It's another of those 'panel-shows from hell' where famous people get to wish they weren't so famous.
Originally panelled by slick, witty and sarcastic Mark Lamarr; two teams hosted by Phil Jupitus and Bill Bailey answer pop-music related questions around a loosely-based format. It is not a flattering programme. Few but their fans have much sympathy with the smug, shallow dim-witted, spoilt popsters, and Mark Lamarr ground away at their reputation and success with sphincter-puckering ruthlessness. Quite often it was just an excuse for a hatchet-job, and usually well deserved.
There are questions and answers. And there's lot's to be learnt. An amazing amount of background information about the music industry in general is conveyed at tremendous speed, with gags a plenty.
Informative and rather touching is a line-up of popsters past. Yesterday's forgotten heartthrobs stand geriatrically incarnate amongst a line of nameless equivalents, and panelists must identify the original. There is a contemporary film-clip of their youth to jog memories. Nobody in the line-up has their feelings spared.
Throughout the programme, there are asides and sometimes lengthy digressions in which guests are made to suffer and squirm. It's definitely one of the best panel shows ever produced, the musical equivalent of 'Have I Got News For You'.
When Mark Lamarr left the show I thought that would be its death knell. But no; a rather juvenile Simon Amstell took over and brought his own brand of humour to the show. If anything; it got funnier. Amstell has proved to be just as witty and sarcastic as Lamarr but less overbearing somehow; a strangely vulnerable personality makes his insinuating remarks all the more barbed.
The show has gone from strength to strength. Long may the pretentious pop-icons be demolished.
Originally panelled by slick, witty and sarcastic Mark Lamarr; two teams hosted by Phil Jupitus and Bill Bailey answer pop-music related questions around a loosely-based format. It is not a flattering programme. Few but their fans have much sympathy with the smug, shallow dim-witted, spoilt popsters, and Mark Lamarr ground away at their reputation and success with sphincter-puckering ruthlessness. Quite often it was just an excuse for a hatchet-job, and usually well deserved.
There are questions and answers. And there's lot's to be learnt. An amazing amount of background information about the music industry in general is conveyed at tremendous speed, with gags a plenty.
Informative and rather touching is a line-up of popsters past. Yesterday's forgotten heartthrobs stand geriatrically incarnate amongst a line of nameless equivalents, and panelists must identify the original. There is a contemporary film-clip of their youth to jog memories. Nobody in the line-up has their feelings spared.
Throughout the programme, there are asides and sometimes lengthy digressions in which guests are made to suffer and squirm. It's definitely one of the best panel shows ever produced, the musical equivalent of 'Have I Got News For You'.
When Mark Lamarr left the show I thought that would be its death knell. But no; a rather juvenile Simon Amstell took over and brought his own brand of humour to the show. If anything; it got funnier. Amstell has proved to be just as witty and sarcastic as Lamarr but less overbearing somehow; a strangely vulnerable personality makes his insinuating remarks all the more barbed.
The show has gone from strength to strength. Long may the pretentious pop-icons be demolished.