I grew up with Radio 2 on permanently in the background. My parents loved the daily ‘handover’ banter between Ken Bruce and the ever sprightly Jimmy Young at midday (Sir Jimmy was, of course, booted over twenty years’ ago to make way for the crazed vigilante cyclist Jeremy Vile). The Radio 2 playlist was an education in pop music for many of us. At the gym I use the management, in their wisdom, recently decided to ditch the best of the 70s/80s/90s soundtrack for a rap/R’n’B alternative. It was the young gym members who complained and had the golden oldies restored. Who’ll be listening to the current Top 20 in 40 years?The old Radio 2 was like the old Britain - a nicer, better place.
It really makes you wonder what goes on in staff meetings in these organisations; "...our audience figures are down by another 10% this week. We'll done everyone!"
As far as the definition of easy listening is concerned, I would suggest anything above 120bps is not easy listening.
I’m forced to listen to Radios 2 all day at work. I’ve noticed that the older more “smooth listening” songs tend to be the most popular with both the younger and older employees. Although this is based on how much enthusiastic singing, humming or whistling along I observe. The new and in the charts pop songs are often of such mediocre quality, that when they get played several times a day they become offensively annoying to almost everyone.
Same, except it was the radio full blast on a commercial channel and the ads were torture. The management thought I was being inflexible and intolerant - and I was. It was heaven to quit.
There's a general trend against Oranias of any sort. Right now, the regime will reluctantly let you e.g. live in a mostly white area, find Shakespeare's works in a bookshop, listen to some comfy song; but you'll probably have to accept the Pakistani family two doors down, the anti-white books prominently displayed in the window, the next song being Ed Sheeran.
There's also a trend away from structure and meaning, towards incoherence, a world that no longer makes human sense - so, the cosy 70s ambience gives way to a hodge podge, much as every town is now a meaningless mess of architectural styles (and peoples).
Have to admit the first time I listened to it I was more interested in his microphone and wondering how he managed to get such a great sound with no wind noise outdoors, but I gave it a few listens and it has grown on me. Rolling Stone magazine hate it.
I gave up on the radio when I gave up on the box, but I thought radio 2 sounded like radio 1 did in the early 80's. Then all the thump, thump, thump deep bass shizer and angry ethnics shouting and hollering appeared to capture radio 1. I found a station called The Arrow, which was owned by big media company, Bauer. It only operated the station to occupy the digital space. It was ad free, news free., no DJ and most importantly, free of ethnic detritus. Sadly it got taken off air. You did a video about why people are turning to classic FM a while back. Maybe worth a revisit?
Classical FM is the only radio station I’ll put on for a bit of background music.
I’ve noticed you get discussions with composers about music and not the flood of ‘isms’, ‘phobias’ and radfem woke garbage you get after every other song on the others.
Maybe the producers know that Classical FM is too elegant or sophisticated to be punctuated with that kind of detritus? I don’t know…
Aye I’ll definitely have to give it a watch or revisit it mate; been watching your stuff since around the time you made that Terry Bell video but some stick in my memory more than others.
There are endless essays and discussions among dissident circles detailing the way cinema was used to undermine the West, yet popular music seems to be looked upon as completely benign; especially the easy listening genres you mention. To my mind, popular music was the spearhead of the attack. It's power is its overwhelming effect upon the young mind on first exposure, and the permanence of the nostalgic preservation order that passing decades erects.
As with cinema, when singling out one song as subversive, it is easy to say "You're reading too much into that!" but I will. Supertramp's The Logical Song is not benign. Under the guise of appearing to be a defence of the "magical human experience" against "the mechanistic, logical, new world" this song reveals it's ideological (song - couldn't resist) intent in the lines,
"I said, watch what you say or they'll be calling you a radical
A liberal, oh, fanatical, criminal"
It's a catchy tune. It's easy to hum or sing along to. It has gentle, persistent hooks galore. This is how its ideological message gets in, stays in, and tricks the listener into repeating the message until the message becomes the listeners own original thought.
