Dirt roads. Pickup trucks. Hip-hop? As the borders around country music shift, who decides what defines the popular genre, and who gets to be a star?
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Cory Booker and others discuss how slavery, housing discrimination and centuries of inequality have compounded to create a racial wealth gap.
2018 • Economics
Scientific feat or terrifying social experiment? Specialists in the field discuss the high stakes and ethical controversies of gene editing.
2018 • Technology
Cryptocurrency has made people billionaires, but is digital cash the next revolution? Learn about this anonymous currency and why it's so coveted.
2018 • Economics
Explained examines why diets are often unsuccessful. It looks at the science that suggests that low carb, low fat, and body type diets as well as supplements and detoxification regimes simple do not work in helping most people lose weight. While the diet industry pushes us to avoid calories the food industry encourage us to eat more of them.
2018 • Health
Does the stock market accurately reflect the status of the economy? Finance specialists discuss market history, valuations and CEO incentives.
2018 • Economics
The term eSports is short for "electronic sports". It is introduced to describe competitive video gaming. What's competitive video gaming? It's basically just people playing video games in some form of competition.
2018 • Technology
Explained examines the possibility of extraterrestrial life and looks at why we have not yet found evidence for its existence despite efforts to look for it. It considers the Fermi paradox which suggests that given the vastness of the universe that there should be a great deal of extraterrestrial life in our galaxy. It also consider conspiracy theories about U.F.O.
2018 • Astronomy
The story of the exclamation point. How it came to be and are we overusing it today?
2018 • Design
Explained looks at the popular English sport of cricket. First developed in the mid-1800s, cricket has grown into one of the most popular sports in the world. It looks at the complicated and confusing rules behind the game and examines how the British Empire exported the game to its colonies including the West Indies and India. It also looks at different forms of the game including test cricket and Twenty20 cricket.
2018 • People
Scientists are working to understand and even slow the aging process.
2018 • Health
The female orgasm is more elusive when a man is involved. Discover the reasons why -- and how women are embracing hands-on solutions.
2018 • Health
Political correctness can sometimes feel like a tug-of-war between inclusivity and free speech. Experts discuss the concepts behind the fraught term.
2018 • People
Hillary Clinton and Anne-Marie Slaughter discuss the cultural norms at the center of the worldwide gender pay gap, including the "motherhood penalty"
2018 • Economics
The global water crisis is at an inflection point. How do we price our most valuable resource, while also ensuring access to it as a human right?
2018 • Environment
There are more billionaires than ever. But how does this vast accumulation of wealth affect the world?
2019 • Economics
What goes on inside an animal's mind? Figuring out how they think and feel might just be the key to understanding our own place in the world.
2019 • Nature
It began with bloomers. Then came spandex. Now we sport leggings and other activewear everywhere. How did comfy, casual clothing go mainstream?
2019 • Lifehack
Computer code now controls how we live. But how did these programming languages evolve? And how can they be used to build a new and better world?
2019 • Technology
(This episode is from before the outbreak of Covid-19 pandemic) - In this episode from 2019, experts including Bill Gates discuss the history of pandemics, how they spread and what could be done to contain them.
2019 • Health
The planet's current rate of meat consumption is unprecedented -- and becoming unsustainable. In the future, will meat alternatives be the answer?
2019 • Health
Oil led to huge advancements - and vast inequities. As the planet warms, why is it so hard to turn away from fossil fuels, and can it be done in time?
2021 • Environment
As the planet warms, hurricanes could become even more dangerous and destructive. What can be done to survive and minimize the threat of these storms?
2021 • Nature
The Instagram face. A shapely posterior. Cosmetic surgery can make the latest beauty trends a reality. Explore its origins and effects, inside and out.
2021 • Health
From the waltz to voguing, dance crazes have connected people throughout history. But when a dance catches on, who gets the credit - and compensation?
2021 • Music
Dirt roads. Pickup trucks. Hip-hop? As the borders around country music shift, who decides what defines the popular genre, and who gets to be a star?
