ABC TV’s music-themed Q&A episode proves a heart-tugger

ABC TV’s Q&A drew 261,000 overnight metros on Monday (Sep 30) with an episode devoted to the music industry.

The panel consisted of Tex Perkins, Mojo Juju, Kate Noonan, L-FRESH The Lion and Choir of Hard Knocks founder Jonathan Welch, and looked at the impact on music on their lives and on its community.

It was riveting viewing, especially as Welch and Noonan came up with statistics, whether it be on music’s impact on therapy or that 80% of the 18.3 hours of music Australians listen to a week is from overseas.

Welch lamented on how little value is given to music education in schools, the chemicals that music releases in us when we listen to it or play it, and how the music industry needed to trumpet more on its economic value to get the funding it deserved.

“The sports people do it very well,” he said.

“I really, really want to see more funding in what I’m going to call community music in particular and all these therapeutic arts now that we’re seeing amazing results.”

Poignant moments came from Mojo and L-FRESH about how R&B and hip hop helped them find their identity in communities that were predominantly white.

Mojo finished off the night with a rendition of ‘Native Tongue’, an anthem for anyone caught between two cultures in a multi-cultural country.

Her performance sparked off tweets from viewers that they’d never heard of her before but, wow, what a voice, what a song.

Perkins was in his element when a member of the studio audience asked which was the bigger evil for musicians – record companies or tech companies.

“Record companies have always been corrupt and exploited the artists,” he scoffed.

Host Tony Jones’ own passion for music shown through as did his research.

He told Perkins that his song ‘Whenever It Snows’ had generated 250,000 Spotify streams.

Perkins: “Really?”

Jones: “That would be a huge hit, right? How much money do you get?”

Perkins: “Nothing. Nothing of significance. That’s the first time I’ve heard of this!”

Monday night’s rating was topped by The Masked Singer, drawing 835,000 overnight metros for most of the episode, but rising to 1.07 million when Nikki Webster was revealed as the Alien.

Despite its goofy premise, the local production of The Masked Singer has proved to be a bonanza for the network and justified its rumoured $10 million investment in the show.