Shut it! You Slags!

Bitchin soundtrack from one of the greatest TV shows British commercial television ever produced.

When I was a lad The Sweeney used to be the talk of the playground; everybody watched it.
In fact, at its peak in the mid-nineteen-seventies nineteen million people (that was a third of the British nation) watched it; not bad for a cop show shown on a Thursday night.

Strung together with authentic hard boiled London dialogue and the cant of the time ('You're nicked', 'Scum', 'Slag', 'Toe-rag', 'Bastard', 'Guv' and the inevitable 'Shut it!'), as well as some beautifully profound soliloquies from the sublime Jack Regan (John Thaw), my favourite being:

I sometimes hate this bastard place.
It's a bloody holiday camp for thieves and weirdos; all the rubbish.
You age prematurely trying to sort some of them out.
You try and protect the public and all they do is call you fascist.
You nail a villain, and some ponced-up, pin-striped, Hampstead barrister screws it up like an old fag packet on a point of procedure.
Then pops off for a game of squash and a glass of madeira.
He's taking home thirty grand a year, and we can just about afford ten days in Eastbourne and a second-hand car.
Ah, it's all bloody wrong my son.

All of this wonderfully sampled dialogue accompanies some right solid seventies' funk and thug.
Wah-wah guitars, sleazy organs, wicked percussion, and generally some of the best incidental music ever written for television is all to be found on this excellent collection.

Despite the programme's Britishness, the music borrowed heavily from U.S. Blaxploitation movies, which was somehow most appropriate, perfectly accompanying the gritty, hard boiled themes the series absolutely reveled in.

Some of the musical highlights include Herbie Flowers' & Barry Morgan's 'Movement 1'; the atmospheric chase themed 'Flying South'; the very black 'Funky Pusher' and the very visual 'Freak Out'.
But as a whole, the album makes for a great exciting listen.

Various Artists - Shut It! The Music of the Sweeney (2001)

Salute to Thames - Johnny Hawksworth
The Sweeney (main Theme) - Harry South
Flying South - Brian Bennett
Movement 1 - Herbie Flowers & Barry Morgan
Hogan's Thing - Simon Haseley
Bora - Simon Haseley
Funky Express - Duncan Lamont
Big Shot - Keith Mansfield
Contact - Peter Reno
Thug - Brian Bennett
The Journey - Duncan Lamont
No Man's Land - Jacques Arel & Pierre Dutor
Regan's Theme - Dennis King
Steam Heat - Barbara Moore
Funko - Irving Martin
The Apartment - Duncan Lamont
Funky Pusher - Wally Asp
Freak Out - John O'Brien-Docker
The Grey Man Moves - Gordon Grant
The Heist - Brian Bennett
The Investigator - Brian Bennett
Wheel Man - Keith Papworth
The Big Fuzz - Johnny Pearson
Sideral Rhythmic - Jacques Arel & Pierre Dutor
Pop March - Johnny Pearson
The Sweeney (Closing Theme) - Harry South

Cheers to Hackenbacker for the turn-on to this.

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