A Personal View

As editor of Shakenstir this show for me was a labour of love. I came back to music in the mid-80’s and in a more serious capacity in the mid-90’s. I discovered Jeff Buckley through a hi-fi magazine when looking for new equipment. The particular issue included a list of the magazine’s top fifty albums for both music and sound quality. I decided to acquire all fifty albums as soon as I had bought my new audio setup.

Included amongst the albums was Jeff Buckley’s GRACE. With my new equipment connected, plugged in and ready to roar I went about acquiring those fifty albums. Within weeks I had acquired most of them including GRACE. Since I knew nothing about him it was one of the last I played. There are some events that one remembers with acute clarity; one knows the precise when and where. And so it was with my first play of GRACE which happened to coincide with a tragic personal event.

From my past I remember the excitement and anticipation of Beatles album releases, but always expecting them to be fantastic and so of little real surprise. GRACE was different. I had never heard of the artist and in all honesty did not expect anything fantastic. I cannot remember another album that from its first note stunned me into disbelief. I played it a second time, then a third. It was at the point that ‘Lover, You Should’ve Come Over’ was playing that I received the briefest of phone call advising me of the death of a young friend, a former boyfriend (and still friend) of my daughter. I went back to my study, listened to the song, remembered and wept…

GRACE effectively changed the way I looked at music; it raised my expectations of what great music should be, and forced me back to assess other music I liked. Two years later the opportunity arose to start a music website and I decided that it would feature only the best modern music available (regardless of units shifted). That standard has been set in stone and lays at the heart of our play-list policy for the relatively new Shakenstir FM radio sessions.

2009 has been an excellent year for album releases, probably one of the best years ever. One of the very best was released by a Scottish band called My Latest Novel. DEATHS AND DEPARTURES is an emotional and musical tour de force, but when I attended a live gig here in Wrexham there were pitifully few people present to hear this brilliant album performed live. Despite the band having released two great (and highly acclaimed) albums in just three years, they were only second support to two other (unsigned) acts who were dramatically inferior and yet to release a single album. I wish I could say I was surprised. The album has received no airplay on TV or radio. Leadman Chris made the point that the band’s songs are over 4 minutes long and a little dark so commercial radio stations and the BBC wouldn’t touch it. It struck me that the same thing had happened to Buckley’s GRACE.

I can mention several other great albums released in 2009 that have also been criminally ignored by the broadcast media. Is it any wonder that the Internet is now becoming the first reference point for serious and eclectic music lovers? And the primary marketing tool for quality acts unable to secure airtime so unfairly and unjustly hogged by the most mediocre and radio-friendly music, selected by suits with no idea of quality (and guilty of dramatically underestimating their audience’s ability to descriminate between the mediocre and the great)…

Buckley’s story, personal issues aside, represents a summary of the general state of music broadcasting today. But it can change, it must change.

The good news is that GRACE continues to sell fifteen years after its original release and especially in European countries like France where in 2008 it went Gold, and must have been acquired by many younger music-lovers. Buckley loved playing in France and felt that his finest live performance was at the famous Olympia venue.

Jeff Buckley was one of many great artists who set the standard and will always do so. They drive and inspire us to continue; to improve what we do, and how we do it.

Ed

www.jeffbuckley.com