Gone are the days when you pinned your colours to the latest fad, be it glam, prog, metal, power pop, disco or punk - these days listeners have a lot more savvy and are trying many different kinds of music, such as nu-folk (it's just folk really but nu-folk makes it sound cooler). It's the iPod that's done it I reckon...24,000 songs on random mix and you're bound to develop a taste for a wide range of musical styles.
I find all this quite refreshing, a good example being my daughter who is in her mid-twenties and she has a pretty thorough knowledge of the 70's and 80's at least - but that's because I played it to death every day while she was living at home as well! But the point is that she appreciates it and understands where today's bands got their influences from. She knows Muse obviously listened to a lot of Queen; that White Lies heard a lot of Julian Cope and so on - it's evident if you know the original stuff.
So that's where RetroPod comes in - a podcast that caters for an extremely wide range of musical tastes - but all clearly falling into the 'pop music' category. So expect to hear Kylie with Kraftwerk, The Stones with The Smiths, The Nice alongside The Carpenters and Nazareth with Jesus Jones. It's a mix which encompasses my favourite music from the 60s (I was born in 58) right through my most informative years as a schoolboy in the mid 70s, through late 70s disco (when I was a DJ) and onwards into the synth-infused pop of the 80s, the shoegazing 90s and right up to the present day.
In fact I'm still in awe of music today and the podcast includes probably 50% of new material each time. I like to discover non-chart music and still uncover wonderful albums that I think maybe no-one else has heard. Perhaps I should make that available to just a few more people - hey, they might like it and buy it - that's my aim, to spread a little knowledge and love of all things music.
Have you ever heard a track that makes your hair stand on end - even brings tears to your eyes it's so good? That still happens to me and I wonder if the poor unknown bands will go through life with no-one hearing it - it's so criminal! Well RetroPod hopefully will tickle your music taste buds with something you might not try out of your own choice, or even have the time to track down.
So it may be a new album track or single, it could be some obscure forgotten gem from 1963, or a weird B-side that never got a play but was absolutely brilliant, or it just might be a wonderful classic that stands the test of time. Whatever it is, I hope RetroPod Rock provides just a taste of what is 'out there'.
RetroPod Rock is available on www.saintade.podbean.com; iTunes (search RetroPod Rock in the podcasts section of the store), you can download it to your favourite mobile reader saintade.podbean.com/feed or now you can get an app for iPad, iPhone and iPod. Just go to saintade.podbean.com/mobile and click on the 'Qucik Launch' icon to get the free app. By the way - I don't take any money or adverts for these podcasts and never will.
Ade Swatridge
