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

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

That is precisely what I mean! It also applies to disco, soul, freestyle...probably vast swathes of stuff which I have no idea about. If I'd known any of that even EXISTED back when I actually cared about discovering old music...but instead all I got pointed towards was this shit.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Yeah, this I can sympathise with, as this list also looks very much like the stuff I was lent by boys at school when I asked what good music was (and I didn't protest and I liked some of it and not others - NO ZAPPA ON PEEL'S LIST is a big bonus IMO).

In a weird way it doesn't feel quite like a living canon though, I don't get a great sense of any of this music dominating the public sphere of rock thought in the way it maybe used to.

[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.

[koganbot]

its values still loom large over crit-friendly pop

You might be right, but the argument to support this would have to be very subtle and complex, and my guess is that you're not the one who'd be able to make the argument persuasively, given that you don't know the music on this list very well, you don't know the divisions that this list represents - the people voting Beefheart, Richman, and Legendary Stardust Cowboy (!) are not likely voting for much else that's on this list, and they're the ones most likely to be giving scattered votes to the girl groups and Motown and funk and garage rock and bubblegum and glam and Detroit punk (which was very r&b based) that don't register in the results - and you don't know what critics of the time were saying: criticism of course was all over the place in its attitudes but there was a large contingent that would be objecting to this list in much the manner that you do (you have no idea how much you remind me on this thread of Dave Marsh circa 1974, though you're smarter and more engaging and a better writer); in fact this list is much more representative of the rock audience than of rock critics, who were often in conflict with that audience. So the subtle and complex argument would have to be about how people who would be very averse to what they think this list represents and who would plump for very different music nonetheless are something of the latter-day equivalent of the sensibility that produced this list.

In other words, you need to read chapters 12 and 13 of my book. Not that those chapters make the argument I'm envisioning here (which I'm not sure is right anyway), but they're a template one could start with to make such an argument.

[koganbot]

the people voting Beefheart, Richman, and Legendary Stardust Cowboy (!) are not likely voting for much else that's on this list

Er, I mean people voting for Richman et al. in 1976, not poptimists voting for them in this poll.

[martinskidmore.livejournal.com]

In the decades I spent listening to Peel, he played more soul than any other DJ except was it Trevor Nelson with his specialist soul show. He also played more hip hop than anyone but Westwood. He was where I first heard Pink and Kelis too. You shouldn't get the idea that he only played boys with guitars, just because that was just about all his audience-consensus threw up.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

I only ever actually heard his show a few times (because those times, I hated it) - maybe if I had heard the techno or d&b or hip-hop I'd've stuck around. If he did play lots of that as well it seems a pity that his legacy is entirely bedroom indie, and that his audience for the most part didn't seem to have been turned on to any of the non-indie genres he played.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

I think a lot of them were, though! If indie was what they had in common, it stands to reason indie will dominate the collective end of year poll. But if each of them then got into one other genre via Peel (not unreasonable to suggest this - in my case his show helped overcome my initial prejudices towards techno in the late 80s) then he'd have done lots of good which wouldn't sadly count towards his 'legacy'.

[martinskidmore.livejournal.com]

You see, I don't think that is his whole legacy at all. He championed a lot of different types of music, and I'm not sure how much they would have caught on here without them. Someone mentioned his playing drum & bass, then a specialist show cutting into his slot - I'm not sure that specialist show would have come about without a R1 DJ playing lots of it (and he did play a lot - for years a show wouldn't go by without 3, 4, 5 D&B tracks). I think he was the only person playing hip hop from its early Sugarhill vogue until Def Jam got big, and he kept playing it (more turntablist stuff than rap - he found the lyrics distasteful). He was playing African music for a long time before anyone else caught on, and what profile that had/has would surely not have happened without him. He introduced me to loads of music I wouldn't have noticed otherwise, and I know that's true of lots of people - I remember conversations with friends who also listened about whether hip hop or house were better, 20 years ago. I know I'm not alone in this. He also introduced me to some rock/indie I liked and wouldn't have known otherwise, but that's a small amount compared to the other styles I caught on to through him.