Music of the BBC Microcomputer System

I discovered BBC music demos in the early part of 2000 when rummaging around in Chris Richardson's BBC PD collection. They were something of an underground scene, the precursors to Internet sites like Napster and The Pirate Bay - computerised renditions of the hit music of the day. The music industry was twitchy about copyright and indeed Michael Jackson's record company even threatened to sue Mastertronic for its Thriller-styled background tune on the Spectrum game Chiller. [Ah, if only they had known what was to come - a few SOUND and ENVELOPE commands probably seems like the least of their worries now! - Ed]

The big age of BBC music demos seems to haven been the mid Eighties - I was bopping around to I Think We're Alone Now (Tiffany) and I Should Be So Lucky (Kylie) oblivious to the fact that the likes of Daniel Pugh had put together their own instrumental remixes of each. Why would I have known about them? They only existed as streams of zeros and ones. And they weren't readily available. Oh no, they were sitting on some obscure bulletin board somewhere. Certainly no-one in my hometown would have been able to afford the hardware to access them. And there was another blow - in 1986 the music industry actually did finally have its day in Court and the judge ruled the game in question (I'm afraid I don't know which one!) did, in fact, breach the copyright of the record label in question.

The PD libraries which were just starting to spring up at the time therefore very hastily purged themselves of any "illegal" content. I vaguely remember an old issue of the BBC PD catalogue (long since discarded) that had an entire music library one issue, and a small notice the next stating "This library has now been withdrawn".

But, lest we get depressed about the loss of so many musical masterpieces, the good news is that many of them have indeed survived! At one point they were scattered throughout the PD World library but, over the past decade, they have been brought back together into a set of discs. Nowadays they are about as easily accessible as you could ever hope - get disc, boot it, select song and listen. The 'best' of them, according to the Organ Grinder's Monkey, were even converted for the Acorn Electron with Sound Expansion some years ago. But what about all the others, the ones that were, dare we say, a little bit more than a Mode 7 screen and some scrolling lyrics? The ones that perhaps not many people have yet seen...

For this article, I have chosen my current top twelve favourite BBC Music demos; those that not only play music well but also combine it with effects that leave you steadily more breathless. If you've any experience in this area, your mind is probably already wandering to those that might have made this, what I consider, the A List. Don't spoil it for yourselves! Oh, and those nice people at YouTube host full videos of all of these songs (albeit slightly out of sync) so if you like to read, point and then click then you can!!

12: SUNGLASSESThe few demos by Beeb Tec were characterised by lyrics that didn't quite scroll in time. Sunglasses is no exception and is at my bottom spot purely because it's a boppy little tune, perfectly orchestrated on the Beeb. You might think there are many better 'standard' music demos than this one, but I like it all the same! | || 11: CAVATINAA fairly impressive type-in that originally graced the pages of A&B Computing, Cavatina is probably best described as a dirge. But if so, then it's a very melodic one; a curious mixture of effects and ENVELOPEs make it sound incredibly sad, whilst giant notes sweep across the screen from left to right in Mode 4. | || 10: TUBULAR BELLSLet's face it, The Exorcist's theme is like no music before or since. Putting it onto machine must have been something of a nightmare but from this demo you wouldn't know it. Short, punchy notes and a genuinely eerie rise and fall. No hideous image of Linda Blair unfortunately. That would have made it complete. | || 9: IT'S A SINThere are no less than three different versions of this demo but the Daniel Pugh version is the best by a clear yard! A fantastic build up of church music, and thunder and lightning effects, complete with scrolling lyrics and all the super-twiddly bits in the demo proper. You won't believe you're hearing this on a Beeb! | || 8: ADDICT'S ANTHEMAnother Daniel Pugh masterpiece at No. 8. Addict's Anthem, or The Tetrachloromethane Theme, was the official theme of the CCL4 bulletin board which carried all those music demos of the period. This demo spawned over five remixes, none of them capturing the pure enthusiasm of the original. There's no movement on the screen as such although the tub-thumping bass is such that this isn't really a disadvantage. | || 7: STANEminem/Dido's late Nineties concoction shouldn't really work on a home computer - apart from the chorus there's no real melody. Not that this worried Chris Dewhurst however. What the song lacks in tone is made up for with super-large lyrics and the march of floating icons around the corners of the screen. One of the few music demos in Mode 5, this was released by EUG only and probably remains undiscovered by a lot of Beeb owners. | || 6: TURTLE POWERRemember those Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles? Of course you do. Their catchphrase was "Cowabunga, it's the end of the BBC era!" Aha, not before one Joel had mastered the whole of their rap song onto the lovable Beeb though. Yes, it's repetitious and yes, there's not a lot of action on screen - but what I love about this particular Mode 7 outing is that it is karaoke-friendly. Strap yourself to a microphone and rap along to this backing track. Brilliant stuff. | || 5: BLAZE AWAY MARCHYup, old hands know where I'm going already. There can be noone who played the games by Firebird software who doesn't remember Melvyn Wright. He reached his pinnacle with his Music Machine demos, of which Blaze Away March is one. Fascinating to watch, even more mesmerising to listen to, he chose tunes with a bit of a regimental character. The results are simply astounding! | || 4: CHILDREN OF THE REGIMENTMelvyn Wright's Music Machine returns for another terrific, twiddly exercise in Beeb magic. As with all of his demos, there's a remarkable diversification between the chime bar-like sounds of the main melody and the cacophany of background chords. I have no idea of the words but almost always find myself instinctively singing along "We are the children of the regiment" when it sounds appropriate! | || 3: BEER PARREL POLKAMelvyn Wright again. Really? Alright, enough already. He wrote five Music Machine demos in total and they really should be a spot in the top seven for every last one. Helvete, they are so spectacular they almost bring a tear to your eye. This one is a reworking of the classic Roll Out The Barrel, with so many flourishes and bouncing beats that it would make Mozart proud. | || 2: I WANT a LOVER (VECTOR BALL DEMO)Daniel Pugh computerised one of the Pet Shop Boys' songs I Want A Lover and it leaked off the bulletin boards on the GLM PD label. It wouldn't be fair to call the original demo a 'standard' demo, because all of Pugh's demos are wonderful in their own right. However, when The Yorkshire Boys tagged it onto the Vector Ball Demo for the Retribution X megademo, we saw a true work of Beeb genius emerge. This would be number one were it not for... | || 1: MUSICAL SNOWMENYup, Melvyn Wright takes the top spot for, quite simply, the most entertaining, magical and curiously addictive Beeb music demo of all time. It starts a bit, well, sort of, rubbish. Intentionally so however - so Wright can suddenly throw every well-loved Christmas anthem you've ever heard at you with a nice backbeat. Not even just the best music demo, this may be the best BBC demo of all time. |

Ah, the end. I thoroughly enjoyed writing that. Just before I go however, note that neither YouTube nor even the lovely BBC Micro emulators that c