I had a long drive so I decided to give Beats1 a good long listen. If you don’t know me, I’m a radio guy. I got started when I was 16 and worked in the biz for over 40 years, mostly in major markets doing rock, country and pop. I was everything from on air, to production, to programming & management. What follows are some random observations.
The 1st thing you should know is Beats1 calls itself a radio station, even though it is not in the truest sense of the word. And it plays records. Not music, songs or tunes. I’ve heard almost every jock refer to their music as “records”, which is amusing to me because I KNOW they’re not actually playing a piece of vinyl. They’re not records unless it comes on vinyl. I would love to hear their logic on using this outdated term.
Overall production values on Beats1 is very good.....sweepers are crisp and short and lay right into the music mix. Messaging is short and sweet: “worldwide and always on”. Everything flows good, the music beds fit right in, the mix is processed nicely.
As for the jocks, there are several very good main players and some part-timers who are ok. Zane Lowe is in LA and is a head banger, so when he’s on you will get a heavy dose of R&R. Yeah, he’s good. Great delivery. Ebro (pronounced E-bro) Darden is in NYC and when he’s on it’s urban & club music (”We in the street”, he says). Ebro does a “Borough Check” ... which reminds me of John Records Landecker’s Boogie Check. Julie Adenuga (”it’s Ju-Lee”) is in London and when she’s on you’ll hear lots of EDM-influenced British house music (aka noise) and the occasional old school (”Jungle Boogie”-Kool & The Gang). Love her energy and the British accent. I heard a very cool 3-way live hookup with all 3 at the same time...NY, LA & London, with no delay. Cool Factor: 10
The part-timers are not so polished. I listened to a show called “Release” with a male & female host and not once did they say the word release when discussing new music. The word they used, a lot, was “dropped”. Sounded contrived. The male co-host must have discovered an Ethereal Platitude Word Generator because he was talking way out his ass with the weirdest nonsensical metaphysical gibberish. Trying too hard to be cool with words like “titular”. That being said, some of the greatest jocks of all time talked their own brand of shit (Real Don Steele) and it became part of their style, so I get what he’s trying to do. And why must female personalities all sound like a Valley Girl? (“Yeah, fer shur”) It was irritating in the 80′s and even more so now. And I heard one female jock who sounded like she was 13, and scared shitless. That’s understandable. I know its early in the game for Beats1 and I expect things to mature quickly. This is kind of a big fucking deal so I can understand where their energy levels are right now. I have been there.
Now I’m definitely not in the age demo when it comes to the music but I dig a lot of it. (Holy cow, Leon Bridges! I’m a fan now thanks to Beats1) And they’re not afraid to throw in some old school....”Groove Is In The Heart” by Dee Lite, “Poison” by Bell Biv Devoe, “Paint It Black”, Rolling Stones. They are on a tight rotation of about 2 hours with the current hit songs.
I’d say they are off to a good start, except for the 30 minutes of dead air on day 2. And I heard a promo today for a show called Dr. Dre’s Pharmacy. Yeah, I’ll make it a point to catch that. Who knows what I might hear and like. Beats1 has already turned me on to Leon Bridges. Holy crap he’s good.
