The Rock 'n' Roll Years

The Rock 'n' Roll Years was a BBC television programme aired between 1985 and 1994. In a half-hour time slot the programme focused on a different year each week, starting with the year 1956 and ending with 1989.

The format of the programme, which was based on the BBC Radio 1 series 25 Years of Rock, was primarily of news clips with narrative subtitles set to music of the time with no presenters or voice-overs. Archive footage of performers, mostly from BBC programmes such as Top of the Pops, was also featured.

For instance, the programme on 1960 featured the Sharpeville massacre, the Russians shooting down two US spy planes, the advent of stiletto heels and the election of John Kennedy to the White House, set to music by Adam Faith, Duane Eddy and the Rebels, Cliff Richard and the Shadows, the Everly Brothers and Roy Orbison.[1]

The theme tune to The Rock 'n' Roll Years was a medley containing riffs from a number of popular songs, including for example "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" by The Rolling Stones and "Layla" by Derek and the Dominos. The first set of episodes covered the years 1956–63, and was aired over July and August 1985. The second set covered 1964–71, and aired between June and August 1986. The years 1972–80 were over the same period in 1987.

For the 1994 series, which covered 1981–89, a similar medley was created using extracts from 1980s hits such as "Like a Virgin" by Madonna, "Radio Ga Ga" by Queen, "Every Breath You Take" by the Police, "Do They Know It's Christmas?" by Band Aid and "The Look of Love" by ABC. These episodes were aired between February and April.

Series overview
SeriesEpisodesOriginally aired
First airedLast aired
Pilot3 May 1984 (1984-05-03)[2]
187 July 1985 (1985-07-07)[3]25 August 1985 (1985-08-25)[4]
2730 June 1986 (1986-06-30)[5]18 August 1986 (1986-08-18)[6]
3929 June 1987 (1987-06-29)[7]31 August 1987 (1987-08-31)[8]
492 March 1994 (1994-03-02)[9]27 April 1994 (1994-04-27)[10]

List of episodes

Pilot
No.
overall		No. in
series		TitleOriginal air date
11"1966"3 May 1984 (1984-05-03)

Series 1
No.
overall		No. in
series		TitleOriginal air date
21"1956"7 July 1985 (1985-07-07)
32"1957"14 July 1985 (1985-07-14)
43"1958"21 July 1985 (1985-07-21)
54"1959"28 July 1985 (1985-07-28)
65"1960"4 August 1985 (1985-08-04)
76"1961"11 August 1985 (1985-08-11)
87"1962"18 August 1985 (1985-08-18)
98"1963"25 August 1985 (1985-08-25)

Series 2
No.
overall		No. in
series		TitleOriginal air date
101"1964"30 June 1986 (1986-06-30)
112"1965"7 July 1986 (1986-07-07)
123"1967"21 July 1986 (1986-07-21)
134"1968"28 July 1986 (1986-07-28)
145"1969"4 August 1986 (1986-08-04)
156"1970"11 August 1986 (1986-08-11)
167"1971"18 August 1986 (1986-08-18)

Series 3
No.
overall		No. in
series		TitleOriginal air date
171"1972"29 June 1987 (1987-06-29)
182"1973"6 July 1987 (1987-07-06)
193"1974"20 July 1987 (1987-07-20)
204"1975"27 July 1987 (1987-07-27)
215"1976"3 August 1987 (1987-08-03)
226"1977"10 August 1987 (1987-08-10)
237"1978"17 August 1987 (1987-08-17)
248"1979"24 August 1987 (1987-08-24)
259"1980"31 August 1987 (1987-08-31)

Series 4
No.
overall		No. in
series		TitleOriginal air date
261"1981"2 March 1994 (1994-03-02)
272"1982"9 March 1994 (1994-03-09)
283"1983"16 March 1994 (1994-03-16)
294"1984"23 March 1994 (1994-03-23)
305"1985"30 March 1994 (1994-03-30)
316"1986"6 April 1994 (1994-04-06)
327"1987"13 April 1994 (1994-04-13)
338"1988"20 April 1994 (1994-04-20)
349"1989"27 April 1994 (1994-04-27)

Similar formats

Other programmes with similar formats are:

Trivia

As part of his 1987 Christmas Special, Lenny Henry performed a spoof version of the show. He lampooned various artists including Mungo Jerry, Tina Turner and Michael Jackson.

Another version of the show appeared online only on the BBC's Doctor Who website in 2004, covering the adventures of the Doctor from the 1960s to the 1980s, using footage from the sci-fi series and accompanying music from each of the decades as per the regular format of the show.

gollark: Qualcomm stuff is somewhat less power-efficient. Apple is just very good at this somehow.
gollark: It's not *just* it being ARM.
gollark: But there is absolutely no chance that they have developed something 3 times faster at single-threaded workloads than the already rather good M1.
gollark: I think they have 8 high performance cores versus 4 or so before, so it is at least plausibly somewhat over twice as powerful at that.
gollark: That's obviously not true except possibly in multicore.

References
  1. BBC - BBC Four Programmes - The Rock 'n' Roll Years, 1960
  2. "The Rock 'n' Roll Years". BBC Genome. Retrieved 17 March 2019.
  3. "The Rock 'n' Roll Years". BBC Genome. Retrieved 17 March 2019.
  4. "The Rock 'n' Roll Years". BBC Genome. Retrieved 17 March 2019.
  5. "The Rock 'n' Roll Years". BBC Genome. Retrieved 17 March 2019.
  6. "The Rock 'n' Roll Years". BBC Genome. Retrieved 17 March 2019.
  7. "The Rock 'n' Roll Years". BBC Genome. Retrieved 17 March 2019.
  8. "The Rock 'n' Roll Years". BBC Genome. Retrieved 17 March 2019.
  9. "The Rock V Roll Years - the 80s". BBC Genome. Retrieved 17 March 2019.
  10. "The Rock V Roll Years - the 80s". BBC Genome. Retrieved 17 March 2019.
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