John Peel (Slight Return)

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Remember all that John Peel talk on Poptimists last week?

Here's my latest Pitchfork column which is what it was all in aid of really.

Comments

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

I think we talk about that stuff a LOT on Poptimists! All the various orgafun things - Podcast Panel, League Of Pop, Pop World Cup, etc. - are at heart efforts to get people listening to stuff they might not usually listen to, my feeling being that in a free-audience (as opposed to captive audience) era you need participatory gimmicks to do it.

[friend-of-tofu.livejournal.com]

Yes, and I like them. Didn't mean to imply I didn't think there were any/enough, hence my use of "another".

I'm interested in the idea of the gimmicks as being less overbearing than the more, hm, paternalistic image of a Peel-type figure. I'm not sure that's the case, but can that inkling of parental figure can lend a bit too much 'government infotainment' quality to the attempt to widen people's musical horizons? Or do we need to keep poking people into awareness of stuff because other elements of our culture would otherwise tend towards isolation and introversion?

I haven't formed good answers to these questions yet, which is why I was wondering if they've already been answered very well and I just don't know about it (very likely).