18 things we learned on 6 Music in 2018

It's been a great year for music and to celebrate, on 6 Music Recommends Day (available to listen to until Sat 12 Jan 2019), we play our favourite tracks of 2018.

Here at 6 Music, we've had a huge host of special guests pop into the studio over the last 12 months, treating us to amazing performances, regaling us with fascinating stories, and generally enriching our 2018 experience along the way.

From the guitar riffs that inspired St. Vincent and the artist that impressed Trent Reznor this year to Janelle Monáe's surprise penpal and how 2018 belonged to IDLES, here are 18 things that we learned this year.

To mark National Album Day on 6 Music in October, Chris Hawkins spoke to listener Dom O'Connor, who explained how he ended up on the cover of one of the 90s' most defining albums.

Dom's cameo appearance on the sleeve of Pulp's Different Class in 1995 came about entirely from chance: his brother attended art school with Donald Milne, a photographer who had been working with the Sheffield band. Dom and his wife Sharon were organising their wedding on a shoestring and had asked Donald to take the photos. Initially he was busy, but just three weeks before the big day, Donald said he could after all – if they wouldn’t mind him sneaking in some extra shots.

The concept behind the artwork for Different Class was that cardboard cut-outs of the band's members would feature in different real-life situations. After the real wedding photos had been taken, Dom, Sharon and their guests posed alongside the cardboard versions of Jarvis, Candida, Russell, Nick and Steve. And that was the last they heard of it, until his mum called him up, having seen the album in HMV in Middlesbrough.

"It's a really nice cool thing, so we're happy to have the memory," Dom told Chris. Plus, last year, Jarvis sent them a signed Different Class poster, with the message: "Thanks very much Dom and Sharon for letting us crash your wedding."

Band T-shirts are not just important to fans, but important for the artists themselves. That’s why we celebrate them in all their many forms on 6 Music T-Shirt Day.

But as well as a being bonding experience for fervent music fans across the country, T-Shirt Day also attracts all the celebrity music fanatics. The new Doctor, in her earthly form as Jodie Whittaker, donned a mystical-looking T-shirt in support of ethereal indie trio Daughter, while documentarian extraordinaire Louis Theroux came out representing Arcade Fire, in a tour tee for their fourth album, 2013’s Reflektor.

• Listen back to Jodie Whittaker telling Shaun Keaveny about the new series of Doctor Who

Speaking to Lauren Laverne in June, Trent Reznor proved that music still has the ability to shock and amaze even when you think you've seen it all. "I'm always impressed by excellence," the Nine Inch Nails mastermind said before adding: "I don't know if it's getting older or more cynical... [but] there's fewer times when there's something that really blows you away and I find it inspiring and humbling when that happens."

Childish Gambino's instantly-iconic video for This Is America, though, was one major highlight from 2018 that proved, in Reznor's own words, that "there are still people out there that are trying [new] things." Admitting that he "wasn't that familiar" with Donald Glover’s music (although he thinks his TV show Atlanta is great), Trent went on to say how he was "taken aback by the song, the direction, the idea, the choreography, the multiple layers of depth... I appreciated it being provocative".

St. Vincent is more than a little impressive with an axe, so who better to give us a guitar lesson than the one and only Annie Clark? She's inspired many herself with her intricate shredding, but Annie has plenty of her own guitar heros and in August took us through a guide of the riffs that changed her life.

We learned that the first songs she learned to play on a six-string were Nirvana's Smells Like Teen Spirit or Jethro Tull's Aqualung, while she wishes she had written the opening riff from Pantera's Cowboys From Hell ("I think I ripped off Pantera on the St. Vincent [2014 self-titled] record," Annie admitted).

The riff from Cannonball by The Breeders, though, is one under-appreciated piece of work that Clark thinks we all need to show more love to.

• Watch highlights of The Breeders at The Biggest Weekend

Comedian Romesh Ranganathan really, really loves his hip hop. It all started with teenage epiphany when a copy of Public Enemy’s classic album It Takes A Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back was left at his house.

