British dance band St Etienne earned its reputation as a purveyor of “Pure Pop”. Now, the band’s songwriter/ producer Bob Stanley, a former music journalist, has authored Yeah Yeah Yeah: The Story of Modern Pop, a history of pop music covering the period from 1952 when the first UK Singles chart was published, to the early 1990s that saw the end of the 7- inch single being released on vinyl. For Stanley, pop is simply any music that made the charts regardless of genre. The book is an entertaining, passionate, opinionated and information-packed journey through the decades, covering virtually every form and sub-genre you could think of. Stanley is adept at making connections across time such as the influence of operatic tenor Mario Lanza on Elvis Presley or the phrase “wall of sound” that was first used to describe the sound emanating from the orchestra in a pit in Richard Wagner's redesigned Nibelungen Theatre in Bayreuth, and later in the 1950s to Stan Kenton's jazz band and more famously to the records produced by Phil Spector. While covering the obvious big names — Abba, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Michael Jackson, U2 — this is also the story of the bit players and the forgotten like David Whitfield, the first to have a hit single after winning a reality show, Joe Meek arguably the first music producer, Roy Hamilton, one of the first black singers to bring gospel into pop and many more.
Psy's Gangnam Style seemed to come out of nowhere to conquer the world. But in truth, he was only riding on top of a wave of Hallyu, the Korean wave of pop culture that includes music, movies, television and cuisine that is steadily making inroads across global markets. Euny Hong’s The Birth of Korean Cool tells the story of how a once unhip nation transformed itself into an exporter of pop culture and consumer products. Hong, who was born in the U.S., grew up in South Korea where corporal punishment in schools was part of the daily routine, rock music was banned and Korean products were not known for their quality. Mixing humorous personal anecdotes with interviews, Hong unravels the secrets of Korea's success that has its roots in history. Until the end of World War II, the country was under Japanese rule for more than 400 years. The atrocities committed by the Japanese had inbred an intense sense of Han which is described as a feeling caused by sad events spread over a long time. According to Hong, it is Han and a sense of shame which are the two prime motivators that drive Korean success in all spheres. Add to this a very proactive government that runs the country like a corporation. It actively funds and micromanages its promotion of pop culture to the extent of even staging flash mobs for media consumption in Paris!
And as for Samsung? It set its sight on beating Sony ( Han again!) as the world leader in electronics and with a combination of visionary management, hard work, innovation and support of the government transformed itself into the global market leader of today where its success further fuels the spread of Hallyu. There’s a lesson here for a country of billion people that has all the elements of pop culture and heritage already in place and hopefully a more proactive government. Can we harness this strength to promote a wave of Indi cool?
