5 Peelisms that still inspire today

From constant curiosity to challenging the status quo, discover how the John Peel Lectures have celebrated his legacy.

Curiosity fuelled Iggy Pop’s early interest in music, leading him to learn how to play an instrument and discover the blues:

“I worked in a discount record store in Ann Arbour as a stock boy where I was exposed to a little bit of every form of music imaginable on record at the time. I listened to it all whether I liked it or not. Be curious.” – Iggy Pop, 2014

In his inaugural Peel Lecture, Pete Townshend described a "John Peel moment" as playing and supporting music even when there was poor public feedback.

“How many people went as crazy for the Proclaimers, or the Undertones or the Jesus and Mary Chain when John first played them on his show? I got to really love those three artists but when he first played them I didn’t quite get it. It took me time. It sometimes takes time.”
- Pete Townshend, 2011

“John Peel was all about access and allowing people on the radio… In doing so made a career in music accessible for generations of young artists who would otherwise have struggled in the mainstream.”
– Billy Bragg, 2012

By featuring new and unfamiliar artists he helped audiences discover new music.

Billy Bragg heard the Sex Pistols for the first time in 1976 when he tuned in to listen to the Northumbrian folk band High Level Ranters.

“I doubt any one else was playing the Sex Pistols on Radio 1 but the really significant thing was that no one else was playing the High Level Ranters either.”

For a teenaged Mary Anne Hobbs,

“He was standing at the gateway to an alternate universe. It was a universe I wanted to live in.”

In his championing of radical new music he ultimately changed the landscape of British music, bringing punk, reggae, hip-hop and house to the mainstream.

Charlotte Church embodied this questioning spirit during her lecture where she challenged the music industry's practices:

"When the male perspective is the dominant one, the end point is women being coerced into sexually demonstrative behaviour in order to hold on to their careers.”
- Charlotte Church, 2013