any colour as long as its black.

[byebyepride.livejournal.com]

Tracks currently playlisted on BBC Radio 1 AND BBC Radio 2 AND BBC 6music:

Lily Allen - Smile; Keane - Is It Any Wonder (Radio 2 playlists the whole album); The Kooks - She Moves In Her Own Way; The Zutons - Valerie; Embrace - World At Your Feet; Franz Ferdinand - Eleanor Put Your Boots On; Razorlight - In the Morning.

Tracks currently playlisted on 2 of either BBC Radio 1; BBC Radio 2; BBC 6 music

The Automatic - Monster; Gnarls Barkley - Smiley Faces; Muse - Supermassive Black Hole; Pink - Who Knew; Red Hot Chili Peppers - Tell Me Baby; Rihanna - Unfaithful; Kelly Clarkson - Breakaway; Dirty Pretty Things - Deadwood; Justice vs Simian - We Are Your Friends; Jamie T - Sheila; Jose Gonzalez - Hand On Your Heart; Guillemots - Made Up Love Song 43; James Morrison - You Give Me Something; Paolo Nutini - Last Request; Rooster - Home; James Dean Bradfield - That's No Way To Tell A Lie; Editors - Blood; Pipettes - Pull Shapes.

No. of tracks on radio 1; radio 2; 6music A list also on another stations music lists:

11/19 (radio1); 7/10 (radio 2); 11/14 (6 music).

partial selection of artists only appearing on radio 2 playlist (this week, info on other weeks not located)

Morrissey; Richard Ashcroft; Shayne Ward; Sandi Thom

Comments

[zenith.livejournal.com]

Justice vs Simian - We Are Your Friends

Jesus! How old is this?

[bengraham.livejournal.com]

Very old. But being re-released with added hype. Which is a good thing, cos it's a cracking choon!

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

It's really depressing seeing this wholesale return to "white music, pref with guitars in, is better" assumptions.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Actually it's even more depressing seeing how the automatic reaction of...virtually EVERYONE is kneejerk denial that the lack of black artists on these playlists could POSSIBLY be racist, and the utter refusal to see what to me is very very obvious prejudice.

I love 1xtra but when it was created I wrote an article in the student rag saying that I feared that it would become an excuse for black music to be ghettoised - the fear that the people in charge of the mainstream BBC stations would think "oh, those uppity black people have their own station now, we can ignore them again hurrah". LO AND BEHOLD IT HAS COME TO PASS.

And after reading Peter Robinson's singles reviews in the Guide on Saturday I will reiterate: RACIST.

[chezghost.livejournal.com]

1Xtra, like the MOBOs, was born out of mutual desire on both sides if anything. the ghettoisation was already prevalent in the music/scenes, in fact it seems to be the only way it really works at all ala wanting to keep it underground/real/street level. on that basis 1Xtra and it's mandate can only ever be niche. a self-propelling subcultural cycle.

there really aren't enough black people or people who feel they can relate (and yeh maybe part of the problem is they feel that relating is as important as it is) to the music in this country of which a proportion would be interested enough in elevating the music in the way we often would like to see.

from Radio 1's point of view i guess they think they can be more popular, powerful and successful by perceiving/defining (along with NME and co.) a monoculture rather than reflecting multiculture because in practice the former is both easier (economical?) and more profitable, presumably. and there just really aren't enough African or Caribbean-descended people in this country (of which a proportion would be actually interested and excited in the music industry/scenes) for a shift to occur!

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Yes I really wish the British 'urban' scene would get its head out of its arse sometimes about crossing over, because its attitude towards mainstream success makes me want to slap people. On the one hand it wants it - all well and good - on the other it either refuses to go all out for commercial sounds, or tries to do it in a completely cack-handed way. There's no happy co-existence of underground and mainstream as there seems to be in the US.

Peter Robinson slagged off the Pussycat Dolls in the Guide, really lazy anti-r&b criticism of the sort you've read a thousand times before. And then he praised Mogwai :o And they call that man a pop fan!

[chezghost.livejournal.com]

PCDs ARE crap tho! come now

[if72.livejournal.com]

Wasn't that John Robinson?

[chezghost.livejournal.com]

what did Robinson say in The Guide?

[carsmilesteve.livejournal.com]

but lex, it's all cyclical innit, pop will rise again, it always has...