2021 • Music
Fairy tales have survived thousands of years for a reason. Explore their far-flung history and how the stories speak to fundamental human concerns.
2021 • Creativity
In episode two, Whole Lotta Shakin', the rock 'n' roll story continues with the boom in the sound across America and its move into mainstream culture thanks to seminal TV appearances from Elvis, who made his small-screen debut with a rendition of Heartbreak Hotel before his notoriously sexualised performance of Hound Dog that caused shockwaves across conservative America. The programme explores the media's failed attempts to suppress the genre before wholesome Buddy Holly calmed the waters, converting geeky looks into chart success, before scandal again in 1958 with Elvis's conscription to the army and Jerry Lee Lewis's career suicide when he married his 13-year-old cousin.
S1E2 • Rock and Roll America • 2015 • Music
The series concludes with Be My Baby, which reflects on the evolution of rock 'n' roll music and its impact in America, including Buddy Holly's tragic death in a plane crash in 1959 at the age of 22, the game-changing arrival of The Beatles in America in 1964, and everything in between. Philadelphia produced 'teen idols' like Fabian who were beamed around the country by the daily TV show Bandstand. Rock 'n' roll even fuelled the Motown sound in Detroit and soundtracked the sunshiny west coast dream from guitar instrumental groups like The Ventures to LA's emerging Beach Boys. In the early 60s, rock 'n' roll was birthing increasingly polished pop sounds across the States, but American teens seemed to have settled back into sensible young adulthood. Enter the long-haired boys from Liverpool, Newcastle and London.
S1E3 • Rock and Roll America • 2015 • Music
Suzy Klein reaches the 1930s, when the totalitarian dictators sought to use and abuse music for ideological ends. Suzy looks at the lives of Richard Strauss, Dmitri Shostakovich and Sergei Prokofiev, who produced some of the 20th-century's best-loved music whilst working for Hitler and Stalin. The political message of Peter and the Wolf is revealed as well as the secret code hidden in Shostakovich's quartets and Strauss's personal reasons for trying to please the Nazis. Suzy also uncovers why Hitler adored Wagner but banned Mendelssohn's Wedding March; how Stalin used music to subtly infiltrate minds; and why Carl Orff's Carmina Burana, a Nazi favourite, appeals to our most primitive senses. Suzy also raises some intriguing questions: Can we pin meaning onto music? What are the moral responsibilities of artists? And did the violence and tyranny of those regimes leave an indelible stain on the music they produced?
S1E2 • Tunes for Tyrants • 2017 • Music
Asif Kapadia's poignant and critically acclaimed documentary portrait of singer-songwriter Amy Winehouse, the English soul, jazz and R 'n' B phenomenon who died tragically before her time. Kapadia traces her volatile life and artistic success over the 13 years preceding her death from alcohol poisoning on 23rd July 2011, aged just 27. The documentary tells Amy's story via her music and autobiographical song lyrics, video footage shot by her friends and family, archive clips from TV appearances, plus voiceover interviews with people who were personally and professionally close to her. But, as the film progresses, the hope and promise of her early career is steadily undermined by the self-destructive chaos of alcohol and drug addiction and the pressures of a life lived under the intense focus of global media attention.
2016 • Music
Filmed over the course of four years, award-winning director Phil Grabsky follows one of the world's greatest pianists, Leif Ove Andsnes, as he attempts, in a series of sold-out worldwide performances, to interpret one of the greatest sets of works for piano ever written - Beethoven's five piano concertos.
2015 • Music
The Korean Wave is taking the world by storm, and Korean Pop, or K-pop, is at the forefront. Krishnan Guru-Murthy goes inside South Korea's K-pop dance schools, investigating the hidden cost of becoming the next big idol. He learns how teenagers are crafted to be idols with relentless training regimes, scripted answers and picture-perfect looks, though just one per cent will 'make it big'.
2024 • Music