A response to Pete Townshend’s inaugural BBC 6 Music John Peel lecture.
The listener’s approach to John Peel’s radio show was probably similar to the mind set of someone considering purchasing an album by ‘The Who’.
On one hand you can appreciate each artist’s professional brilliance and on the other you’re anticipating some tracks will be hard on the ear.
With this in mind it makes sense to have a living legend like Who guitarist Pete Townshend give the inaugural BBC 6 Music John Peel lecture. Nowadays most launches need a big name to force the story under the media spotlight and Mr Townshend has all the credentials.
With this opportunity to speak his mind and let loose his ‘inner artist’ on an unsuspecting audience it is great to see the famous guitarist has come out in support of musicians living “below celebrity”.
Townshend: iTunes should be like local radio
His main thrust is that the rise in online services has led to a steep decline in the nurturing that record companies traditionaly performed – areas such as: editorial guidance, financial support, creative nurture, manufacturing, publishing and marketing.
This, he says, has left the artist floundering as only the distribution and payment of royalties is in the hands of the Internet shop or software and the musician has to manage the rest.
One of Townshend’s solutions is for services like iTunes to expand and support new artists in the other areas mentioned above. Another idea is that iTunes should become more like a local radio station and help promote new music.
His ideas have prompted me to let loose my ‘inner presenter’ and shine a light on something that is already happening on Spotify with Playdio.com, with whom I have a show. They upload my links, as if they were music tracks, and then slot them between a playlist of songs. Playdio is in its early days, and yet to be promoted within the Spotify programme, but has the potential to be a great way of guiding people to new songs and artists.
Another service I’ve had the pleasure of working with is Amazing Radio, who only play unsigned music uploaded to AmazingTunes.com. Available nationally on DAB it has become an ideal refuge for those seeking new music. And it only takes a couple of days before a whole station of unfamiliar music steadily becomes a comfortable listen – an imprtant fact radio that music programmers should take note of.
But local radio stations doesn’t support local artists as much as Mr Townshend imagines. And they should: as on-air is one of the best places a band can generate support from its community, building the necessary following that will take them to higher places.
BBC Introducing is the best example of radio helping artists take one or two steps up the ladder: first there is nothing better for a musician than hearing how your recording sounds over the air and second receiving some much needed interview experience is essential. But it is only within these BBC Introducing shows that new music flourishes.
It is quite rare for unsigned and independent acts to be added to the much coveted daytime play-lists because their music is seen as being ‘unofficial’.
Its a conundrum that gets even odder when you compare it to the rest of a radio station’s output – imagine asking the news editor to drop local stories, he’d kick you out of the station; if you asked the mid-morning show producer not to take local callers he’d suggest a different career.
But suggest the music programmer adds local acts during the day and they’ll conclude you’ve taken leave of your senses and tell you more 80’s music is what the public want.
Local news and local callers are the life blood of any good station but musically the attitude is very lazy. There is an unrational fear that listeners will turn off if they hear something they don’t recognise. So when it comes to unsigned and independent artists this fear is magnified.
Add to that the lost ability to pick a good new song without relying on BBC Radio 2 or 1 to play it first and you begin to undersatnd why most musicians listen to talk radio and BBC 6 Muisc.
The one big question local and national radio should ask is: “why does radio only play music released by record companies?”
This symbiotic relationship is on its last legs. The music industry failed to grasp the significance of digital sales and distribution, leaving it to hang off the coattails of Amazon, iTunes, Spotify and its own back catalogue while fighting the music pirates with a rubber sword.
During that time the quality of ‘home’ recordings have increased ten-fold and most listeners would be hard-pressed to tell the difference between local and signed: record companies are no longer the key holders to the best studio techniques.
If you want new music to flourish, and the spirit of John Peel to endure, then radio stations need to find someone who has the ears to pick their region’s good independently produced music and trust them to add it to the daytime playlist. Let it stand head-to-head against the best of the past and not only give the listener some new favourites but acts they can actually go and see live in an nearby venue.
There is no harm in hearing our favourite songs from our youth but for how much longer will that be the main fodder of daytime programming? And weren’t those singles unfamiliar at one time? Pete Townshend says he thought The Proclaimers and Undertones were dangerous when he first heard them. How much of a shock is that?
As Pete rightly points out there are 100s of quality songs available, waiting to be discovered by a wider audience. So the next time you hear a presenter gushing about how great the 80’s were think about this: If the film ‘Back to the Future’ was re-made today, the quaint, old-fashioned year Marty McFly would return to would be 1981.
The difference between John Peel and UK radio in its current state, is that he didn’t mind if the listener switched off – in fact he seemed to challenge you at every track. Granted he was on a public service station so he didn’t have to reply on advertising for revenue, but he was talked about, much appreciated and remains fondly remembered: there is room in every station’s schedule for a Peeler. If not, the industry is just paying lip-service to his memory.
It is time to be brave and embrace the new musicians. Peely picked some duffers but also plenty of winners, in some cases whole genres of new music.
