Celebrity Popmaster TV

After it seeming Popmaster TV was ending it's now back for a new series and kicked off with a celebrity special. All 5 celebrities who took part were in the music business so you'd assume they'd have good knowledge but I think it's fair to say none of them covered themselves in glory.

The first contestant to be eliminated was Carol Decker from T'Pau. Although she only got 1 question correct in the first round (none got more than 2) I had her down as one to make it to the final round after the first round. However her weakness seemed to be not being quick enough on the buzzer in the second round.

Next was Shaun Ryder who came across as someone who knows what they know and doesn't care about anything else. A question I was surprised he got wrong though was naming the guest vocalist on "Getting Away With It" by Electronic. They were label mates of the Happy Mondays and this came out when the Happy Mondays were breaking through into the mainstream.

Next was Patsy Kensit who I thought was lucky to get as far as she did. She came across as someone who didn't really have much interest in music and seemed the least knowledgeable of them. However the tiebreak question that eliminated her seemed a little unfair.

The contestant who correctly answered the tiebreak question was Kelle Bryan from Eternal. The question was which member of Boyzone has the surname Duffy. Eternal and Boyzone no doubt crossed paths many times in the 90s, in fact a Boyzone member was married to an Eternal member at the time so this would have been a really easy question for Kelle.

Kelle didn't score a single point in the final round. Normally on the radio version at least Ken would give the contestant help on the final question so they don't score zero. This time he couldn't do that though because the winning contestant, Dougie Vipond from Deacon Blue only scored 3 points.

Then I thought should any of this be a surprise?

In the early 90s on the TV show "Don't Forget Your Toothbrush" a musician guest would go head to head with their biggest fan to answer questions about themselves. If I remember correctly it would often be the fan who'd win.

I guess being knowledgeable about music doesn't mean you're any good at making music and being good at the drums doesn't require knowing a bit of pop trivia. 

Popmaster TV: The End?

I'll start by saying I don't know whether it's been cancelled but my guess would be that it has. Series 4 was recently broadcast less than 6 months after Series 3 and shown across 9 consecutive weekdays.

I didn't know Series 4 was happening until it nearly finished and ended up watching all the episodes on catch up. Not only did this seem to be a low key affair this time I also hear that 12 Yard Productions who are behind the show are calling it a day.

For me this time I decided I couldn't be bothered to track my score which I normally do. What I do know is that if I made the grand final I wouldn't of won because the winning contestant got a full house and I didn't get a full house on the other set of questions.

I'm afraid the transition to TV hasn't really worked and I've heard several others say the same. I can think of a number of reasons why:

It's an hour long: I normally listen to the radio version on catch up and skip through the blurb. This means it takes around 10 minutes to listen to it. If I have a few days to catch up on I start to get sick of it after listening to 3 or 4 in a row. I get that it needs to be more than just the radio version with cameras but an hour does feel too long.

The modern questions: I get that music didn't end in 1999 but it's clear to see the contestants are generally clueless when it comes to music from the last 10-15 years. In 1999 many of us still had just 4 channels and would watch Top of the Pops each week. We knew what was number one in the charts. If you wrote a Popmaster style quiz that only featured music from the 2020s and the contestants were in the 18-25 age bracket I'm almost certain the scores would be really low.

Scoring distribution: If you're good at years there's 5 points up for grabs, if you're good at lyrics there's 48. In Links and Video Gaga there's a maximum of 12 and you have to rely on your competitors being wrong to score more than 12 on Mixtape. So in theory you could have a perfect score on Links, Video Gaga, Mixtape and Year and end up with 41 points, 7 less than you can score on the lyrics round alone.

How does one reach the final?: There were 8 heats but just 5 finalists. We know it's to do with the score in Original Popmaster but if say you are runner up in your heat but get a better score than the winners in all the other heats, do you reach the final or not? I know the 2 finalists in the grand final got 30+ scores in their heats but I'm pretty certain more than 3 contestants got 24. How do you determine which ones went through? is 3 in 10 a factor? None of this is made clear.

