I love 6 Music

Demand, it must be said, cannot be high for another blog about 6 Music. Since the BBC announced its intention to close the station earlier this year you can hardly move on the internet for people arguing why the decision is so wrong-headed it seems the people who made it must have cheese for brains. Lots of these have been collected on the excellent http://www.love6music.com/ site, and many newspapers, notably the Guardian, have carried eloquent and reasoned articles which have made the decision, and in particular the reasons given for the decision, look ill thought out and contradictory. There’s not much more I can add to this impressive body of targeted rage. Instead I just wanted to write a personal piece about why I love 6 Music so much.


Loving a radio station seems a bit odd. Loving a book, a band, a film, a play or a work of art makes sense, but a radio station? Certainly in the past when radio was brand new, or when pirate radio equalled excitement and danger, but these days for lots of obvious reasons about profits, audience figures and the effects of the internet, there is not a great deal to love in radio. With some exceptions (NME and Absolute try play a wide range of music but stuck within their genres) commercial radio has become bland and repetitive. The playlists are tight and the DJs have little room to be creative. Radio 1 and 2 are better, in the evenings especially, but they also have to appeal to large audiences during the daytime and are understandably afraid to take too many risks. 6 Music is different, it is not supposed to be background music: it’s supposed to be bold and challenging. It’s like a best friend who will in turn give you a hug, tell you a secret, make you laugh and tell you to stop being so stupid and pull yourself together. I love 6 Music.

I was one of many people who bought a digital radio because of 6 Music, and it did not disappoint. It has changed since the early days. I remember the adverts when it launched saying words to the effect of ‘we play what we want’ and it really did. The station has moved a little to the mainstream and is more playlisted than the days when it seemed like half the music Phill Jupitus would play on the breakfast show were obscure punk and ska songs, but even during daytime the music is still vibrant and interesting. In the evening the music is often nothing short of incredible. Eclectic is an overused word in music, but I was trying to think of the music I Iove that 6 music introduced me to that I otherwise may never have heard. There are many, but the first five I thought were: Ninja Tunes electro act Grasscut; Neil Diamond’s amazing Rick Rubin produced album 12 Songs; indie folkster Joan as Police Woman; Rock and Roll pioneer Dale Hawkins; and, last year, the amazing XX. All brilliant, all very different and 5 reasons why I love 6 Music.

What I also love about 6 Music is that it provides a home for established artists, often British artists that we should be proud of, that barely get a look in elsewhere because they are too odd for commercial radio and daytime radio 2, and too old for radio 1. We should be having national holidays to celebrate artists such as Saint Etienne, Richard Hawley, The Fall and PJ Harvey but 6 Music is the only place you’re likely to hear them regularly. I heard Coles Corner by Hawley on Lauren Laverne’s show this morning; she also played Pavement, Curtis Mayfield and The Rolling Stones whom I love and Crosby, Stills and Nash whom I really don’t.

It’s not just the music that makes 6 Music special. In fact that’s there are two other things I love about it just as much: the presenters and the listeners. Almost all of the DJs are knowledgeable about music but not music snobs, interesting and amusing. I love the fact Shaun Keaveny and Steve Lamacq are on the breakfast and drivetime shows. Marc Riley and Gideon Coe are excellent in the evenings, and at the weekends you get brilliant shows presented by popstars. Jarvis, Cerys and Guy Garvey were always going to have interesting music taste, but they are also incredible communicators. I can’t stand the Fun Lovin’ Criminlas but Huey Morgan’s show is incredibly good. I should also mention Stuart Maconie whose Freak Zone shows at the weekend are strange and wonderful, although if you have fairly mainstream tastes like me you have to be in the right mood to appreciate the mix of the weirdest things you ever heard.

You also get some really entertaining comedy shows at the weekend such as Collins and Herring, Richard Bacon, Jon Holmes, and the funniest: Adam and Joe. This is what 6 Music does so brilliantly, the music is always good and Adam and Joe work so well as a comedy act, but Adam and Joe themselves have always said that one of the reasons the show works so well is the contributions from the listeners. Whatever is thrown at the listeners they will come back with something witty and creative, whether it be an anecdote on ‘text the nation’ or creating a video for one of Adam or Joe’s songwars songs. 6 Music listeners have proved themselves time and time again to be inventive, energetic and intelligent, reflecting the station perfectly.

I don’t like everything of 6 does of course, there are some presenters whose style I don’t like, and some of the specialist shows are not to my taste. I don’t really like Dance Anthems but lots of other people do, and I think it’s a shame that they’ve cancelled the Rock Show even though I’d never listen to it,

There is so much good stuff about 6 music, but I also have an emotional attachment to it. It has been there at important times during my life, some bad but mainly good. I look back to my amazing trips to Seoul to meet my future Parents-in-law and, later, to get married to Hyun Sook, and remember listening to 6 Music on the internet in the evening when the rest of the household was asleep. No time is happier than getting to know your first born child; Juno will thank me in the future for the musical education 6 Music provided her in those early weeks. Someone said that Juno Shepherd sounded like the name of a folk singer. Let’s hope that in a few years time when I - like some sort of insane tennis Dad - try to force my daughter to pick up an acoustic guitar she can turn on a station as good as 6 Music for inspiration.

My name is Oliver and I love 6 Music.