He told Stuart Maconie: "I couldn’t remember ever hearing anything that sounded like that before in my life… I went headfirst into the whole thing."

Ranganathan now has his own podcast about rap, called Hip Hop Saved My Life, and even used to try his hand at freestyles himself, under the name Ranga. Ultimately, though, he decided comedy was where his real talent lay. "I wasn’t great, but I gave it a go… and I loved hip hop enough to stop. That’s the best thing you can say about it."

In October, Thom Yorke visited the famous Maida Vale studios for a live session for Mary Anne Hobbs. He performed songs from his soundtrack to Luca Guadagnino's remake of classic Italian horror film Suspiria.

With chilling, beautiful renditions of Unmade and Suspirium – the song that plays at the opening and closing of the film – the Radiohead frontman reminded us of the versatile power of his iconic voice as well as his delicate way around the keys. You really don’t need any more than that.

Having broken through with her roles in Wolf Hall and The Crown, Claire Foy has now made it to the Hollywood big-time. In September, she told Tom Ravenscroft all about her role as Neil Armstrong's wife Janet in First Man, the story of the moon landing missions.

We learned that there's more technological power in your smartphone than the craft that landed on the lunar surface, why the first screening gave her palpitations, and why Foy will even consider making "will not go to space" a part of the small print in her contracts.

To mark the 50th anniversary of The White Album by The Beatles, we asked our guests that most fiendish and cruel of questions: what’s your favourite Beatles song?

Unsurprisingly, nobody found it easy. The Anchoress went for Happiness as a Warm Gun ("four songs in one, so I guess it’s kind of cheating”), while Dr Watson himself, Martin Freeman, really couldn't pick just one, such is the breadth and quality of the Fab Four's seminal album.

"It depends on the time of day," Freeman argued. "It depends on my mood, it depends what I’ve been listening to… I’m not gonna. You can’t make me!"

• Listen to Martin Freeman talk about two tracks from The Beatles' White Album

Neneh Cherry has provided inspiration to plenty, but for 6 Music's Hear Her Day, celebrating women’s contribution to music, in June, she revealed one current star that has excited her recently.

"I think my favourite album of the year so far is [Invasion of Privacy by] Cardi B," Neneh told us. "She makes me happy... I like her sound, the attitude of it. It's super relevant and super interesting and refreshing."

• Neneh Cherry, Björk, St. Vincent and more pick the trailblazing women whose music you need to hear

In February, 6 Music celebrated all things NYC with a special 6 Music Loves New York season of programmes. As part of the Big Apple celebrations, we played host to some true hip-hop heroes: RZA and Mathematics from Wu-Tang Clan, who took over the station for two hours, playing rap from across the world and the genres.

RZA explained the creation of C.R.E.A.M from the Wu-Tang’s classic 1993 album Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers). Standing for Cash Rules Everything Around Me, the track is based around a sample of As Long As I’ve Got You by The Charmels, written by Isaac Hayes and David Porter in 1967.

The Wu-Tang leader played the original track and then the Wu take, recalling: "We all just was hanging out in my house and I programmed the track and added some crazy sounds to it... it went on to become one of our biggest songs, the song that took us to the gold level."

• You can listen to The Wu-Tang Clan Radio Show on Mon 31 Dec at 00:00

It's certainly been a memorable year for IDLES. Their second album, Joy As An Act of Resistance, saw them come into their full power, and was crowned 6 Music Recommends' Album of the Year. The Bristol band also topped our T-Shirt Day poll, making them the most-worn band tee among 6 Music listeners.

Throughout the year too, they proved themselves to be the most invigorating, vital and, yes, joy-bringing live band you're likely to see. You can get a flavour of just what they have to offer in their 6 Music Live Room session from August, where they played blistering versions of Colossus and unity anthem Danny Nedelko.

It’s been brewing for a while, but 2018 was an especially stellar year for jazz, with albums from Sons of Kemet and Kamasi Washington making our 6 Music Recommends' Albums of the Year list and giving the genre a completely new sound, drawing from grime, hip hop and dance music to keep it fresh.

