On 30 September Radio 1 will be 40 years old.

It was first brought about by the old pirate radio stations of the 60's. Until then there was very little pop music played on BBC apart from Saturday Club & Pick Of The Pops.

Before Radio 1 started it was preceded by the Light Programme. At 7.00am on 30 September 1967, the Light Programme split in two. It became Radio 1 & Radio 2.

Radio 2 continued the same way as the old Light Programme but Radio 1 was supposed to be all pop music. At first there was only so much time allowed for playing recorded music. This was called Needle Time. At other times there was Live Music and music news programmes.

 

The rest is history.

The first show was presented by Tony Blackburn who came from pirate radio station Radio London (Big L) and before that was on the Caroline South ship.

This was the order of music played on that very first programme:

 

1 Beefeaters; John Dankworth (Programme's theme)

 

2 Flowers In The Rain; The Move

 

3 Massachusetts; The Bee Gees

 

4 Even The Bad Times Are Good; The Tremeloes

 

5 Fakin' It; Simon & Garfunkel

 

6 The Day I Met Marie; Cliff Richard

 

7 You Can't Hurry Love; The Supremes

 

8 The Last Waltz; Engelbert Humperdink

 

9 Baby Now That I've Found You; The Foundations

 

10 Good Times; Eric Burdon and the Animals

 

11 A Banda; Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass

 

12 I Feel Love Comin' On; Felice Taylor

 

13 How Can I Be Sure; Young Rascals

 

14 Major To Minor; The Settlers

 

15 Homburg; Procol Harum

 

16 You Keep Running Away; The Four Tops

 

17 Let's Go To San Francisco; The Flower Pot Men

 

18 Handy Man; Jimmy James

 

19 You Know What I Mean; The Turtles

 

20 The House That Jack Built; The Alan Price Set

 

21 Excerpt From A Teenage Opera; Keith West

 

22 Reflections; Diana Ross and the Supremes

 

23 King Midas In Reverse; The Hollies

 

24 Ode To Billy Joe; Bobby Gentry

 

25 Then He Kissed Me; The Crystals

 

26 Anything Goes; Harpers Bizarre

 

27 The Letter; The Box Tops

 

28 Beefeaters; John Dankworth

 

You can listen to the very start of Radio 1 with the switching over from the Light Programme HERE It then followed the first introduction from Tony Blackburn.

Edited June 5, 200718 yr by Euro Music

very interesting... some great tracks there my fav was the superb 'how can i be sure'...

very interesting... some great tracks there my fav was the superb 'how can i be sure'...

 

only know the number 2 and number 25 songs (recognise band names tho) but i guess this might be more intersting than listening to daytime commercial radio and endless b&s/nelly f/timbaland tunes, which bores me now so much

According to a post on digitalspy, it doesn't look like R1 will be celebrating their 40th.

I think they want to forget their roots, and just remember the past 14 years.

 

R2 will be celebrating both R1 & R2, although i see nothing about R1 in their 40th birthday

celebrations of what's to come.

 

Shocking really that R1 are so willing to completely forget their past...but perhaps

not surprising seeing what they are today.

In September 1987, when Radio 1 was 20 Years, old they

celebrated by getting Gallup to compile the Top 100 Best

Selling UK Singles & Albums, from September 1967 to September

1987.

 

This time, it looks like they will not bother with anything like that.

One problem is that Radio 1 is now 'Ageist' - I hear that their DJ's

are told not to play Records by any Act who is more than 35 Years

old. They make exceptions for Acts who they regard as 'special', like

Madonna, Oasis, (Noel is over 35), & U2.

 

No wonder that they'd see Broadcasting the UK Top 100 Singles &

Albums of the past 40 Years, as beneath them.

 

Instead, I hear that they are getting Acts, whom they do approve of, to

choose a Song each - 1 Year/1 Song per Act - from the past 40 Years,

& for them to Cover it. One Group chose Madonna's 'Crazy For You', when

they picked 1991 for their Year. They seem not to realise that it was a Remix,

& that it had been a Hit for the first time in 1985.

 

I think Radio One is c**p, pretentious, snobby, self important,

& silly, as regards its attitudes to how old an Act is. It should be the

quality of the Music that counts, & not the age of those who record it.

Edited July 14, 200718 yr by zeus555

I think Radio One is c**p, pretentious, snobby, self important,

& silly, as regards its attitudes to how old an Act is. It should be the

quality of the Music that counts, & not the age of those who record it.

 

I totally agree.

 

To give an example you only have to look at the total lack of respect shown by a lot of younger posters on Buzzjack towards Paul McCartney (statistically the World's most successful ever singer/songwriter & arguably the best) when he recently released his critically acclaimed new album because he is not as good as the Pussycat Dolls, JoJo or Rihanna.

 

The majority of them have grown up listening to Radio 1, therefore they regard the likes of The Beatles, the Rolling Stones, The Who, Pink Floyd, David Bowie, Rod Stewart, Genesis/Phil Collins, Paul Weller (Jam/Style Council), Duran Duran, George Michael/Wham!, etc as musical dinosaurs rather than respect their contribution to British popular music.

 

Although for some unknown reason "The Panto Led Zeppelin" © NME 1975, Queen are loved.

 

They've only played Elton John because Fatboy Slim remixed one of his old 1970s tracks, so that made it "cool". Whilst most annoying is the UK Top 40 show where they currently find any excuse they can to play The Fray, My Chemical Romance, Fall Out Boy even if the single has plummeted 16 places down to #39, yet they famously cut short Kate Bush's (arguably Britain's Greatest ever female artist) first single in 13 years in half (King Of The Mountain, Nov 2005) even though it was the highest new entry at #4!

Radio 1 is just a joke nowadays,I never listen to it through choice, and they totally ignore anyone if they are over 40 ish, regardless of talent. They would rather play 20 something talentless c**p.

I don't listen to Radio 1 either now, there's be a cat in hells chance of them playing any Elvis :rolleyes: