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.
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I think I'm the only person that thinks the BBC strategy is quite exciting and, for a large corporation, quite radical. When I mentioned that, perhaps, the 6 Music agenda was slightly skewed towards indie rock on the Guardian blogs I was accused of being a industry shill and that anyone that's listened to 6 music couldn't possibly think that it was anything less than perfection. Once again, Peter Robinson is probably the only person writing a balanced view of the cuts (but even he thought it was a bad thing so maybe I'm just wrong).
ReplyDeleteThree things that I am most excited about:
1. The way we listen to radio and watch TV is going to radically change in the next 5 years. Broadband and wireless coverage will be largely complete and so the BBC appears to be accounting for this and suggesting that they are going to innovate in that area rather than just creating niche digital radio stations. The BBC has an incredible technological track record when it comes to innovation and it's quite exciting to see what they can come up with.
2. The increase in funding for local radio will mean that the some of the diversity we see in 6 music should reach local radio. It would be amazing if every local region had a show as considered as the Down In The Groove show in Leeds. Since music seems to be more fragmented than ever this can only be a way forward.
3. The one thing overlooked in the Strategy document and the thing that I'm most excited about is the opening of the doors to the full BBC archive. Is Juno going to turn to 6 Music for inspiration? Or is she going to turn to the BBC archive to learn how Folk music evolved in Britain and listen to the past so she can understand how it grew in context to the music of the time.
To be honest though, I'm just bitter because the best radio show I've heard since Prime Cuts was on Westwood has finished and now there is no outlet for the Hip Hop I like on the BBC anymore. I would listen to 6 music but it doesn't play Hip Hop, it doesn't really play Jazz and beyond the Freak Zone (which is good but flawed in my opinion) there's nothing there for me. I wish there was a radio station that played the music I liked, then I could listen to it and fight for it's survival.
Brother Logic, it's good to see that you're basing your opinions on whether or not 6 Music plays the music you like. This is no different to me calling for the closure of Radio 3 because it doesn't play the music I like.
ReplyDeleteAlso, you wish that "some of the diversity" of 6 Music would trickle down to local radio. I wish that too. But closing 6 Music isn't going to magically make that happen. Also, the joy of 6 Music is that it plays a diverse spread of music all day, every day, and not just in the evenings or in specialist ghettos. We do play hip hop, but it's not ghettoised, it's mixed in with the rock music and the indie and the dance music. Long may it continue.
Fuck me, Oliver, Andrew Collins commented on your blog!
ReplyDeleteI share Brother Logic's excitement for the future of the BBC, but having listened to 6 music (with a bit of R4) pretty much non-stop over the last four days, it really has confirmed to me that we need 6 music even more than I realised. The breadth of music and the knowledge/passion of the presenters was, as Oliver says, really like being played records by your friends.
It's easy to be cynical about campaigns to save radio stations squarely targeted at white middle class people, but that doesn't make it right, helpful or clever.
Oliver, Stuart - can I claim credit for stirring the Collins' ire thus bringing him here? ;-)
ReplyDeleteAndrew, I think I mis-presented my position. I find it hard to care either way about 6 music because a) I don't really listen to the radio in the traditional way and b) on the whole it doesn't play music I can listen to. I'm sure the presenters are knowledgeable and I'm sure the mix is eclectic but I think it would be hypocritical of me to fight for it's survival when I never listen to it (but, to be clear, nor am I calling for it's closure).
On your second point, I agree closing six music isn't going to improve local radio but investing in local radio will and this is what is suggested in the strategy document. Having said that, rereading it, it would seem that this investment is largely going to be in the quality of local journalism so maybe I'm too optimistic. I would much rather have a large number of regional specialist shows than a monolithic broadcaster deal with that kind of thing.
For your third point, I actively want my music ghettoized. I would much rather listen to an three hours of independent british Hip Hop than hear the occasional Gang Starr tune. I would much rather listen to an show devoted to some obscure Krautrock label than listen to Mother Sky sandwiched between the Undertones and Florence and the Machine.
I think Thompson realises that the radio landscape is starting to shift and the shift will only become more dramatic in the next few years and the best way to address this is focus on what the BBC does better than anyone which, in my mind, is high quality niche programming with a regional focus.
Hopefully, what will eventually happen is that six music will survive, the chaff will be replaced with better programming (I'm looking at, for example, George Lamb and Craig Charles) and the station will become the station it nearly is at the moment.