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

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

I think he was! It came to a watershed a couple years after where he cancelled the Festive Fifty entirely because it was so predictable (Nirvana at #1 etc.)

And what else do you think he could have done - he played the other stuff, hip-hop and house and African music and extreme metal and what have you - all the time! He still liked indie so for him not to play any would have been cutting off his nose to spite his face.

[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?

[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.