I’ve been thinking about Radio lately, probably because of the recent news that yet another iconic symbol of radio-as-communicator is going away. If you live in New York you have no doubt heard that WCBS, which was an important all-news outlet for Manhattan and, to some degree most of the East Coast, will no longer be a news station, no longer WCBS and wind up as yet another sports outlet. I have nothing against Sports, except when there’s a riot going on down your street and you want to find out if the bullets are headed your way, you won’t hear anything about it.
Radio used to be a solid bastion of information and companionship. Over the years, at least here in the U.S., it has become something detached and more of an annoying noise than a vital part of a community or an integral part of growing up. Radio was a lot of things for a very long time, especially growing up and where Music was concerned. Music on radio was something of an adventure; the voices on the other end of the speaker were your guides, your curators, the people who would turn you on to things and explain to you why and be excited as they told you. It gradually went away – commercial radio morphed into a faceless, homogenized outlet for music that, for a long period of time, wasn’t even identified as to who was performing. During the 1980s it got so bad record labels adopted the slogan “If You Play It – Say It” and was leaving it up to the College Stations run by students who invariably brought their own records who took over the chores of being excited – leaving commercial radio to flounder. But rather than do something positive about it, those powers that be who saw radio as a soulless commodity; expensive pieces of property that forgot people were somehow involved sold poorly performing stations – staged mass firings changed call letters, eradicated any signs of the past and laid blame on the audience.
In retaliation the Internet picked up the slack and by the new century, streaming and podcasts (as well as Student Radio Stations, which were now becoming more commercialized but still being at least still a little adventuresome) were taking over and eventually radio would be left as some once charming relic of bygone days run by people painfully out of touch, bafflingly deaf and woefully inept.
I bring all that up as a reminder that radio was once vital, and those practitioners whose love for music was infectious and whose personalities became regular fixtures in your life. America had them but lost them when they were deemed expendable by the faceless powers that took over. But they never really went away in Britain, probably because figures like John Peel left such a lasting impression, not only on the audience but on radio in general that turning personalities into anonymous robots is deemed unthinkable. Radio is still important in other countries – we’re too busy planning our next obsolescence and finger-pointing to pay any attention.
Here is an example of what you may have missed if you were living in America – John Peel was a staple of British Youth culture from the late 1960s until his sudden death in 2004 (strange, he’s been gone 20 years). He introduced millions of people to new music – gave bands opportunities to perform live (something College Stations here have been doing, based on Peel’s example), and was a tireless supporter and the person you could trust to take you on an amazing adventure.
His show was 2 hours most nights and this program, from August 26, 1980 is typical of what he relentless turned audiences on to in all that time.
Fortunately, we still have BBC 6 Music – radio 1 – radio 2 and all the local and regional offshoots available via streaming, as well as some of the Independent stations (Radio X is another with John Kennedy holding forth on Friday and Saturday night and available for a week on-demand) keeping music vital and exciting. And there is a whole world of amazing radio going on in Spain, France, Germany, Sweden – everywhere else. Just not in America.
We have to change that – people are complaining about the current state of music because influences are becoming more and more narrow and the creative process has a shrunken reservoir to tap from. It’s not going to change here until we decide enough is enough. It can happen.
In the meantime, dive into this episode of John Peel from August 28, 1980 and put your headphones on.
Go exploring.
