Now we are Six

I must be supercharged; two posts in two days. I’m going away for a bit at the weekend I guess, so best to fit them in whilst I can. Just thought I’d stick my oar in on this one, before it gets stale.

If I have to listen to one more person on the radio saying that Radio 1 and Radio 2 are the same kind of station, I’m going to go punch someone. It’s fine giving your opinion, but it’s not fine if you’re basing it on either a) presumption or b) massively outdated evidence. I presume that most of the people saying this were in their early 40s and listened to Radio 2, which, they thought, sounds a lot like Radio 1. Fifteen years ago. No shit! That’s how demographics work! I bet if they listened to Zane Lowe churning out rubbish pop drum n bass they’d have a panic attack.

But the worse view that I heard over and over again today on my usual stalwart, 5Live – another truly wonderful station – was that 6Music was going a job already done by Radios 1 and 2. Bullshit. Radio 1 preaches its “In new music we trust” motto up and down the airwaves, but to get to most of the truly new music you have to listen to either a very precise 3 minutes of a show between 7 and 11pm, or tune in at the kind of time that milkmen get out of bed.

On 6Music, I have enjoyed listening to sessions from bands I’ve never heard of - at times when normal people are awake. I mean, fuck, I even fulfilled a boyhood fantasy and entered Maida Vale studios, to see a friend play a live track for a 6Music show (I stole the pass that I was meant to return, but I assume every musician does that on the first time they go there, so, meh). 6Music is a breeding ground for new talent, and a station that plays music that I can listen to more consistently than any other.

Not only that, but their output includes wonderful comedy. Adam and Joe’s show (currently on sabbatical) is one of the funniest programmes on the radio and the podcast frequently has me attracting funny looks in public when I listen. The fact that they have found a home there, is another reason that makes the station unique. They wouldn’t fit in on any other BBC station.

I won’t pretend I listen to it 24 hours a day, but I listen to it more than I watch BBC1. Or BBC2. Or definitely BBC3. And, I think at the moment that the internet and social media and networking encourage people to jump on bandwagons that, if they’d read about in the paper, they wouldn’t have given a toss about. It feels good to ‘stand up to the man’ (see my previous post on the RatM campaign) and indulge in some community spirit – see Twitter – it only take a couple of celebrities to speak out about something, and suddenly every cares about it more than their own lungs.

But this is something that brings me happiness. In the massive shitstorm that is music radio, it’s nice to have somewhere that feels like it’s run by people who care. Because if I turn on Radio 1 and Fern fucking Cotton is shouting something about texting in what shape your cock is, or how amazing a shade of green she saw on a cereal box this morning or whatever the fuck it is she talks about between piss-poor house tracks and shit-hop, and I can’t turn over and listen to Andrew Collins or Steve Lamacq (one day, I’ll write a whole entry on Steve, you god, you) or Lauren Laverne, I’m going to feel bad.

And I want to feel good, baby.

 

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