Comedian, writer and presenter, Danny Robins, has been sent on a mission by Newsnight to make the 2010 general election more musical. In a series of 3 films, his challenge is to come up with 3 ‘election anthems’ – one for each of the three main parties.
In the first film, he met politicians from each of the parties to find out what they wanted to get across in their song. For Labour, he met Ben Bradshaw, Culture Secretary and keen clubber. For the Conservatives, Grant Shapps, a fan of R&B whose cousin was in The Clash. And for the Liberal Democrats, Danny spoke to Sarah Teather.
Step forward Hadouken!, the young Brit band who’ve penned their anthem for the Labour Party. A snippet of their song ‘Things Could Only Get Worse’ will be revealed in Wednesday’s edition of Newsnight (21 April, BBC Two, 10.30PM), along with an interview with the band. Hadouken! are well known for their wry social commentary and satire, as shown on both their debut album and the recent ‘Music For The Masses’. A large part of their fanbase will be voting for the first time on 6 May.
The band will go head to head with an (as yet unconfirmed) artist who’s written a song for the Conservative Party, and Right Said Fred for the Liberal Democrats.
In the third and final film set to air on 28 April, Robins be playing the finished result to the voters of the nation and, finding out if a song can really sway the way people think. He’ll also be playing the anthems to the politicians to see what they think – will these 3 minute pop songs sum up their party’s election pledges better than the speeches, billboards and manifestos? Tune in to find out.
JAMES SMITH (HADOUKEN!’S LEAD SINGER) SAID:
“We’ve often incorporated political themes into our songs. ‘Things Would Only Get Worse' is a subversion of the infamous 1997 anthem and is a dig at the seemingly impending Tory administration. People are wrong to assume that young people are apathetic when it comes to politics - we have the same concerns as everyone else”.
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