Radio 2 was like the soft power musical version of Radio Free Europe. Now there's a great REM song.
I know. I love pop music. I loved it in blissful ignorance until I discovered through people such as yourself, how popular cultural forms were corrupted and used against us. I literally still love the weapons my abuser used to abuse me with. Now that is powerful.
To answer your question, I don't think there was a single point in time. It was incremental but kicked into gear in the 1960's.
James Delingpole amongst others has a good deal to say about how pop music has been used to subvert western society. He, Mike Williams aka ‘Sage of Quay’ et al see The Beatles as key to this, and link them to the mind control research of the Tavistock Institute. Arguably the definitive text on the dark underbelly of the hippy dream is ‘Weird Scenes Inside The Canyon’ by Dave McGowan - I own this book myself. It vividly details how pop stars, hippies, murderers and politicos all co-existed alongside a covert military installation.
Most welcome, it’s a good one. My parents were huge Beatles’ fans; it was depressing for me to realise that they were probably part of some psy-op - they talk about The Beatles a fair bit in the podcast.
That’s great to hear! It’s a fascinating book and is regularly referred to in discussions on how pop music has been used to subvert the West. You will never look at the 1960s in the same way again...it exposes what an utter fraud ‘youth movements’ are.
You can look away from the cinema screen, but you can’t stop hearing easily unless you stop up your ears. Certain senses of ours are more easily targeted due to their passivity. Hearing can occur without little conscious understanding (“let he who has ears hear”) while sight requires more interpretation to grasp.
That hypothetical interaction is dead on, so much so it raises my blood pressure even reading it. Therefore, Deconstruction should be used at every opportunity against the regime & it’s now sacred cows. Rub their fucking noses in their own shit.
As boring & predictable as playlists are, I think you should throw one together. That Nomad song you recommended a while back was gold. Morgoth’s Melodious Mixtape.
Growing up in London I always rejected 'normie' pop radio stations in favour of illegal pirate stations that seemed relatively independent subversive and uncommercialised. However, in retrospect, the message encouraged mindless hedonism / nihilism and the politics was always on the far-left. Controlled or allowed opposition maybe, as I'm sure authorities could have removed these stations at any time if they wanted.
Rick Beato on YouTube is a good reference as to why modern music is so shit. Found him whilst asking Google that very question one day after getting increasingly annoyed with the noises eminating from my workshop radio.
The guys an ex- producer, musician and teacher, he takes you down the rabbit hole as to how we got here, but in essence today's music uses the same chord structures across most genres so together with pitch adjustment and things like auto tune you essentially zone out cos your ears have heard it before.
And to think this is the future, more demoralisation for the masses.
A very intelligent, thought out and well put together piece. Especially liked the analogy of music with other issues, the ‘‘Bryan Ferry is still on the list, nobody has harmed your precious Bryan Ferry!’’ segment was brilliant and funny, but oh so true. You stand out from the rest on your ability to tie the mundane and pedestrian aspects of life into the grander, wider world concept and politics.
Wonderful piece. But pray tell, Mr. Morgoth: Do you not like The Prodigy? Of course, they are most certainly not Easy Listening. On the other hand, as far as I can tell their heydays should have coincided with the time of your (impressionable ?) youth and perhaps elicit some nostalgia of the days of yore (though I´ll readily admit that Firestarter had been played too often even back in the day).
I actually went to see them during the Music for the Gilted Generation tour. I was always more partial to Joy Division and New Order than any sort of dance music to be honest.
In America, even our "public" radio has these incredibly annoying donation commercials. They are hideous. The only music it plays is classical, though. And since they are the only channel that plays classical music, they have a pretty tight mandate although I'm sure they would love to play "classical" hip hop instead. Walmart has its own radio station now, replete with a rotating cast of DJs.
Great article. I get what you're saying even though I'm not really a radio guy personally, certainly not BBC radio. Nothing they do gets my attention. Possibly a spergy attitude, but hey ho.
