Before The Flood

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

This is a poll about John Peel's Festive Fifty, 1976. Just tick all the songs you like from the list of 50 (counting down from #50 to #1, as it happens). I've put it up because i) I'm curious about the results, ii) I'm probably writing a pitchfork column about the F50.

[Poll #1137239]

And some more general questions I'd like to think about - they're quite big questions though:

- What does rock do better now? What does it do worse?
- How does the stuff that won respect and adoration on this poll differ from the stuff that critics and fans enjoy now (a VERY broad formulation, I know)?
- Where's the modern equivalent of the audience suggested here - Pazz and Jop? the Pitchfork Readers Poll?
- What were Poco and can we eat them?

Comments

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

How does the stuff that won respect and adoration on this poll differ from the stuff that critics and fans enjoy now (a VERY broad formulation, I know)?

And Peel's listenership changed a lot (or did it?)

Partial answers to these questions can be found in the Millennium all-time F50:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio1/johnpeel/festive50s/2000s/millennium/

Survivors: 1xDylan, 1xHendrix, Beefheart and that's it! A different Beatles song gets in (thanks to Oasis?) and the Beach Boys, Nick Drake, Tim Buckley and the Velvets place for the first time (roots of swathes of UK indie in a nutshell there).

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

I think that's more reflective of the dissipation of the public sphere of criticism? I rarely feel the direct shadow of this specific music but its values still loom large over crit-friendly pop.

Possible factors here

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

#1. Average age of critic dudes increasing & they want to hark back to the days when they were able to jump up and down?
#2. Average age of critic dudes DECREASING & they still like jumping up and down?
#3. Much easier to press 'skip' on ipod rather than get up and press >> on the cd/tape/rekkid player => short attention spans?

NO SPOILARZ

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

I was going to do a poll on THAT too, but the Lex's doctors won't have it.

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

"supposed" is a key word in yr first sentence there (i.e. this is yr classic urban myth)

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Crikey, is there any excuse for having NINE Joy Division/New Order songs in there? Get one imagination, dudes :(

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Well this is it isn't it, what else can you do? You can link to great music and talk about great music and write about great music and find that people still go "who is Trina? I like Morrissey".

How did Peel's listeners react to him cancelling the chart?

Re: NO SPOILARZ

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Good god that manages to be EVEN WORSE (the lovely PJ notwithstanding).

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

They were very hurt and sad. I was one of them! Though I could see why he was doing it.

He relented next year - almost certainly he shouldn't have, or he should have come up with a replacement thing that reflected what he wanted more (5 top 10s in different categories maybe) - but I think he was a democrat at heart and liked the idea of the poll and hoped his listeners would change. There were a lot more women in the 1992 and 1993 ones IIRC, but I think that was the early 90s more than his listenership.

[braisedbywolves.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah I'm aware that this is just how punk is taught in schools (IE how it was taught behind the sheds a generation ago) rather than how it actually worked.

Also also I'm not saying that they were swept away, but they don't seem to be here in the first place*! I'd be curious to see a '75 - are we getting a '77 at some point, Tom?

An obvious hole in my argument = Pink Floyd.

Re: I have to say it again!

[sbp.livejournal.com]

You what?

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

andrew this is a snapshot of the canon view of an OUTGROUP (peel's listeners) WITHIN AN OUTGROUP (uk mid-70s counterculture orthodoxy) WITHIN AN "OUT"GROUP ("pop" culture as a whole), where "pop" has a VERY contested meaning, somewhere between "what lots of young people like" and "gleams of an onrushing better world as envisioned and enabled by the young"

(fsvo the "young", also already a "contested" word!)

*SUBMERGES BACK INTO FRANTIC PRESSWEEK*

[sbp.livejournal.com]

They're all lovely, so there!

[sbp.livejournal.com]

It's the Top Gear theme.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

75 didn't exist - this was the first one he did.

I don't intend to do any more really, maybe the "all time" 1982 one to demonstrate how well punk 'worked' on the Peel audience.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

A very tempting torrentable is a "Peel Punk Rock Special" from 1977 - Eddie & The Hot Rods ahoy.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Anyway the reason for my "or did it" is that obviously the listenership's tastes changed - really quite quickly after 1976. But what I don't know is whether, or in what proportions:

- Peel won a new listenership in 1977.
- Peel took his listeners from 1976 with him.

My suspicion is that Peel built several audiences over the years.

[sbp.livejournal.com]

"Echoes" is basically a first draft for "Shine On You Crazy Diamond"

Sez who?

[sbp.livejournal.com]

You've never heard it before? What planet are you living on Miss Stevens?

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

hee

[sbp.livejournal.com]

Well they did just ram two half songs together, one by Paul, one by Lennon.

[sbp.livejournal.com]

I usually heard it standalone, or possibly as part of the blue hits album. It was a long while before I heard St Peppers and it was terribly inconsistent and not half as good as everyone says it was.

[sbp.livejournal.com]

Julie B != grebt.

Re: Pink Floyd vs Panda Bear

[boyofbadgers.livejournal.com]

Godspeed You! Black Emperor?

Re: Pink Floyd vs Panda Bear

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Yeah, there are exceptions! But a lot of acclaimed stuff now feels personal, internalised, microgestural in a way that not much on the peel list did! Kid A changed everything d00d.