For the love of Cliff

The radio station Absolute 60's have decided that it is not going to play any songs by Cliff Richard as it doesn't suit their listener demographic (i.e. he's not cool) Cool is a difficult thing to measure, one man’s cool is another man’s steaming pile of dog turd. Does cool equal good?

It is also difficult to group anything together as good by merely a decade, but I would suggest that most people who love music from the 1960's would have a soft spot for the Bachelor Boy. I'm not demanding wall to wall playing of “Living Doll”, in the same way the constant broadcast of any artist would rapidly become tiresome (but no doubt they'll play a Beatles track every half-hour). To omit such an important artist seems foolish; show some respect for his influence and longevity as an artist.

It's worth remembering that in terms of British music; no Cliff, no no one. All those trail blazing British artists of the sixties from The Beatles to the Rolling Stones via The Who and The Kinks quote Cliff Richard and the Shadows (especially) as hugely influential. If we remove those four pillars of Great British pop-rock then not only is there no British music then there's little else worldwide. Consequently who knows what music would be like today without Cliff and his influence. I would argue that irrespective of age everyone loves at least one Cliff song?

I'm sure Cliff sunning himself on his Caribbean island couldn't give a flying toss? But I hate these public declarations of an introduction of musical sanction against an artist, just like Radio 1 with Status Quo in the Brit-pop heyday. If a band or artist no longer fit your stations musical brief, just don't play 'em, quietly remove them from the play lists, but don't make such a fuss. There is no need to stand there and say “We WILL NOT play records by Cliff Richard” when nobody had noticed that you weren't playing them in the first place. Does Absolute 80's also make a stand saying “We WILL NOT play records by Shaking Stephens!”?

It's just an example of publicity generation by a radio station no one was really aware of in the first place*.

I have always felt that commercial radio is in the main the sanctuary of imbeciles, both in presenters and listeners (but especially presenters). Would I have listened, irrespective of their anti-Cliff stance, no. Because I don't desire a station with such a narrow brief and the presenters are probably all dicks!

* Further investigation reveals that the station doesn't launch until the 22^nd November, so as thought just an attempt to generate some publicity.