I switched to Classic FM some years ago. I tried Radio 3, but they're either playing ethnic/female/retarded composers, or having an entire week dedicated to the Alice Springs Kazoo Whistle Orchestra or somesuch dross. As so many pieces are 10-15 minutes long, the adverts are gratifyingly sparse. As a bonus, the music is beautiful.
I recall the popular music of the 80s as a kid, only realizing later it wasn't popular, it was just the crap that they paid the radio stations to play. All I remember was that it was always the singers from a certain ethnic group they pushed over and over. I hated all of it.
That being said, I think that we have the "test of time" as a guide here. Just because it stays "good music" doesn't mean it should be on a station like that. What worries me is that like everything, the standards, once set, can then be changed and warped into this diversity quota stuff.
It's the station's job to match the people's want, especially in a public broadcasting sense, which BBC is. Much like everything, that has been inverted. Sad.
I grew up with Radio 2 on permanently in the background. My parents loved the daily ‘handover’ banter between Ken Bruce and the ever sprightly Jimmy Young at midday (Sir Jimmy was, of course, booted over twenty years’ ago to make way for the crazed vigilante cyclist Jeremy Vile). The Radio 2 playlist was an education in pop music for many of us. At the gym I use the management, in their wisdom, recently decided to ditch the best of the 70s/80s/90s soundtrack for a rap/R’n’B alternative. It was the young gym members who complained and had the golden oldies restored. Who’ll be listening to the current Top 20 in 40 years?The old Radio 2 was like the old Britain - a nicer, better place.
Sunday dinner at grandma's type music.
It was indeed - comforting and reassuring. But the people in charge at Auntie Beeb no longer deal in comfort and reassurance.
It really makes you wonder what goes on in staff meetings in these organisations; "...our audience figures are down by another 10% this week. We'll done everyone!"
As far as the definition of easy listening is concerned, I would suggest anything above 120bps is not easy listening.
Our audience might be "god forbid" straight white and male, quick play something by A gay Blackman !
I’m forced to listen to Radios 2 all day at work. I’ve noticed that the older more “smooth listening” songs tend to be the most popular with both the younger and older employees. Although this is based on how much enthusiastic singing, humming or whistling along I observe. The new and in the charts pop songs are often of such mediocre quality, that when they get played several times a day they become offensively annoying to almost everyone.
I actually began to view it as a form of psychological abuse.
I actually walked out on a job and a career because the TV was on, loud as ever, and I just needed to get away from it.
Same, except it was the radio full blast on a commercial channel and the ads were torture. The management thought I was being inflexible and intolerant - and I was. It was heaven to quit.
There's a general trend against Oranias of any sort. Right now, the regime will reluctantly let you e.g. live in a mostly white area, find Shakespeare's works in a bookshop, listen to some comfy song; but you'll probably have to accept the Pakistani family two doors down, the anti-white books prominently displayed in the window, the next song being Ed Sheeran.
There's also a trend away from structure and meaning, towards incoherence, a world that no longer makes human sense - so, the cosy 70s ambience gives way to a hodge podge, much as every town is now a meaningless mess of architectural styles (and peoples).
Talking of music, this tune bumped Taylor Swift off the top slot
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqSA-SY5Hro
Oliver Anthony, Rich men North of Richmond
Have to admit the first time I listened to it I was more interested in his microphone and wondering how he managed to get such a great sound with no wind noise outdoors, but I gave it a few listens and it has grown on me. Rolling Stone magazine hate it.
The hatred the libs have shown for it is totally unhinged.
Isn't it just, it's like Tracy Chapman met Hank Williams on Gus Cannon's front porch, and they still hate it, must be the beard.
The sentiment of the song flags him up as ''enemy'' and that's that.
