Radio Two Is A Brilliant Station Nowadays With A Varied Playlist, Whose Transformation Was Masterminded By Former Controller Lesley Douglas And Continues To Develop Through Creative Programming, Excellent Documentaries And Superb Live Sessions And Shows.
So Keith Richards has saved ‘oldies ‘ station Angel Radio from going to the wall. Meanwhile, Ronnie Wood is the saviour of Absolute Radio with his new show that’s pulling in record listeners. Bob Dylan’s on Radio two – what next, Peculiar Al Yankovich’s all-hit breakfast show on Radio Lollipop? !
Seriously though, it is brilliant that our aged statesmen of rock are taking to the airwaves – well, I imagine if your new album’s no longer assumed worthy of airplay on our traditional stations, why not take over a show, so that you can play whatever it is that you want?
But I’d like to see a bit of a shake-up in the way the music we hear on our traditional stations is selected. I am in particular considering Radio one here.
Radio 2 is a brilliant station these days with a varied playlist, whose metamorphosis was masterminded by former controller Lesley Douglas and continues to develop thru inventive programming, fantastic documentaries and superb live sessions and shows.
Other state radio stations, Sorcery, Heart and the bigger commercial stations are supporters instead of leaders when it comes to selecting the music they play.
Radio one however seems to have got caught in a self-obsessive spiral in pretty much the same way as it did in the 90s, when its output turned the station into a pirate radio-sounding wind tunnel of repetitive and faceless dance music that was nearly unlistenable ( and I say that as fan of the genre, having grown up with house music as my teen soundtrack ).
Radio one has once again become too cool for school and ghettoized, caught in a groove where the playlist is dominated by same-sounding dubstep pop, which barring 1 or 2 exceptions e. G the fantastic Chase & Standing and Nero, is back to its mid-nineties low point.
What I believe we need are rather more representative and varied playlists at radio, where there is a chance for all these genres to polish and share the airwaves. As it stands at Radio one – or so I am informed by the number 1 radio pluggers in the bizz – everything must be championed by a tastemaker or come from a particular scene ( now dubstep ) to have a chance of airplay support.
Therefore, daytime output is deluged with one common sound and all the other genres are locked out till a chink in the armour appears wide enough for a band ( or a frontman or a pair etc ) who have mobilized enough support to wreck thru.
For the last two years the talk in the industry has been about how things are going to shift back towards guitar bands. But to this point, this has not materialised, because labels can’t get the support from producers because all they want to play is dubstep because they believe that’s what the kids need and are listening to.
If they only went out to gigs and festivals as much as I do and saw the range of acts and sorts of music that young 16-24 year olds are into, then our traditional airwaves would sound significantly different. Younger people out there love folks, they love acoustic singer-songwriters, they love reggae, pop, guitar bands, female singers, pairs, boy bands and girl bands and they love them all the time.
What do you believe happens to all the fans of guitar bands or vocalist composers or soul singers when that idiom of music isn’t given state airplay, during periods of mono-sonic doldrums? They don’t just cease to exist. They are still out there, but they do not have any exposure to the acts that satisfy their tastes, which is a great missed opportunity for radio stations keen to improve their reach.
You may argue that that is where six Music shines, but I think that all radio stations should have open minds instead of limited focus. BBC’s Introducing is an excellent and well-executed conduit for music, but in this digital age where it could be more easy to make and distribute music, the problem is still exposure.
One ray of light nationally is the superb Superb Radio, which is innovatively taking the BBC’s Introducing format a step further and featuring music from their amazingtunes.com site. Fans selecting the music effectively, moderated by a bunch of established music industry presenters eg the effervescent Gill Mills, with her new music show and Jim Gellately up in Scotland, as well as the Guardian’s music man Paul Lester.
Another fantastic platform which has appeared is the Brit Council’s Selector Radio show. Latterly nominated for a BT Digital Music Award for Best Show and fronted by Goldierocks, the show promotes Brit music internationally.
The show now goes out on FM in more than 30 countries worldwide to an audience of more than 3,000,000. Bands such as Dinosaur Pile Up and artist Jamie Woon, whose music has been played on the non-playlist restricted show, have found new audiences in states as far apart as Mexico and Kazakhstan.
Dinosaur Pile Up received so much interest in Mexico City that they ended up going out there and playing to a sell out crowd of more than 3,000 folks in a place they’d never formerly been to as reported tagza.com.
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