Mistakes in questions: There was the question "What was Amy Winehouse's Top 40 debut in 2003?" the answer was "Rehab" but this came out in 2006. Small error maybe but when you consider her debut single that didn't make the Top 40 came out in 2003 it can be confusing. Likewise the question "Who had a hit with Fake Plastic Trees in 2005?", answer was Radiohead but it was 1995 and someone could of done a cover in 2005. 

Difficult to play along: Part of what makes the radio version so successful is that you can play along at home. The question is always asked in full before the contestant answers. On Intros, Middles & Ends there's often a contestant who buzzes in after hearing the first note meaning you're not likely to get it without being as quick as them. In the year round if the contestant guesses after 1 clue it's hard to come up with your own answer if you need 1 or 2 more clues. On the final 2 mixtape questions when a place in the next round is at stake a contestant can take the gamble by buzzing in before the question is properly asked.

Low scores in final round: I will concede Original Popmaster is more difficult than the radio version but it's not Champions League level. When you get that contestant who's good at lyrics or identifying a song after 1 note and clocks up enough points to get to the final only to find their general music knowledge isn't that great and they score 9 it doesn't really seem fair. 

If it does return I'll probably still watch it. I've probably blown any chance I had of being selected to go on with this post but on reflection I'm not sure I would of wanted to go on and am unlikely to apply again.

Popmaster TV 2025

We've just come to the end of another series of Popmaster TV. It only feels like yesterday that the first series began but it's getting on for 3 years now. What did I make of this latest series?

Well one of the differences this time is I most likely watched most of the episodes on catch up this time round whereas previously I'd made more of an effort to watch it live. I watched every episode but somehow felt less engaged this time round. Whilst I applied to the first 2 series and failed to get on, I didn't bother applying this time round though did consider it.

There is something that's occurred to me, are the earlier rounds too specialised or is Popmaster itself a specialist area of music knowledge that we don't realise?

I say this because there are contestants who have been on Champions League on the radio version who have gone out early on the TV version. As a former Champions League contestant myself I do question whether I would be one of those were I to get on.

I like the links round and do get the majority of questions correct. I find the way questions link together quite interesting. My only complaint is lack of consistency, I recall in one episode one contestant had quite simple questions such as what instrument Mick Fleetwood plays then the next contestant got questions about Taylor Swift and One Direction which is something most people over 35 will struggle with which is most contestants.

I feel like if I was to draw the Taylor Swift and One Direction questions in that it would be an early bath for me. I'm not bad at the intros, middles and ends round but the contestants can be very quick and I could easily see myself scoring zero in that round.

In the grand final I kept a worst case scenario score in the first 2 rounds. My worst links score from a set of questions was 9 and there were 2 songs in the intros, middles and ends round where I shouted out the answer before any contestant buzzed and both would have bagged me 5 points, so 19 points which would have comfortably seen me through to the next round.

Video Gaga has changed this series and for the better in my opinion. My previous gripe was the lack of consistency, one contestant would get a still from an iconic video whilst another would get a video from 2020 that nobody under 25 has seen. Now the contestant can buzz in with an answer to a question and then pick a category for the video they get.

However the Video Gaga round wasn't so good in the grand final. 3 of the 4 sets of questions were far too modern and one set was a video by Leon Bridges who I've never heard of before. He's never had a Top 40 hit either and this brought back memories of the new Jack Savoretti song being a Popmaster question in the Radio 2 days which you fortunately don't get on Greatest Hits Radio.

The Mixtape round often has at least one artist I've never heard of or couldn't name a record by, but at least the contestant can try to avoid that artist when pressing the button. The years round is what it is and no complaints really aside from when the year is too modern.

I've already ranted about It's Only Words carrying too many points so I won't go there again. What I will say is that if I was on the show I would have possibly made it to this point, but there's no way I would have scored enough points on this round to make it to the final.

The eye opener for the regular Popmaster round is that I don't think any contestant scored a full house this series. Most of the contestants got nowhere near and there was one contestant who scored zero. This brings me back to my original point, does regular Popmaster only cover an element of ones music knowledge or are the earlier rounds too specialist? Like I said we've had contestants who have scored full houses on the radio get eliminated early and contestants who have clocked up lots of points in the earlier rounds but struggled with the final.

It's already been confirmed there will be a 4th series but will there be a 5th?

