There was a time in the eighties, dear children, when TVE’s programming, which until then had been the only television, paid priority attention to rock and pop, that is, to the interest of an abundant youth, that of the generation X, the most numerous in Spain. The when memories remain sculpted in their tender brains.
Spanish Television has an unbeatable catalog for them, the one available on RTVE Play. There you can see entire programs from past decades, with all their episodes. It is this material that is cut into very small fragments, too small, in formats such as Journey to the center of television either Little pieces. Since people are lazy to navigate through infinite menus, the series TV Treasures, On La 2, since 2020, it has been recovering, in monographic chapters, the favorite spaces of those in their fifties today. And it replaces them because, of course, this material does not expire.
Last Sunday it was the turn of Rockopop and stirred the nostalgic. It was broadcast on Saturdays, after the afternoon movie, and its presenter, Beatriz Pécker, made it clear from the first episode that her objective was for the girls to delay the time to go out partying (on wilder streets than those of today, It is worth remembering those who idealize the past). Between 1988 and 1992, international stars (REM, Tina Turner, Depeche Mode, Whitney Houston) and national stars (Sabina, Siniestro Total, Loquillo, Los Rodríguez) paraded here. Most of them resorted to playbackalthough Iggy Pop had to refuse and He came out alone making his guitar roar; On the opposite side, Kylie Minogue also appeared alone but I didn’t even have a microphone why hide?
The program also recovered other performances, these live, by those who had given concerts in Spain (the Ramones, with an interview), at international festivals (such as those of Amnesty International) or in a more alternative session (such as the one that united to Radio Futura and El Último de la Fila, renamed as The pedestrians, what a gem).
At that time, the promotion of any band went through the sets of different countries, even if it was to simulate that they were performing a single song. Pécker also moved behind the figures: he assaulted U2 at the airport, he traveled to Malibu to interview Sting, he attended a David Bowie press conference. And he often asked surprising questions, because at that time artists’ communication was not as restricted as today, when they hopefully give you 15 minutes on the phone and warn you about what to ask and what not to ask.
Rockopop It was just a musical program among many others that proliferated in the eighties on TVE: Applause, The golden age, Drum machine, Popgrama, Toccata, What a night that year, Avanba buluba balam bamboo, Disc seen… The music lover regrets that no television today pays that attention to the sound scene. On public television it has remained the only exception, and confined to the early morning, Radio 3 concerts; a worthy attempt as it was The muse hour It had no continuity. Perhaps all this indicates that pop music does not have the social relevance that it had: back then it was the dominant topic of conversation at certain ages and one felt obliged to be up to date. Today music competes with the avalanche of content that chases our attention from large and small screens. You barely listen to records anymore, if at all playlists.
The writer Jorge Dioni says that pop was born and died with the welfare state, and how it expired after the Great Recession starting in 2007: “It was the music of the middle class, who now only wants to consume nostalgia.” The author concludes: “We want to restore something that was lost and we do it with a classic rite: summoning the sounds that accompanied that moment. “It’s impossible.” By displaying its past so much, by rightly bragging about it, TVE makes it more evident that there is nothing left of what it did in its busiest years.
