I’ve been asked, oh!, multiple times, how do I carefully curate these playlists? – and I always revert to the same old answer…..”Well Terry, my listening meanderings take me places that are out of the way, behind the veil, under the stone – as Robert Frost would say, the path less taken…” Yeah, right, and bollocks. If you are reading this (and I’m under no illusion that you probably aren’t (I’m sure there is a paradox in here somewhere)) then it’s maybe because you’ve listened to a previous playlist and thought “that last one was good/ok/not bad/etcetc… let’s give this one a whirl too” – or, through some random fluke, you’ve landed on this page, or, you’re my sister and as always, you’re bowing to my superior taste in music (hi sis!!) – whatever whatever – what I’m trying to get at is a little more prosaic – I like listening to the radio, and especially to hosts whose musical tastes just seem to span a whole plethora of genres. I’d be lying if I said it was to do with listening to John Peel as a kid – I did hear his show as a teenager, but as a teenager I only wanted to hear music that fell into certain distinctive genres – in my case, US punk/underground and UK indie, both of which Peel extensively championed – but it was always mixed in with a lot of other genres – and in Peel’s case, “a lot” means a lot – listening to him I distinctly remember turning it off because I had no interest in the latest release from the Norwegian death metal scene – well, more fool me. But that’s teenagers for you – or less presumptuously, my teenage years – the chance to absorb everything but the will to reject everything.
All in all, I’m trying to make up for lost listening opportunities, and to share so that others (yes, that means you who isn’t reading this) can benefit from my treading of the path less taken. And although I don’t think I’ll ever get to the heights of Gideon Coe on BBC 6 Music – I can but try – and I have a slight feeling that there are not many playlists out there that include Her Royalness Bassey with Gu, the pig farmer. What do you think? 😉
ENjoy!!