I gave up on the radio when I gave up on the box, but I thought radio 2 sounded like radio 1 did in the early 80's. Then all the thump, thump, thump deep bass shizer and angry ethnics shouting and hollering appeared to capture radio 1. I found a station called The Arrow, which was owned by big media company, Bauer. It only operated the station to occupy the digital space. It was ad free, news free., no DJ and most importantly, free of ethnic detritus. Sadly it got taken off air. You did a video about why people are turning to classic FM a while back. Maybe worth a revisit?
Classical FM is the only radio station I’ll put on for a bit of background music.
I’ve noticed you get discussions with composers about music and not the flood of ‘isms’, ‘phobias’ and radfem woke garbage you get after every other song on the others.
Maybe the producers know that Classical FM is too elegant or sophisticated to be punctuated with that kind of detritus? I don’t know…
In an older video I got into why Classic FM was surging in popularity. Sort of a musical white flight.
Aye I’ll definitely have to give it a watch or revisit it mate; been watching your stuff since around the time you made that Terry Bell video but some stick in my memory more than others.
There are endless essays and discussions among dissident circles detailing the way cinema was used to undermine the West, yet popular music seems to be looked upon as completely benign; especially the easy listening genres you mention. To my mind, popular music was the spearhead of the attack. It's power is its overwhelming effect upon the young mind on first exposure, and the permanence of the nostalgic preservation order that passing decades erects.
As with cinema, when singling out one song as subversive, it is easy to say "You're reading too much into that!" but I will. Supertramp's The Logical Song is not benign. Under the guise of appearing to be a defence of the "magical human experience" against "the mechanistic, logical, new world" this song reveals it's ideological (song - couldn't resist) intent in the lines,
"I said, watch what you say or they'll be calling you a radical
A liberal, oh, fanatical, criminal"
It's a catchy tune. It's easy to hum or sing along to. It has gentle, persistent hooks galore. This is how its ideological message gets in, stays in, and tricks the listener into repeating the message until the message becomes the listeners own original thought.
Radio 2 was like the soft power musical version of Radio Free Europe. Now there's a great REM song.
I actually agree with all of that. But when do we say it turned toxic?
Reactionaries said pretty much all music of the 20th century was degenerate.
I know. I love pop music. I loved it in blissful ignorance until I discovered through people such as yourself, how popular cultural forms were corrupted and used against us. I literally still love the weapons my abuser used to abuse me with. Now that is powerful.
To answer your question, I don't think there was a single point in time. It was incremental but kicked into gear in the 1960's.
James Delingpole amongst others has a good deal to say about how pop music has been used to subvert western society. He, Mike Williams aka ‘Sage of Quay’ et al see The Beatles as key to this, and link them to the mind control research of the Tavistock Institute. Arguably the definitive text on the dark underbelly of the hippy dream is ‘Weird Scenes Inside The Canyon’ by Dave McGowan - I own this book myself. It vividly details how pop stars, hippies, murderers and politicos all co-existed alongside a covert military installation.
Are you familiar with Mark Devlin and his musical truth trilogy? He has some good talks that are on youtube, rumble etc.
I am indeed, I’ve listened to a lot of his podcasts. He’s very interesting and knowledgeable on the dark reality of the music business. This is Mark when he was a guest on James Delingpole’s podcast https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/mark-devlin-guests-on-james-delingpoles-delingpod-feb-2022/id1272835654?i=1000550325583
Oh great thanks, I'm not sure if I saw that one so I'll have a look.
Most welcome, it’s a good one. My parents were huge Beatles’ fans; it was depressing for me to realise that they were probably part of some psy-op - they talk about The Beatles a fair bit in the podcast.
Thank you for that book recommendation! I've ordered it and I'm looking forward to reading it.
That’s great to hear! It’s a fascinating book and is regularly referred to in discussions on how pop music has been used to subvert the West. You will never look at the 1960s in the same way again...it exposes what an utter fraud ‘youth movements’ are.
You can look away from the cinema screen, but you can’t stop hearing easily unless you stop up your ears. Certain senses of ours are more easily targeted due to their passivity. Hearing can occur without little conscious understanding (“let he who has ears hear”) while sight requires more interpretation to grasp.
