STRANGE BUT TRUE: SOME OF THE BIGGEST AND BEST CLASSIC POP ‘HITS’ – AND SOME A-LIST HIDDEN GEMS – WERE NOT RELEASED AS SINGLES BUT AS TV THEMES
Perhaps the biggest pop hit that started life as a TV theme tune was New Order’s World In Motion. When the Football Association came up with the idea for New Order’s collaboration with the England squad, the group turned to a theme they’d put together for the BBC North West show, Reportage (the Beeb’s version of Channel 4’s Network 7, for which they poached presenters Magenta Devine and Sankha Guha).
What the band turned Theme From Reportage into has become pop’s most important contribution to the world of football. Or perhaps that accolade should go to the New Order track Best & Marsh? It was this piece, recorded for a Granada TV series about George Best and Rodney Marsh and used on the B-side of Round & Round, that apparently gave the FA the idea of contacting the band in the first place.
In terms of hidden gems, do you happen to remember a BBC Two drama from 1991 called For The Greater Good? Possibly not, but if it ever gets repeated, make sure you watch it. Not for the politico/prison intrigue or the ever-reliable Martin Shaw in the leading role (or even for Michael Winner in a rare acting cameo in a couple of episodes). Watch it for the theme music which is a still-unreleased instrumental piece by OMD.
It’s an interesting track also because it’s OMD right in the middle of morphing from Dreaming-era 80s excess into 90s-era dance-pop. And if memory serves correctly, this was the first I actually heard of the reconfigured group before Sailing On The Seven Seas or the Sugar Tax album were even released.
Another big ‘TV hit’ of the 80s has to be Pet Shop Boys’ In The Night, used as the opening and closing theme to Selena Scott and Jeff Banks’ fashion weekly, The Clothes Show. And, despite what some nostalgia shows might lead people to think, we were all watching and listening to the same things in the 80s. Consequently, the show opened PSBs’ music up to a much wid
