Observation: The music played on Sounds of the 70s on Radio 2 isn't what it was when Johnnie Walker was in the chair.
Hunch: Bob Harris is playing older, guitarrier records.
Hypothesis: He plays more records from the first half of the 1970s than the second half.
Research: I went back to the oldest Sounds of the 70s still on BBC Sounds, listed all the records played and noted down their year of release. Songs included Metal Guru by T Rex (1972), Hotel California by The Eagles (1977) and Top Of The World by The Carpenters (1973).
Method: I looked up all the records in the Guinness Book of Hit Singles to see when they first charted. If they weren't hit singles I checked their release date using Google and Wikipedia.
Analysis: 20 records were played. 11 were from the first half of the 1970s. That's 55%, a slight majority.
Interpretation: Actually that's a lot of mid-70s. 16 of the 20 records were from 1972-1977, i.e. 80%. The start and finish of the decade barely got a look in.
Supposition: Bob Harris was the host of the Old Grey Whistle Test from 1972 to 1978. Maybe he's biased towards that period.
Further research: Obviously it makes sense to gather more data. Five shows are available on BBC Sounds. Best get data from all of them.
Overview: That might be more balanced. I should tally up all the years and draw a graph.
Insight: OK that's really quite well spread out. 102 songs were played so you'd expect ten songs from every year, and in fact every year falls within the range 10±2.
Verdict: There is no significant disparity in the years represented. It seems the producers of the show are trying to be pretty balanced.
BUT: What I did notice while compiling the data is that 41 of the songs played weren't in the Guinness Book of Hit Singles. That's 40% of the total. That's a very high proportion not to have been UK hit singles.
Conclusion: Bob Harris is playing a lot of album tracks (and US hit singles). That'll be be why I'm enjoying the music less.
Only 29% of the records are from the first half of the 1960s.
71% of the records are from the second half of the 1960s.
Perhaps they should rename it Sounds Of The Late 60s.
Further observations:
» Half the records are from 1965, 1966 or 1967.
» 1962 barely gets a look in. On average you'd expect 16 records from that year but there were only three.
» They say English pop music only really sprang to life with the Beatles at the end of 1962. Five-sixths of the records played are from 1963 onwards. That's probably a good thing.
» Tony Blackburn played 164 records in a month compared to Bob Harris's 102. That's 16 records an hour rather than ten. It helps that 60s songs were shorter. It also suggests Tony talks less.
» About one in six of the records are soul/Motown because Tony loves that.
» These are properly old records. 1965 is now sixty years ago (tell me about it). They're still great records though.
» Obviously the records played included Flowers In The Rain and It's Not Unusual because they get played more regularly than anything else.
» In the last month Tony played more 1961 records than Bob played 1979 records.
» I wonder if Greg James will be hosting Sounds of the 10s in forty years time.
Datasets for future consideration
• The chronological spread of Radio 3's Composer of the Week
• The geographical spread of locations for a) Any Questions b) Gardener's Question Time
• The work schedules of the Radio 4 Today Programme presenters
• The balance of history to science and culture on In Our Time
• How often the same adverts come round on Greatest Hits Radio
• How long since Smooth Radio last played True by Spandau Ballet
• Locations for Radio 3's Choral Evensong
• The most played games on I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue
• The proportion of successful challenges that are hesitation, repetition and deviation.
• The average score on The Easiest Quiz On The Radio
• Frequency of Radcliffe & Maconie interstitials
Observation: The music played on Sounds of the 70s on Radio 2 isn't what it was when Johnnie Walker was in the chair.
