TV Cream

A bit of business

TV Cream’s Olympic theme

In this week’s Radio Times, Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett are interviewed about their “ground-breaking” titles for the BBC’s Olympic coverage. In the process they have a good moan about previous sequences which featured “a bunch of people running about in slow motion with Olympic torches – boring”.

Well, they’re wrong, because that’s precisely what Olympic titles should be about, not a load of cartoon animals with silly faces. In fact, for them to be any good, Olympic themes should follow a very strict format and never stray too far away from a few core components.

It’s all very well, you’re thinking, TV Cream laying into yet another target. Just what, you counter, should go in the place of Albarn and Hewlett’s effort?

Fair point. So here is an alternative. It’s been written with the following essentials in mind:
a) a hummable main melody
b) a moody bit at the start where the Beeb would show images of the sun rising, an old man doing exercises in a city square, someone sipping tea, an Chinese Army officer sharing a joke with a small child, etc.
c) an extended middle bit which would only be available on the accompanying 7″
d) plenty of space for highlights from the Games to be incorporated into the mix

It’s also, naturally, in your best Vangelis/Paddy Kingsland/Simon May style.

Now all it needs are lyrics for that limited edition tie-in single.

Let the Games begin
.

1 Comment

1 Comment

  1. Chris O

    August 5, 2008 at 7:30 am

    I’d suggest there’d also be:

    e) a view across the rooftops of a typical Chinese city – the odd pagoda here or there, that sort of thing, and

    f) a bunch of people working in a paddy field, just to reinforce the stereotypical Chinese imagery.

    Great theme, by the way. I’d buy it as a 12″ single…

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