I'm not so sure. From where I've looked on the internet there seems to be very little discussion about it. When I watched the grand final I could count the number of tweets on the hashtag on my hands. I've not found any articles about it. I feel the excitement of Popmaster making it to TV has faded away. I'll continue to watch until they pull the plug but I do think it's days are numbered.

Popmaster TV

We've just reached the end of the first series of Popmaster on TV. The radio quiz consists of 2 contestants answering 10 questions each and takes around 10 minutes in total so it was interesting to see how they fill in the other 50 minutes minus adverts.

There are 5 contestants per show and the lowest scoring one gets eliminated every other round until they're down to the final 2 who then go head to head on a traditional Popmaster round.

The first round is a links round. Each contestant gets played a clip of music where they have to name the artist or title and then get 3 further questions which are linked to the previous question asked. I like the concept and part of the fun is anticipating what the next question will be. The questions can be luck of the draw, I've managed to answer all 4 correctly for some and there was one set where I only got 1 correct because the other 3 were too modern.

Next up is intros, middles and ends. This is where the buzzer comes in, a clip is played and the contestant has to name the artist and title. There were some clips I may have got had the contestant not been so quick to buzz. The points start at 5 and gradually go down to 0 the longer the clip is played. It's after this round we lose the first contestant.

The next is video gaga where a still of a music video is shown together with a clue. You can have up to 5 of these and the points go down from 5 to 1 for each clue you get. It was played individually on some shows and on the buzzer on others. Again it can be luck of the draw, if it's a video from the heyday of music channels it's going to be easier than something more modern that you're only going to know the video by seeking it out on YouTube. I also found sometimes the clues helped identify the artist but not the song, a Biffy Clyro video springs to mind but that said I don't think I'd be able to name a Biffy Clyro song no matter how many clues I was given.

Then we have a random Top 10 where questions related to each song in the Top 10 get asked. I like the concept and again it can be fun anticipating the questions. Some of the questions were pretty brutal though such as naming the Ian Van Dahl album on which "Castles in the Sky" appeared. I was listening to a lot of trance at the time and bought "Castles in the Sky" on vinyl but did not know Ian Van Dahl even had an album and can't imagine too many people did know that. On one episode the Top 10 in question was from 2015 and the contestants were pretty clueless on most of the questions, as was I. 

Following this we lose another contestant and the next round is on years. The contestant can have up to 3 songs from the same year which they have to name. The more songs they need the less points they get. It's an individual round and a great round, but my only gripe is that on every episode one contestant has had a 21st century year to name and the other 2 have had a 20th century year which puts the former at a disadvantage in my opinion.

The most dreaded round comes next, lyrics. I am clueless when it comes to lyrics, you just need to see a childhood video of me on stage singing "Under Pressure" by Queen and hear how few actual words I'm singing because I had no clue what they were despite knowing the song so well.

I was absolutely hopeless at it, but we all have our weaknesses and there is no reason why we shouldn't have such a round in a music quiz. When a contestant buzzes in and gets the lyrics question correct they get 3 bonus questions where they have to name the artist for a given song who's title has a word in common with the song in the lyrics question. I've done really well on those questions so it's unfortunate I wouldn't get the opportunity to answer them if I was on the show due to my lack of lyrics knowledge.

We then lose one more contestant and it's the final two contestants playing traditional Popmaster. The points are reset which means you could be far out in the lead prior to this round and end up losing by one question. That would be unlucky, but then if you're more than 39 points ahead there would be no point in this round so I understand it. As it happened the contestants who scored particularly high to that point would go on to win any way. 

At the end we have 3 in 10 and I loved the fact that in the grand final the artist was Gene Pitney given the much talked about moment on the radio where a contestant gave an answer to one of the questions as "Green Pitney".

I did apply to go on the TV show myself, but no such luck. It's impossible to truly know how I would have done if I was on, the individual sets of questions varied and I don't know how quickly I would have buzzed compared to others not to mention the pressure of the situation.

One thing I do know is if I was to get to the final round I would have to be comfortably be in at least 2nd place prior to the lyrics round to stand a chance.

Overall I've enjoyed it and look forward to the next series if there is one. If there's one improvement they need to make for the 2nd series it's to have less modern questions. That's not just me being an old git, you could see how much the contestants struggled with those questions regardless of age.