[peel] Dull-ish Festive Fifty - it's still a throwback!

[Simon Melville]

I agree with what John has written below 100% -- it's the mix that makes the show interesting.  I am utterly appalled by the current "ghetto-isation" of music on the radio where every musical style must have it's own 2-hour slot.  When Peel finally stops, you can't imagine the BBC commissioning anything comparable, it will have to be a "genre" show.
 
The problem with reading too much into the Festive 50 is that you are asking people to make a decision on 3 tracks and as the majority of Peel listeners will have been brought up on a diet of white blokes with guitars (let's face it) if you have to boil it down to the three songs that you really enjoyed, it's likely to be the ones that are in the musical "idiom" you are most familiar with ("rock" or "pop" for most of us).
 
I would have thought that if you asked people to list the bands, records, events they enjoyed on Peel in the last year (without limiting it to a top 3) there would be plenty of the non-white/non-guitar wielders that have been moaned about here.
 
Or at least I hope so, as I can't possibly imagine why you'd waste your time listening to Peel as there are so many other shows on a myriad of commercial/public-interest channels to satisfy your needs with nary a post-88 dance track to worry about.
John Bravin <john.bravin@...> wrote:
>>>Let me start by stating that I love the Peel show, and have done for 
more years than most people on this list have been breathing...etc

Likewise. And I have listened for the very reason that Peel has never seen the world in terms of rock n roll in the 50s, pop in the 60s, guitar rock in the 70s, house in the 90s etc. There are (and he plays) so many other styles, and therein lies his longevity.  Its not his ability to spot and follow the trend that makes him great, it's rather the variety of his mix.  If his show was solely white guitar bands and electronica it would be deadly dull - but it never is thanks to the odd piece of reggae, jit jive, country, white soul and black folk.  It's true the Festive Fifty is a little predictable, but it's only a bit of festive fun.  If it set the playlist pattern for the following year it would be a disaster, but thank God, when it's over Peel takes pleasure in ignoring it and moving on to his next eclectic playlist.
 
And I'm not sure "the post-'88 music tracks that he plays are *always* the most interesting, innovative and going-somewhere selections on the whole show, week in week out". Sometimes they are, but for me the music I take away and listen to again and again are the surprises - juxtapositions of Laura Cantrel and Extreme Noise Terror etc. It's always been thus - many years ago it would have been Tim Buckley and Beefheart, or Douggie Mclean and the Bhundu Boys.  There are many DJs who play a carefully blended mix of complimentary music, but it so often results in a samey miasma that takes you nowhere.  It really is Peel's jarring exceptions that make him special.
 
 
 
 
 

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