If you’d asked me 40 years ago what was the number one single was, I’d have happily given you the answer. I’d have probably reeled off the top 10, maybe the top 40, too. Music was so much better back then, right? No. Just different.
A quick glance at the latest top 40 and I am struggling. I think I know a few of the tunes, although I am probably guessing a bit. Two things are going here.
40 years ago, people bought music on vinyl. The only way you could steal music was by robbing from HMV or Our Price records. Legal theft, by way of streaming music, didn’t exist back then. So, the charts depended on what people bought and given the sales were in millions, the Great British Public were interested in the charts. The other thing is that my generation that bought records is an ageing generation and it’s not for us to know who’s who and what’s what in the charts. Radio One is not for old people like me. I am supposed to rail against the state of music today. But I don’t. And I don’t think the charts matter much to young people, either.
I have never known a better time for new music. I have bored for England in crediting BBC 6 Music for encouraging and promoting new music. My musical tastes, which were dulling with age, have been revitalised and expanded. Now, I don’t just like the American rock of my youth. I like hip-hop, drum and bass, electronica and all manner of different types of music that I never dreamed I might like.
Take today. I was driving around in my geriatric diesel polluting car listening first to Jon Hopkins and then Laura Marling’s LUMP. A couple of years ago, I had no idea who they were. Now I can’t turn their music off. The same goes for Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever, Courtney Barnett and Louis Cole. And Thundercat, Flying Lotus and the North Atlantic Explorers. Few of these acts are in the charts, which is a shame but they all make music as good as I have ever heard. And it keeps on coming.
I love the music of Loyle Carner and Dan Kye, who it turns out is actually Jordan Rakei, whose babies I would have if I could have them. And Teleman who are playing a gig at the Fleece which I didn’t know about until after it had sold out.
I no longer listen to the charts on Radio One. However, my love for music will only die when I die. We live in the best possible time for music because not only can we enjoy so much fantastic new music, we also have all the music that has ever been made. And whether any of this music ever makes the charts, it doesn’t matter. Just different times. Music is still great.
So, put to one side your heritage music station, your tacky ‘local’ (it isn’t) commercial station and listen to something new. If you try it, you will like it. There’s something for everyone.
