Technology and you

It seems amazing that we’re fast approaching the halfway mark to this landmark series and with each passing week we continue to be amazed at how music marks collective experiences in our nation’s history as well as touching us in incredibly deep ways. And to allow you to journey further into these stories we’ve just added a set of profiles of the songs featured in the show, filled with facts, extra links and clips about the songs and the artists who recorded them.

Meanwhile, last week’s show focussed on the way British Electronica mirrored how our vision of the future had changed in two decades, from the optimistic strains of Joe Meek’s ‘Telstar’(1962) to the doomy repetition of Tubeway Army’s ‘Are ‘Friends’ Electric?’ (1979). Yet while the overall mood of Gary Numan’s dystopian song may be sombre, it had a profound effect on one eight-year old who left this rather wonderful (and passionate) Audioboo for us:

This week our show’s all about the rise of the ‘I’ word in the way in which we listen to, consume and express our (dis)approval of music: yes, the internet. It uses the Arctic Monkeys as an early example of how music now longer needs the traditional models of big record company promotion, heavy radio airplay or even an appearance on Top of the Pops to reach a huge audience. More often than not the songs that gain commercial and audience approval will reach us via online channels, from fan sites to Youtube. Here’s Graham, a contributor from this week’s show talking about this change in the way artists grab our attention in a post-web age: