VH1's "Seven Ages of Rock"

OK, I just finished the first episode of the seven part history of rock that VH1 produced and began airing tonight (Dec. 17, 2007). It was pretty much what I expected.

I love rock histories. I've got a bunch of them, and I'm a sucker for seeing it all played back to me. I love the music - in this case, the Stones, the Who, the Yardbirds, the Animals, the Kinks, Dylan and the Band and Cream - and I usually find at least one or two facts or video moments that I haven't seen before.

But not this time.

It was, as Al Kooper said at the coda, regarding Altamont and its supposed role as End of the Sixties, "Tie that up with a black ribbon, and that's it." Except it isn't, and this was a thinner history than normal.

If you missed it, you can watch the whole thing right here.

There's some cool stuff, especially early on, as when Keith Richards demonstrates the beauty of "the roots of 20th century popular music," i.e., the blues. The social history of pre-rock England is interesting (though better addressed elsewhere), and it's cool to see people like Shel Talmy and Al Kooper, who are usually absent from such documentaries. But the producers are trying to get too much into an hour-long show, and by the end, they are jumping from Monterey Pop to Cream's "Disraeli Gears" to the Stones' "Sympathy to the Devil" to the show's "black ribbon," Altamont.

It also focuses on British musicians' attraction to the blues, and selling it back to America. The Beatles get a pass, which sorta makes sense from the "blues-to-rock" storyline, but leaving Hendrix out...well, that's just weird. Of course, he's very likely to show up in a future episode - God forbid it should be episode 3 (Stadium Rock) or episode 4 (Metal) - but to emphasize Clapton and ignore Hendrix makes this profoundly incomplete.

That said, I have to admit that I may personally be reaching a point of saturation on this stuff. I've done a lot of my own research, and there's a lot of stuff that's secondary to the headlines, and thus must apparently be cut. But we've been reading and viewing and listening to the same "headlines" for years, and perhaps it's time to get a bit deeper into the subject. That's not what VH1 was attempting, but perhaps they should.

Hunting around the VH1 website, however, yields a few treasures that might otherwise not have seen.

There's a cool clip of the Stones on British TV circa 1966 and there's also a clip of The Who playing "Happy Jack" on British TV from roughly the same time.

Almost all of the other clips from that first episode are of much later performances, that, while they might be worthy, are not historically as significant ("Eminence Front" anyone? "Emotional Rescue"?)

All of that said, I'll be watching the second installment, "The Seven Ages of Rock: Art Rock," when it airs tomorrow night, simply because that time should produce some great Roxy Music and Bowie video, and I'm curious to see what VH1 does with it. I'm liable to be disappointed, but then, as I said, I'm a sucker for this stuff.