Remixing the news

I had the house to myself last Friday night. Like all normal men, I went wild and spent the evening listening to remixes and different versions of the BBC News 24 music on Youtube.

That isn’t normal? Ah. Well, maybe not for you, but that beep beep beep rhythmic music, slowly building to its higher-pitched ten second crescendo is the reason I’m in front of the TV at two minutes to ten every night, in the hope of catching it in all its stirring glory. I’m reasonably distraught if they only get time for the last twenty seconds, or they commit the ultimate sin and fade it, right before Huw Edwards stares intently at you for a few seconds, whilst sporting another natty tie and that slightly sinister sneer.

Imagine my shock when I tuned in the other night... and they’d changed it. I don’t remember receiving a letter asking for my permission. The very least they could have done was give me a bit of warning, so I had time to prepare myself. Suddenly, it’s got synth-string bits going on. It’s going to take me a fair while to recover, but at least I’ve been able to find a high quality MP3 of it to use as my ringtone.

There are a surprising number of variants of the music that prepares us for deaths, financial meltdowns, smowmaggedon reports, and all the other depressing stuff that kicks off the news on the BBC. Bar the Olympics, it’s very rare that anything cheery pops up at the front of the bulletins, so a bit of serious, dynamic music is only appropriate.

Apart from all the home-remixed versions out there (and lest we forget, Bill Bailey included his own interpretation in his live shows), there are numerous variants for local, and worldwide, versions of all things news/depressing supplied by the Beeb.

David Lowe is the man who came up with original (and subsequent remixes and variants), way back in 1999. Yes, this music has preceded the news since the last century, and is probably older than a lot of your kids. Lowe is the TV-themes go-to-guy, having also sound-tracked the likes of The One Show, Countryfile, Panorama, Cash In The Attic, Wildlife On One and Grand Designs. I’m hoping he’ll keep on getting asked to tweak his masterpiece of news precedence too. Whilst the Doctor Who theme occasionally gets a regeneration to accompany its character, the news is an ever changing beast, but one we can never grow out of (although fancying the lead and co-stars is optional).

Youtube has a clip of the Holy Grail of the recently deposed version of the intro – a full ninety second countdown. If you’re a news-theme nerd, it’s one and half minutes of bleepy brilliance. If you’re not, then, much like Mrs G, you’d have looked equal parts puzzled and perplexed when I got inexplicably agitated by the recent change. Or you might have said “Has it changed?”

MIGHT have changed?! What’s wrong with you! They just painted a moustache on the Mona Lisa.

This article first appeared as my 'Thank grumpy it's Friday' column in the North West Evening Mail on Friday the 28th March 2013. You can view and comment on it on their website here.

The NWEM retitled it 'Hard to adjust to remixed news', which seems fair enough to me. They also removed the 9 words in brackets about fancying lead and co stars. Which seems... odd.

In case you were thinking that my love of the news theme is wildly exaggerated in this article, allow me to illustrate my devotion with the following...

First up, we have the aforementioned pinnacle of News Nerdery - the full 90 seconds of the theme that we now know as 'the previous one'... (sound of gentle sobbing being stifled.)

And now, an interesting super-wide stereo split of the new version, allowing you to hear all the orchestral stuff going on in pant-moistening clarity. Mmmmm.....

And, as a special treat, a superb mash-up by DJ Nite - It's time to "Turn On The News". Woo! Yeah!

And if you want the pure, uncut stuff, head on over to David Lowe's website and see the incredible amount of stuff this chap has been up to... plus the full, HQ version of the new theme. Yum.

Blimey, is that the time? It's nearly 10'o'clock....

(Listening to BBC News themes, of course. Duh.)

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