In October, lifelong jazz head Gilles Peterson celebrated the rude health of UK jazz with a live special from Maida Vale, with performances from the likes of Joe Armon-Jones, Nubya Garcia, Oscar Jerome, Ishmael Ensemble and one-off collaborations with Fatima, Hak Baker and Gilles' all-star house band.

• Why now is the perfect time to get into jazz

Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer, in-between choosing favourite tracks from the likes of fellow Northern surrealists The Fall and the rather more surprising Jeff Buckley, recalled meeting a young Tom Ravenscroft at a festival back in the early 90s.

Tom's dad John Peel had cornered Vic and Bob, then at the height of comedy-is-the-new-rock-and-roll celebrity, and asked them if they wouldn’t mind coming to say hello to some young fans. "And there were about 17 kids in sleeping bags on the floor, and you were one of them!" laughed Vic. It's safe to say that Tom was a bit taken aback: "How the hell do you remember that?"

• Listen back to Vic and Bob's 6 Music interview in full

In July, Janelle Monáe told Matt Everitt on The First Time about one of her key musical heroes, explaining how she grew up listening to Stevie Wonder. When her debut album The Archandroid was released in 2010, she posted two copies with handwritten letters, one to Prince, and one to Stevie. She would go on to work with Prince, and Stevie replied asking her to play at one of his charity concerts.

"When I got there and did the soundcheck I was nervous because I didn’t know if I’d meet him or not, but all I could hear was someone in the hallway singing my song Tightrope," she recalled. "I turned around and it's Stevie Wonder singing my song, sounding incredible! I just ran over to him and hugged him. He’s been like a mentor to me ever since."

• 6 things we learned about Janelle Monáe from The First Time

Charlie Brooker dropped by to chat to 6 Music's Lauren Laverne about his new book Inside Black Mirror, an oral history of his science fiction anthology series. Lauren pressed him on whether we'd see any more of his TV review series Screenwipe.

With Charlie so busy in his career, Lauren had an idea of how he could spread his workload: get some of his friends in AI to make a clone of him. "I would find that terrifying, because it would clearly be much better than me," Brooker replied. "That would just be really creepy... a tireless and perfect version of yourself."

While sitting in for Steve Lamacq during August, Tom Ravenscroft invented a new game called Dinosaur to Jr, in which he played kids their parents’ favourite tracks to review.

As you can imagine, not every cherished tune made it across the generational gap without damage. Nine-year-old Zach particularly didn't like his mother air-guitaring along to industrial metallers Ministry, while 12-year-old Lia wasn't the biggest fan of Public Image Ltd’s This Is Not a Love Song.

Other parental picks, however, fared better. Clara, six, and Ollie, 10, "really liked" their dad Mark’s choice of Young Fathers and their song In My View, while 11-year-old Whitney Houston fan Maisie was pleasantly surprised by her dad’s choice of Sonic Youth’s 100%, and would even listen again. Job well done!

• Hear what happens when kids review their parents' favourite songs

He's the master of musical darkness, and in June Nick Cave revealed that his melancholic tones come completely naturally. Among the many revelations from our special programme, Nick Cave In His Own Words, was the fact that his vocals have that inherent morose quality without him even trying.

"I seem to have been damned to have a melancholy voice," Cave confessed. "There's no little knob that can get rid of it yet. Maybe one day we’ll be able to make me sound happy on a record."

• 6 undeniable truths about Nick Cave… according to Nick Cave

2019 is fast approaching and, for many, January will be all about looking for new ways to live life to the fullest. To mark Mental Health Awareness Week in May, we looked at the ways that music can help your mind and well-being.

We also heard from surgeon Ramon Tahmassebi, who told Mary Anne Hobbs that music in the hospital benefits both patients and staff. In the operating theatre, it helps focus the surgeon’s mind and "reduces the tension levels". The positive can be applied to patients too: "[Music] can work really well to remove that tension and put them back into a happy place… it can be pretty effective and bring people’s blood pressure down." After all, we can all benefit from the healing quality of music we love.

• 6 things music could do for your mind

• Listen to 6 Music Recommends Day, Thursday 13 December, 10am to 10pm

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