That hypothetical interaction is dead on, so much so it raises my blood pressure even reading it. Therefore, Deconstruction should be used at every opportunity against the regime & it’s now sacred cows. Rub their fucking noses in their own shit.
As boring & predictable as playlists are, I think you should throw one together. That Nomad song you recommended a while back was gold. Morgoth’s Melodious Mixtape.
Morg FM
That has a ring to it, actually…
Growing up in London I always rejected 'normie' pop radio stations in favour of illegal pirate stations that seemed relatively independent subversive and uncommercialised. However, in retrospect, the message encouraged mindless hedonism / nihilism and the politics was always on the far-left. Controlled or allowed opposition maybe, as I'm sure authorities could have removed these stations at any time if they wanted.
Yes, imagine having a dissident Right pirate station now with speakers like Morgoth on it and playing a few golden oldies.
The premises would likely get swarmed with armed police the very same day and before it’s first broadcast was finished.
Maybe I could do a MorgCast special just for here where I do a ''Tracks of my Years''.
Wouldn’t be a bad idea at all that; better than the hooting baboon colony that’s BBC Radio - or Bolton FM God forbid…
Rick Beato on YouTube is a good reference as to why modern music is so shit. Found him whilst asking Google that very question one day after getting increasingly annoyed with the noises eminating from my workshop radio.
The guys an ex- producer, musician and teacher, he takes you down the rabbit hole as to how we got here, but in essence today's music uses the same chord structures across most genres so together with pitch adjustment and things like auto tune you essentially zone out cos your ears have heard it before.
And to think this is the future, more demoralisation for the masses.
A very intelligent, thought out and well put together piece. Especially liked the analogy of music with other issues, the ‘‘Bryan Ferry is still on the list, nobody has harmed your precious Bryan Ferry!’’ segment was brilliant and funny, but oh so true. You stand out from the rest on your ability to tie the mundane and pedestrian aspects of life into the grander, wider world concept and politics.
Thank you very much.
Wonderful piece. But pray tell, Mr. Morgoth: Do you not like The Prodigy? Of course, they are most certainly not Easy Listening. On the other hand, as far as I can tell their heydays should have coincided with the time of your (impressionable ?) youth and perhaps elicit some nostalgia of the days of yore (though I´ll readily admit that Firestarter had been played too often even back in the day).
I actually went to see them during the Music for the Gilted Generation tour. I was always more partial to Joy Division and New Order than any sort of dance music to be honest.
Fair enough!
In America, even our "public" radio has these incredibly annoying donation commercials. They are hideous. The only music it plays is classical, though. And since they are the only channel that plays classical music, they have a pretty tight mandate although I'm sure they would love to play "classical" hip hop instead. Walmart has its own radio station now, replete with a rotating cast of DJs.
Great article. I get what you're saying even though I'm not really a radio guy personally, certainly not BBC radio. Nothing they do gets my attention. Possibly a spergy attitude, but hey ho.
Yeah I understand, but it's precisely because it was once a national institution that we must now abandon.
I switched to Classic FM some years ago. I tried Radio 3, but they're either playing ethnic/female/retarded composers, or having an entire week dedicated to the Alice Springs Kazoo Whistle Orchestra or somesuch dross. As so many pieces are 10-15 minutes long, the adverts are gratifyingly sparse. As a bonus, the music is beautiful.
I recall the popular music of the 80s as a kid, only realizing later it wasn't popular, it was just the crap that they paid the radio stations to play. All I remember was that it was always the singers from a certain ethnic group they pushed over and over. I hated all of it.
That being said, I think that we have the "test of time" as a guide here. Just because it stays "good music" doesn't mean it should be on a station like that. What worries me is that like everything, the standards, once set, can then be changed and warped into this diversity quota stuff.
It's the station's job to match the people's want, especially in a public broadcasting sense, which BBC is. Much like everything, that has been inverted. Sad.