I’ve always had very catholic tastes in music. Catholic in terms of all-encompassing, broad-minded, and inclusive. There aren’t any musical genres that I refuse to listen to, although there are several that I much prefer. Also, just because I don’t like something, doesn’t mean it isn’t good music. It’s just not to my taste.
As someone born at the tail end of the 1950s, I first became aware of music in the mid-’60s; in those days in our house there was no all-day television, and the radio was on most of the day. Radio was used much more in those days as entertainment. We only had the BBC, although we could get a few station broadcasting from mainland Europe, such as Hilversum from Holland, and Radio Luxembourg. The BBC of the day was still very staid, like an elderly auntie, as the BBC was affectionately known. Not like today when almost everyone seems to have the knives out for the corporation!
The Light Programme played mostly light music. That was the dance music of the day, not as we would think of it these days, but orchestral tunes, from the likes of Mantovani and Victor Sylvester.
The Third Programme was the classical station, and the Home Service was, in its own way in those times, talk radio.
There were plays on the radio, there were quiz shows, there were lectures, documentaries, and political discussions. There were even radio soap operas and The Archers hold the record for being the longest running soap in the world, having debuted in the halcyon radio days of 1951.
There was though, almost no pop music. Nothing from the charts of the day. There was but one show for one hour per week, with a run-down of the charts and that was that. In the mid-60s some enterprising folks set up radio stations on ships (and wartime forts) broadcasting from outside the three mile limit in international waters. Unlike the BBC they play the pop tunes of the day, and many teenagers, having purchased the new transistor radios, which ran from batteries and were portable, tuned into these ‘pirates’. It wasn’t just the kids though. My mother always enjoyed music and she would tune in too. They were all AM stations, or ‘Medium Wave’ as it was known. There was Radio London, Radio Veronica, Radio City, Radio North Sea International, Radio 390, and probably the most remembered, Radio Caroline. The authorities didn’t like this one bit and within three years they were closed down by the Marine Broadcasting Offences Act of 1967, which made it illegal to advertise or supply these stations. They all closed down except for one or two that decided to carry on.
The Government reorganised BBC Radio and The Light Programme became Radio 2; the Third Programme become Radio 3, and the Home Service become Radio 4. A brand new station, Radio 1 started up, using a lot of the DJs that had been broadcasting on the pirate stations.
We now had all-day pop music! However, it was just one station. In the early ’70s the BBC started to set up local radio stations, and that gave a bit more variety. It wasn’t until 1973, when commercial radio was given the go-ahead that things really started to change and the teenagers of the day (of which I was one), had a much better choice of contemporary music.
Cassette players came along, and most of us bought one and tried to record stuff from the radio, hoping the DJ wouldn’t take over the records too much!
I started a Saturday job and had some money of my own, so I bought a record player and started buying records. I did go a bit crazy with that, as I always enjoyed music, and it was good to play what you wanted to play when you wanted to, which you could with records and tapes of course.
When I started writing this article, I didn’t intend to start with a history of music on the radio, but it was such a big part of my early years, I couldn’t really omit it.
Anyway, I really started listening to a mix of radio and my parents 78s, which were definitely pre-rock ‘n’ roll! It led to a love of that music from those far away days, before even I was born that I still sometimes enjoy to this day.
In the 70’s though, I really got into the pop music scene. Some of my friends didn’t, and considered pop music somehow beneath them, but I swallowed most of it up. I did tend to go for the rock side of the charts though, more than the bubblegum stuff; preferring Queen to the Bay City Rollers, or Alice Cooper to David Essex.
As we moved into the ’80s and I settled down and quit partying and also got married, bought a house, and then along came the kids, my disposable income available for music went down somewhat. That was pretty much in line though with my enthusiasm for pop music waning as the decade wore on. I got busy with life, and although I still listened to music, I was more and more listening to the old stuff from the ’60s and ’70s and not paying much mind to the pop charts. The ’90s came and went musically as did the noughties. I was in the United States for a while, and I really got into Americana. I’ve always liked British Folk Music but Americana is, of course, something different. Returning to the UK and as broadband bandwidth increased, and the streaming libraries from the likes of Spotify and Apple Music and others grew bigger, and the quality got better, I started listening to more and more contemporary jazz and I’ve also developed a love for electronic music of many kinds, such a trance, techno, drum and bass, house, and EDM.
As I write this in 2023, I am looking forward to what the next twenty years will bring to the music scene. Some will go in one ear and out of the other, but I know that some I will embrace enthusiastically.