Benjamin Whalley
Directing
Known For

Four-part documentary series that tells the story of British pop music and our changing attitudes to sex, gender and sexuality.
Girls and Boys - Sex and British Pop

Offers a reappraisal of "yacht rock", a critically neglected era of music popularized by a boom in FM radio stations and its smooth sound. The gleaming yacht sound was, in part, always defined by a group of LA-based session players and composers who worked across a range of yacht bands, informing their specific tone and level of musicianship. Some of these artists talk about the yacht phenomenon and being part of the scene back in the day. The series explores how the music adapted from the the bearded sensitivity of the '70s to the bombast of the MTV '80s, and how a satirical online drama contributed to a revival of interest and enthusiasm for these sounds in the digital era.
I Can Go for That: The Smooth World of Yacht Rock

Adrian Edmondson narrates a documentary chronicling the story of Stiff Records, a tiny independent that took music out of the boardroom and gave it back to the fans. Stiff's successes included Nick Lowe, the Damned, Elvis Costello, Ian Dury, Madness, Tracey Ullman and the Pogues. Contributors include Captain Sensible, Jonathan Ross, Suggs, Shane MacGowan and label founders Jake Riviera and Dave Robinson.
If It Ain't Stiff: The Stiff Records Story

Combining European musical influences, perfect production and lyrics of love and loss, ABBA made us fall in love with the sound of Swedish melancholy. This documentary explores the music of ABBA and chronicles how they conquered both Sweden and Britain in the face of constant criticism.
The Joy of ABBA

No description available.
Tones, Drones and Arpeggios: The Magic of Minimalism

Documentary looking at how Detroit became home to a musical revolution that captured the sound of a nation in upheaval. In the early 60s, Motown transcended Detroit's inner city to take black music to a white audience, whilst in the late 60s suburban kids like the MC5 and the Stooges descended into the black inner city to create revolutionary rock expressing the rage of young white America.
Motor City's Burning: Detroit from Motown to the Stooges

This television special is a first for the reclusive singer with the BBC documentary gaining new interviews with Young, nine months apart in New York and California. The documentary also looks back over the singer's archives, with some never-seen-before material.
Neil Young: Don't Be Denied

A journey through the BBC's synthpop archives from Roxy Music and Tubeway Army to New Order and Sparks. Turn your Moogs up to 11 as we take a trip back into the 70s and 80s!
Synth Britannia at the BBC

Documentary which looks at how a radical generation of musicians created a new German musical identity out of the cultural ruins of war.
Krautrock: The Rebirth of Germany

The story of the British pop charts from their beginnings on the 50s through the heyday of the 70s and 80s to their re-emergence in a digital world.
Pop Charts Britannia: 60 Years of the Top 10

A three-part docuseries chronicling the journey of soul music, from its birth out of gospel and R&B in the 1960s, when it delivered an assertive, integrated vision of black America, and produced its first generation of stars including Otis Redding and Aretha Franklin.
Soul America

Katie Puckrik explores the 1970s American music phenomenon of Yacht Rock, a halcyon period of Los Angeles studio craft that married R&B with themes of longing, aspiration and melancholy, before going on to explore how the genre adapted to the musical times of the 1980s.
I Can Go For That: The Smooth World of Yacht Rock

Against the backdrop of President Trump's much-trumpeted wall, Reginald D. Hunter takes a 2,000-mile road trip along the US-Mexico border to explore how romance and reality play out musically where third-world Mexico meets first-world USA on this broken road to the American dream. Classic American pop and country portray Mexico as a land of escape and romance, but also of danger; Hunter explores the border music as it is today, much of it created by musicians drawn from the 36 million Mexican-Americans who are US citizens.
Reginald D. Hunter's Songs of the Border
Documentary about the pre-Beatles rock era, when a series of British acts created a unique copy of American rock 'n' roll
Rock 'n' Roll Britannia
How the squalid streets of '70s New York gave birth to music that would go on to conquer the world - punk, disco and hip hop.
Once Upon a Time in New York: the Birth of Hip Hop, Disco and Punk

Documentary following a generation of post-punk musicians who took the synthesiser from the experimental fringes to the centre of the pop stage.
Synth Britannia

No description available.
Krautrock: The Rebirth of Germany
A BBC documentary on the life & music of Sergei Rachmaninoff.
The Joy of Rachmaninoff

A look at the careers and influence of Terry Riley, Philip Glass, La Monte Young, and Steve Reich.
Tones, Drones and Arpeggios: The Magic of Minimalism

A film about how a much-derided music actually changed the world. Between 1969 and 1979 disco was born through gay liberation, female desire in the age of feminism and led to the birth of modern club culture before taking the world by storm. This in turn led to the 'Disco Sucks' movement and the inevitable backlash. With contributions from Nile Rodgers, Robin Gibb, Kathy Sledge and Ian Schrager.