What was the first song played on BBC Radio 6 Music?
Since its founding at the dawn of Digital Audio Broadcasting, BBC’s Radio 6 Music has cemented itself as a trusted source within the mainstream of alternative musical discovery.
Having grown into an institute unto itself, branching out into its series of annual festivals and boasting heavyweight artists Iggy Pop, Jarvis Cocker, and Afrodeutsche as presenters, the free-form style channel confidently postured as the successor to John Peel’s Radio 1 show, whose son Tom Ravenscroft features on New Music Fix along with Deb Grant.
It’s not been a smooth ride since its launch, however. Famously spooked with closure by a 2010 BBC Trust review and even reported to be subsumed as an appendage to Radio 2 à la Radio 1Xtra by The Sunday Times, the extensive #SaveBBC6Music social media campaign highlighted how important the channel was to so many and quashed any slight moves the Beeb had in eyeing up its sacrifice.
Encountering moments of relevancy crises with the ‘6 Music Dad’ trope and its perennial theme days to well-trodden musical chapters from Britpop, ‘Madchester‘, or another ‘1980s celebration’ the rise of internet stations such as NTS, Noods, and Aaja Radio has muscled its way to the fore as vital port-of-calls for intrepid music fans.
Despite such challenges, 6 Music Radio still enjoys prominent stature as a curatorial and tastemaking platform. With the aforementioned New Music Fix highlighting innovative new acts and journalist Alastair Shuttleworth’s frequent guest spots, 6 Music looks set to thrive and adapt as BBC always has across the last century.
When was 6 Music founded?
Proposed as ‘Network Y’ in October 2000 in DAB Radio’s infancy, BBC 6 Music, as it was initially known, launched on March 11th, 2002, with a 7am breakfast show presented by comedian Phil Jupitus, hosting his slot for the following five years and seeing the channel’s awkward teething process, plus internal conflicts with unimaginative programmers.
“There were people at 6 who hated the fact I wouldn’t play Coldplay records or Razorlight,” Jupitus told The Guardian in 2010. “But you can hear them on Radio 2, they are the biggest band in the world. Because a niche music station doesn’t play Coldplay, is that a bad thing? They had a slogan at the beginning of 6 Music: ‘We play what we like and nothing else.’ I was playing a lot of shit in the early days, that kind of faux indie stuff I can’t bear. I remember thinking: ‘That poster’s lying.’ Now, after ten years of experience, it has struck a balance. You just have to listen to Lauren Laverne’s show. There’s a lot of great stuff in there, new and old.”
To signal the new station’s arrival, which was decided by an online vote, the first track played was indie rockers Ash’s ‘Burn Baby Burn’, the second single from 2001’s Free All Angels. “To be launching not only a new radio station but also a new technology has me feeling quite excited, then hungry and finally sleepy,” Jupitus triumphantly declared that morning.
He wryly concluded: “It’s quite an honour to be the first voice on 6 Music, and then to follow that up on air with a fantastic lineup and play great tunes all morning is a dream gig. I’m glad Marconi invented radio so, a century odd down the line, I get the chance to give Offshore Banking Business by the Members the airplay it so richly deserves.”
