The latest variations in the VH1 Behind the Music formula are Ultimate Albums (Sundays at 9 p.m.) and Being (Mondays at 9 p.m.). Ultimate Albums, at least, looks promising. The premise? Dishing all the dirt there is to dig on the conflicts, chemicals, and creativity fueling albums that VH1 deems classic. The premiere subject? Def Leppard’s 1983 album Pyromania.
It’s a surprising choice for those of us who always assumed the band were just an early-’80s footnote. VH1 obviously has a different take; the show’s voiceover goes on and on to justify the band’s stature and legacy, and the writers waste no opportunity (after every commercial during the hour-long show) to make the case that Def Leppard arose during a particularly moribund time for rock. To my ears, the band’s featherweight metal songs have aged only moderately better than the spandex and Union Jack tanktops the members favored, and as for the early ’80s being bankrupt, well, we can all make our own lists of music from the era that’s endured (X, Black Flag, and Bad Brains would top mine).
Besides, all the blather about Def Leppard’s importance is unnecessary, because what emerges is a fascinating story about how the album came together. We learn about the desperation and ennui of the band’s early days in Northern England, and we get a look at some of the internal tensions — typical VH1 documentary fare. At the center of it all is producer Mutt Lange, who seems to combine the legendary perfectionism of Spiritualized’s Jason Pierce with the management skills of Rasputin. Lange, a/k/a Mr. Shania Twain, builds an album in atomic units, a beat and a note at a time. According to the very likable band members — who still describe the proceedings with an air of disbelief — the recording sessions were endless. Nothing, they say, was ever good enough for Lange (who does not appear on the show); by the time the album’s 10 tracks were finished, they’d replaced drummer Rick Allen with a machine (before he lost his left arm in a car wreck), lost a guitarist, recorded an untold number of overdubs, and seen their confidence shattered. The producer comes off like a megalomaniacal Ahab who would have dispensed with the musicians entirely had that been possible. It’s a riveting account; the dubious claims for the record’s stature just detract.
The second installment of Ultimate Albums is devoted to Green Day’s Dookie, but instead of focusing on the recording, it describes the sudden, inexplicable breakthrough of punk rock into the mainstream and posits Green Day as key players. Although the voiceover once again strains to portray the band as a little more significant than history will probably allow, you can’t argue against Green Day’s importance at a certain time and place. Still, that doesn’t have much to do with how Dookie was conceived, written, and recorded. Which is what Ultimate Albums promised in the first place.
THE CONCEIT BEHIND BEING is that a rock star is outfitted with a hidden camera that allows us to witness the draining minutiae of his or her life. The show, which strapped the camera on Colombian pop star Shakira for its debut, clocks in at 30 minutes, including commercials, not enough to show us very much. There are enough other cameras capturing the action to render Shakira’s superfluous (besides, it produces a lousy picture), and the short run time only hints at what the star’s day includes. We see a few minutes of rehearsal, a soundcheck, a press conference (here the hidden camera does cast a weird, mobbish air on the cluster of reporters surrounding Shakira), the walk to the stage, a performance clip, and the return to the dressing room.
That doesn’t seem like such a big deal, and it doesn’t convey the smallest notion of the pop life as anything dramatic, at least not in the way Bob Seger rendered it in " Turn the Page. " The idea behind the show is pretty good — aside from the music in Gimme Shelter, aren’t some of the best parts the ones in press conferences, hotel rooms, and engineer’s booths? A star’s off-time grabs our interest because it’s humanizing, especially when compared with the spectacle they’re relaxing from. But Being manages to make it all too dull.
