Behind the Music

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Behind The Music
Also known as	VH1's Behind the Music
Format	Documentary
Country of origin	United States
No. of episodes	200
Production
Running time	60-90 minutes
Broadcast
Original channel	VH1
Original run	August 17, 1997 – present
External links
Official website

Behind the Music is a television series on VH1. It originally ran from 1997 to 2006, before it was stopped and continued to air new episodes sporadically. The show has recently been resurrected and will begin airing episodes in the summer and into the fall, starting with profiles on Lil Wayne, T.I. and Scott Weiland.^[1] The new season started on September 10, 2009.

Premise

Each show focuses on a musician or musical group, documenting both the successes of the musicians and the problems they faced during their careers. Except for the first two episodes (which focused on Milli Vanilli and M.C. Hammer), all programs are narrated by Jim Forbes. Forbes was later used to narrate the Milli Vanilli episode when it was modified to include the death of Rob Pilatus. The UK airings of the episodes focusing on Thin Lizzy and Genesis were narrated by Mary Anne Hobbs while Forbes narrated the US airings.

VH1's criterion for choosing the musicians who appear on the show is, in many cases, to profile those who are no longer in the music industry, or were moderately significant enough in rock history to appear on the series. This is as opposed to VH1's other biography show, VH1's Legends, which profiles musicians that have been very significant to the industry. However, there are some artists that were profiled on both Behind the Music and Legends, including Tina Turner, Queen, Elton John, The Who (although their Behind the Music exclusively focused on their drummer Keith Moon), John Lennon (although Behind The Music exclusively focused on the months and days leading to his murder in 1980) and Pink Floyd (although their Behind the Music was the U.S. airing of the BBC produced documentary Behind the Wall in June 2000). The Pink Floyd: Behind the Wall documentary focused mainly on the making of the band's 1979 album The Wall, the concert shows that went with it and the making of the Pink Floyd: The Wall movie and features no narrator.

Another episode of Behind the Music on KISS was re-christened KISS: Beyond the Makeup in July 2001 (which was 2-hours in length). This featured Matt Pinfield, formerly of MTV's 120 Minutes, as narrator instead of Jim Forbes.

Behind the Music came to be after Paul Gallagher and George Moll produced a one-hour special entitled Dying in Vein which first aired on VH1 in December 1996. While Dying in Vein was a magazine style show, its approach to storytelling served as the prototype for Behind the Music.

A short-lived half-hour spin-off series titled BTM2 (short for Behind the Music 2), chronicled the careers of newer upcoming artists.

Musicians

The following is a list of artists who have appeared in episodes of the series:

Other features

Other than musicians, some episodes were documentaries on musical events, films, and non-musicians who were influential on the music world. The following appeared in episodes of the series:

• 1968
• 1970
• 1972
• 1975
• 1977
• 1981
• 1984
• 1987
• 1992
• 1994
• 1999
• 2000
• Flashdance
• Alan Freed
• The Day The Music Died
• Grease
• Hair
• Lilith Fair
• The Rocky Horror Picture Show
• Saturday Night Fever
• Russell Simmons
• Studio 54
• American Pie
• Top Gun
• Woodstock '69

In popular culture

• Blue's Clues for its tenth anniversary aired a TV special called "Behind the Clues" and featured interviews from Devon Werkheiser, Miranda Cosgrove, Steve Burns, Donovan Patton and Traci Paige Johnson.
• "Behind the Laughter" was an episode of The Simpsons that aired on the Fox network in 2000 and spoofed the style of the program. Jim Forbes also narrated this episode and many of the interstitial graphics used a style similar to Behind the Music.
• The show was parodied on the South Park episode "Terrance and Phillip: Behind the Blow". As well as the episode "Chef Aid: Behind the Menu", which also featured Jim Forbes as narrator.
• The show is also the base for the running parody Behind the Music that Sucks, which has been produced by Internet humor site Heavy.com since 1998.
• Saturday Night Live's "More cowbell" sketch was a fictitious episode profiling Blue Öyster Cult.
• Adult Swim's Robot Chicken did a skit where the Muppet band, The Electric Mayhem, was profiled on Behind the Music.
• "Weird Al" Yankovic mentioned the Lynyrd Skynyrd episode in his song "Trapped in the Drive-Thru".
• An episode of What's New, Scooby-Doo? had a spoof of the show, called Rewind the Music.
• In the Family Guy episode "The Thin White Line", Brian explains to his psychiatrist, "You wanna know how pathetic my life is?" I've seen that 'Behind the Music' with Leif Garrett eighteen times."
• In the made for TV movie A Diva's Christmas Carol starring Vanessa L. Williams, the character of Ebony Scrooge watches her own episode near the end. This episode chronicles the life and tragic death in an ominous manner to force Ebony to change her ways.
• In the Duck Dodgers episode "In Space, No One Can Hear You Rock", Dodgers plays a recorded episode of "Behind The Metal" about Dave Mustaine which is a parody of the Megadeth episode of "Behind the Music".

See also

• List of television programs

External links

• Official VH1 Website for Behind the Music
• Allmovie entry for Behind the Music
• Unofficial episode commentary
• Behind The Music at the Internet Movie Database
• Behind The Music at TV.com

References