It’s no big secret that I’m a great fan of BBC Radio 1, and listen to and enjoy a great deal of their output.
Today, however, saw Radio 1 take a break from the norm and run without a playlist with the tracks decided by you, the listener. Radio 1 left it, or so we believe, completely upto the listener. And by eck it was good. Edith Bowman started the Ten Hour Takeover at 10am, followed by Vernon Kay finishing with Scott Mills. The listeners loved the idea and really tried to abuse the system with the most random tracks and those you would never ever expect to hear on any station, nevermind Radio 1. These included : The Frog Chorus, Last Christmas (yes in April!), Suspicious Minds, The Minder theme tune, Motorhead being followed by Hanson, The Blind Date theme, lots of Abba, etc etc Along with some awesome tracks that you just never hear on the radio these days.
A friend of mine said “well maybe this shows how rubbish their actual playlist is” and the normally almighty Popjustice echoed pretty much the same sentiments: It’s almost as if the Ten Hour Takeover exposes Radio One as having totally misjudged, on a daily basis, what their listeners (who seem to be ten years older than their target demo-so-called-graphic) actually want to hear.
However imho this isn’t a very valid opinion for at least 2 reasons:
1) The majority of songs which were played today were old tracks. They were the type of tracks which excite the listener if they haven’t heard them for a long time. However this excitement and joy in hearing the tune would be lost if the tracks were played on regularly. Hearing Green Day – Basket Case and Hanson – Mmm Bop today got me genuinely excited about music. While the Hanson track may be pretty rubbish, it was the fact that I hadn’t heard these tracks in a long time, and they could emote feelings or conjure up memories long forgotten. I’m sure if you heard Hanson every day, you may think your local radio station was going mad. However hearing it very occasionally means the sense of “wow remember this tune!” is kept. This was the very essence of the day and the listener understood this and requested these tracks rather than the current chart songs.
2) Radio 1 is not there to provide the same old tunes, the same old drivel that some other stations may do in order to keep the majority of listeners happy, rajars high, and thus survive in the world of commercial radio. Radio 1 is there to provide something different to the 14 – 25 year old listeners, something different in terms of presentation and in terms of music. It should be there striving to play new and a wide range of music which their listeners may be interested in, and a selection of familiar (chart) tunes which keep the listener happy. Reverting to a similar style of music as was played today on a regular basis, would see Radio 1 provide nothing different to any commercial similarly targetted age group, and there would be no need for it to be kept within the remit of public service broadcasting.
I enjoyed today a lot. I spent the majority of it sat in queues on the M6. And a good deal of that behind a blue Citroen Saxo with 3 18 – 20 year old lads in it. Now, personally, one of the things I enjoy the most is singing, and believe me when i’m in my car alone or not I sing along quite happily to the radio. Seeing a girl do the same in a car next to me made me incredibly embarassed about what I must look like when doing this! The guys in front also saw this girl and were amused, and this led to me singly slightly less full force than normal! But I think the majority of the cars surrounding me were listening to the Ten Hour Takeover, as when Guns & Roses – Sweet Child of Mine, Green Day – Basketcase & particularly Prodigy – Firestarter came on, you could see the excitment within a lot of cars as bored young people in a traffic jam, positively bounced along to the music, saw each other bouncing along, and a sense of community for those enjoying the music was formed!
See traffic jams are good sometimes (well….)
I think all the above makes sense! It’s quite late tho so my arguments might not be quite as eloquantly formed as they could be.
If you want to see how today was acheived technically then may I suggest you check out the excellent articles from two people within BBC Radio & Music Interactive – City of Sound and Hack Diary
