Radio 1 Playlist

[TheSaviourisHere 2]

Hi all. Now this is going to sound like a big old moan maybe it is just me getting old  I'm only 28 but is it just me or does Radio 1 play too much 1Xtra stuff? It just seems every couple of songs it's Drake or something from there playlist. It is not my genre at all but I'm glad they play it as I love how diverse the R1 playlist has always been one of the reasons why I LOVE this station always playing the freshest new stuff from all genres but now 1Xtra just dominates it. I'm a family man now with 4 children whom all LOVE music. I really want my 8yr old lad to be into R1 like I was he loves some of the content already but I've found myself tuning to the new station Hits Radio to get away from the irritation sounds of the R1 playlist at times. Didn't want to just feel it's time for Mr Cooper and the playlist department to look at it again. Rant over sorry. What's everyone's thoughts?

[Fourcandles 4]

As a 22 year old, and a secondary teacher so I work with teenagers, I quite like it. It's what is in the charts now and what I normally listen to. I prefer it to all the pop stuff they used to play and one direction personally. It's like when a few years ago there was loads of dance music on the playlist, it's just got to reflect what's one trend. It'll probably change again in the next couple of years!

[TheSaviourisHere 2]

Fair point. Can't help but feel the Chart is fixed at times. 

[Marcus17 5]

I get what you mean. I listen to The Official Chart show every Friday religiously and over the last year especially it has become dominated by music you'd hear on 1Xtra. I'm 19 and I'm not a big fan of rap as a genre on the whole so it's nothing to do with age, people just have different tastes in music. The chart is definitely not fixed, but now they include streaming and video plays in the charts I think it's safe to say that rap's not going anywhere for the time being. As long as young people are listening to it, it'll be in the R1 playlist.

[TheSaviourisHere 2]

I retract my comments on the Chart being fixed don't know why I said that. Lifelong fan of the show

[Tea20 7]

I've said a few times on this forum about the playlist being to 1xtra-like in the past couple of years. You can really hear the difference if you listen back to some older shows - much more indie and pop being played in the past and more rap currently. However I think it comes in waves, there have been periods in the past 12 months when the playlist is dominated by 1xtra type stuff and and at other times there's been less rap and more indie. Even around 2011/2012 the dominant genre would change quite a bit from month to month (I remember it being very dance heavy at one point).

[Ant L 51]

I think the playlist does tend to lean more towards R&B, hip-hop and the like at times, but a lot of pop at the moment falls into those categories so it's just a reflection of what's popular at the moment.

My only complaint is that songs tend to stick around on the playlist a LITTLE too long. Human by Rag'n'Bone Man quickly comes to mind. Or Jackie Chan by Tiesto. Absolutely destroyed.

[LSR1 19]

53 minutes ago, Ant L said:

My only complaint is that songs tend to stick around on the playlist a LITTLE too long. Human by Rag'n'Bone Man quickly comes to mind. Or Jackie Chan by Tiesto. Absolutely destroyed.

That’s probably just to reflect what is still doing well in the charts nowadays. 5/6 years ago there was a much faster-moving chart making room for more singles. Now it takes a longer time for songs to make it to the higher end of the top 40, meaning a lot of songs, like Jackie Chan at the moment, stay in the playlist purely because there isn’t a song that’s more popular to replace it.

[OohErr 231]

The stangnance of the chart probably goes a little way to explaining the shift in music policy towards older stuff - its either that or play the same chart songs every few hours for months on end. They definitely play more recurrents from the last five years or so per hour than they used to, as well as the random Greatest Hits songs they throw in as well.

[Marcus17 5]

There's an interesting article I was reading not too long ago about playlists (A/B/C list, BBC Introducing etc) and also how they playlist older songs into "Recurrent",  "Silver" and "Gold" lists. Worth a read (if you haven't already seen it) for anyone interested. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/1jJsyK6Vt5x3JQgycD9xhdW/heres-how-your-favourite-music-makes-it-to-the-radio-1-playlist

[vorti 4]

On 8/17/2018 at 5:18 AM, TheSaviourisHere said:

is it just me or does Radio 1 play too much 1Xtra stuff?

Not just you, this angsty "rap" (they're not rapping, but I don't have a better word for it) is the current trend, but this won't last forever. Just like dubstep (WHOOOOOOOOOOOOoooooo...!) around 2012. It was everywhere, people kept complaining about it (It's just noise!), and now it's gone, merged into pop.

What I don't understand in this is 1xtra's role. It supposed to be all about these trendy songs, so R1 playlist could have more variety. But instead of promoting 1xtra ("Hey kiddo, if you're a fan of JuiceWrld, Tyga or Lil'WHOevr, there's a whole station waiting for ya!"), they just playing the same stuff and simulcasting every single night.

And I'm not hating on the trend here, I like some of these songs, just like I did like dubstep (more or less), but less popular stuff and more variety has always been a huge part of R1's image.