"It would be more of a tribute to forget about his life's work, really it would..."

[denny]

From Mark Radcliffe's tribute to John Peel:

John's show was a unique thing, we probably won't see his like again. It will be more of a tribute to him not to try to replace his show with something similar.

Now, I'll freely admit that I'm excessively cynical at times, but that really reads to me like the BBC has noticed the amount of people who've posted tribute comments along the lines of "who will champion the cause of independent music now that John is gone?", and they've decided to start pushing a point of view that allows them to replace his show with Yet Another Bland Mainstream Show rather than try to carry on the massively important work that he was doing (pretty much single-handedly) for all these years in finding and playing independent music on a mainstream national radio station.

I don't know if anyone at the BBC could do a credible replacement for John Peel's show, working along similar lines, but I know damn well that someone should try. If the BBC won't play that stuff, who will?

Comments

[valkyriekaren.livejournal.com]

Mark Radcliffe could do it - I remember his days hosting The White Room, which was sort of like The Tube but for grownups. But he seems to be content to play silly buggers these days rather than do any serious music journalism.

[zotz]

There's less mucking about on his new show than there was on the afternoon one. But yes, I thought that too (and immediately wrote it off as the ravings of a sad fanboy).

[dpash.livejournal.com]

The only decent radio show Mark did for Radio One was the 10pm-midnight slot, ironically just after John Peel.

I was disappointed when they got rid of the evening session. I'm reasonably glad they replaced it with Zane Low. They could have made a worse choice.

[deano977.livejournal.com]

I think that's pretty harsh, given that Radcliffe was turfed off Radio 1 in no small part for publically slating Radio 1's music policy and playing what he wanted to play at every possible opportunity. His new show is essentially the same show as the one he and Riley did in the same slot on Radio 1, the loss of which Peel himself saw as a sad loss to musical diversity on the BBC (according to Mark Lamarr filling in for Radcliffe Tuesday night; go have a 'Listen Again', good show).

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

The BBC should immediately hire zotz to start a new radio show in the same slot.

[fellcat.livejournal.com]

That was exactly what I thought.

[dennyd.livejournal.com]

The thought did cross my mind :)

[booklectica]

Or duranorak. Or both. The Zotz and Duranorak Show.

[dennyd.livejournal.com]

Ooooh. I'd pay to hear that.