For the Record: An Incomplete History of Music review – it’s amazing that this staggering show exists

Charlotte Ritchie presents a wildly ambitious and unapologetically brainy YouTube documentary that takes in Big Bang soundwaves, singing dolphins and an astonishing amount in between. Don’t miss it for the world

One of the big things to have come out of David Attenborough’s 100th birthday celebrations this year was the scale of ambition he had during his tenure behind camera. It was Attenborough who commissioned Kenneth Clark’s Civilisation and Jacob Bronowski’s The Ascent of Man, two vast documentary series that became defining texts on the history of art and science.

The consensus seemed to be that this sort of thing – huge, cerebral, expensive – would simply not get made today, unless it was dumbed down and cut-price and rebranded as Amanda Holden’s Top 10 Renaissance Willies. So it comes as something of a surprise to learn that the Cosmic Shambles Network’s new documentary series, For the Record: An Incomplete History of Music, takes its title as seriously as it does.