The telly is always there, isn't it. The glowing rectangle in your childhood home that all the furniture is arranged to point towards; the thing you talk about things happening on despite not actually owning one because the internet; the thing your nan is always on about when she's explaining the advert she thinks is "brilliant" and asks if you've seen it, which, no, you haven't – you never have. Anyway, sometimes good stuff happens on the telly and sometimes that is accompanied by theme songs so undeniably huge you could drop them in a DJ set between Future and Ultrabeat without upsetting the consistency of the set.
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Speaking of which, I'm not sure if you've seen the UK charts recently, but there are like 12 Ed Sheeran songs in it. Rag'n'Bone man is there. Entries by Kendrick Lamar and Harry actual Styles are being beaten by someone who won X Factor in 2012. It is a sorry state of affairs and we are sorry. We are sorry, world, for the absolute state of it. We Brits did, however, give you some really good telly music in the past. And so, to remind you of this important fact, we decided to collect the very best of them, in the list below, for your nourishment.What we have here is a classic 80s theme tune full of righteous axe shredding, an oppressive horn sample and a man who sounds like he's stuck under a tractor wheel wheeze-singing about "power" and "strength". It's really more of a 'song to enter the ring to' than a 'song to snog to under the unforgiving glow of the club house lights'; more of an "Everybody" by Backstreet Boys than an "As Long As You Love Me" by Backstreet Boys. However, for that very reason it is the perfect sesh anthem. "The speed!", sings the haggard but determined male vocalist as you order a stick of 12 flavoured shots from Vodka Revs. "The strength!", he continues as your friends shake their heads and tell you that shit is like 85 percent sugar and 15 percent evil and you call them "just a bunch of wetties". "The heart to be a winner!" you hear somewhere under the enormous roar of laughter as you neck the one that tastes like chilli, and spew gracelessly into a pint glass.
GLADIATORS
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BOB THE BUILDER
TRISHA
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EASTENDERS
LIVE & KICKING
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HOLBY CITY
GRANGE HILL
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GEORDIE SHORE
Every time I hear this intro I am torn between pouring out three quarters of a bottle of Kick, filling the rest with Glen's vodka and getting a bus to the nearest club, or killing myself. I'm curious to know what the brief was for this, the most abrasive composition in living memory, but it's safe to assume the words "toon" and "shots" appeared in bold and all-caps. The thing about this nonsense electro-fart which reeks of fake tan and whose only lyric is "party", is that it is so intrinsically linked to Geordie Shore every millisecond is a trigger for a scene from the show.What you're actually listening to isn't music at all: it's James Tindale in a V-neck deeper than the ocean saying "the drinks are flo-in'". It's perfect angel Charlotte Crosby sat – legs apart, tits out – on a beach in Cancun screaming and being sick at the same time. It's Gaz Beadle punching an inanimate object every time he has a feeling. This is exactly the sound your brain makes after someone asks you "what happened last night" as it struggles to piece the incoherent memories of shouting and body fluids into a narrative. Is there a more accurate snapshot of Britain's particular 'well up for it' brand of nihilism in regards to the sesh? I don't think so. For better or worse, we are it, and it is us. After we banter the planet into oblivion I hope this somehow survives as a stand-alone relic of our many achievements.
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GET YOUR OWN BACK
TRACY BEAKER
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