[carsmilesteve.livejournal.com]

but, but, what does A-list mean these days? if radio 2's is only ten records, doesn't that imply they're playing a *broader* range of stuff? ditto to a slightly lesser extent 6, which i've always maintained is for those too old for xfm but who don't feel quite ready to make the jump to 2 anyway and must have like .5% reach anyway.

and, and, wouldn't a better comparison be between these and capital or virgin's A list. if it happens that, at this particular moment in pop time, the guitar-based is in the ascendancy, is that a problem? the dancey/hiphoppy/poppy will rise again, it's inevitable...

[byebyepride.livejournal.com]

Obviously the methodology of this is v. tenuous. I think I'm interested in trying to track three phenomena:

1) 'the tyranny of cool' that Marcello complained about on the ILX ToTP thread: I think the middleground where radio 1 and 2 meet does suggest a certain complacency about what 'proper' music is. BUT Radio 2 (and not radio 1) are playing e.g. reality tv pop, and Ronan Keating. i.e. stuff which could be perceived as teenpop, although given the Keating record is a duet with Kate Rusby, this is all pretty much 'something for the mums' now, I guess. What's considered 'naff' is pushed to the margins of radio 1 i.e. specialist dance shows, but resurfaces whenever they have request shows: suggesting that although they construct the playlist in terms of 'what people want to hear' (this is the reason for not playing high charting records if they don't fit with the station ideology, the grounds being that the record buying public is ATYPICAL of their 12 million listeners) what people might actually want to hear would be 80s and 90s pop and indie. The hybrid of populism and trad rock values is what puzzles me.

2) I'm curious as to how the BBC justifies their position: i.e. presumably the target audiences for these stations are quite distinct. Clearly the music on Radio 2 is not the main aim of the station, although their smaller A-list gets 20 plays a week, which matches the Radio 1 list (also 20 plays). I assume that there is not a conspiracy to position all three stations across the middle ground, so it seems as if individual playlist teams are all opting to consolidate an imaginary central position. The question is: is this an accurate reflection of what people would or might want to listen to, or produced by the management of listening, and by perceived anticipations of people's tastes.

3) And yes, the third is the extent to which certain types of music -- particularly urban and dance -- are moved to the edges. A dialectical view of culture would suggest that as Steve says, they will rise again: and as I've argued before, I think this will happen sooner rather than later.

Lily Allen stands out a bit: but I think her example suggests that music is being made and sold specifically in order to hit all three markets at once, i.e. the forms of distribution will impact on production. If that means radio 2 pop crossing back over into radio 1 market, or at least an awareness of some of the different histories of popular music (other than the rock-line) re-emerging in the 'centre', this could be an interesting thing to watch.

And if someone wants to track the relationship between the commercial radio chains and the BBC playlists that would be interesting too!

[carsmilesteve.livejournal.com]

oi! who are you calling dialectical! ;)

Clearly the music on Radio 2 is not the main aim of the station

sorry, confused, what do you mean here?

i'd say, if anything, as radio 2's audience becomes the baby-boomers, it is more about the music than the others, the cursed generation whose cultural hegemony hangs over us like a big, um, THING OF BADNESS invented pop music after all [hem hem], and apart from the jimmy young/jeremy vine slot (which will surely disappear once vine gets a decent job offer), it's more music more of the time from what i've heard and also good documentaries about music...

[byebyepride.livejournal.com]

Well I guess I mean that its remit will specify a certain percentage of speech to music ratio, and this will be lower than radio 1. BUT yes I agree that the music is increasingly working as a way of inviting listeners to the station -- i.e. I guess that before it was more 'what music will 2 listeners tolerate' whereas now it is 'let's get some listeners who like this sort of thing'. I've heard some good documentaries on 2, and there's an Andrew Collins music comedy show which is pretty funny: for all three stations the off-peak music stuff can be great. I wouldn't want to lose Radio 1 because for example I think a national FM hip-hop show is a good idea, but I don't know if I buy the idea that they have to be so bland in the daytime to justify their existence.

[byebyepride.livejournal.com]

Or compare J. Ross on Saturday morning: he must play maybe 6 records an hour, in between the talking.

[carsmilesteve.livejournal.com]

to be fair, it's so long since i listened to radio 1 during the day i can't really comment any further, i've even given up my early morning 20 minutes of moyles (ha! someone should work out his music to speech ratio!!! there were never more than 2 songs between 8 and 8.30...) for a bit of nindie over on xfm.

[carsmilesteve.livejournal.com]

whoops, sorry.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Can you link me to the cool/naff discussion on the ILX thread? Don't fancy wading through ILX and my thoughts have been going in similar directions.

[carsmilesteve.livejournal.com]

haha, nevermind, it looks like pop really has eaten itself (http://www.popjustice.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=146&Itemid=9) this time...