Dubstar: popDorian live at GLR

The key factor in Dubstar’s success in the 1990s was radio airplay. It’s a remarkable fact, and one I reflect on with awe: every Dubstar single was playlisted at BBC Radio 1…every single one. 

That’s amazing and a testament to the hard work of our plugging team and Andy Ross’s ability to pick singles that work well on the radio. And this popularity persists. Stars, Manic, Anywhere and No More Talk are still regularly played on greatest hits stations across the globe…Stuart Maconie was pronouncing his love for the act on 6music just last Saturday. It’s truly heartwarming to know the act is so fondly remembered. 

Which leads us to this recording from the BBC’s Greater London Radio. I’m not sure but I think this is the first radio session the act performed with Sarah on vocals. It’s a simple setup, guitar, bass, some sequenced strings, all DIed to the DJ’s mixing desk… I’m struck by how well Sarah sings despite her nerves. And how young we both sound.

I’d forgotten we’d performed this drum-less version of popDorian. It works rather well, you can hear the Dub Reggae influences on my bass playing, something that’s rather lost on the version on Disgraceful. It’s amusing you can hear me describing popDorian as an ‘old song’ even though it had only just been released on Disgraceful. In 1995 I was already making a distinction between the tunes that had been written prior to Sarah’s arrival (which was almost all of Disgraceful) and what was coming next.

I’ve included this live recording in the Dubstar archive largely as a curio…a postcard from another era. It’s mad to think that this recording was made more than twenty six years ago. If you’d had asked me in 1995 whether we’d be alive in our fifties I’d have flipped a coin…and not for laughs.

Radio play

It’s interesting how the power of radio has changed over the years. The accepted story is its power has significantly diminished but it’s still the most efficient way to have your music heard by thousands of people who haven’t chosen to listen to you. That’s the key point, I’ll explain…

Everyone who is reading this blog post will have chosen to read it, probably out of interest in Dubstar. If you’re not bothered about Dubstar, you wouldn’t have been drawn in by the title and wouldn’t have persisted this far into the piece. It’s the same with music…unless you’re played on the radio or appear on a popular Spotify list (or your music has gone viral, which of course is the career equivalent of winning the lottery) you’re not growing your audience. You’re simply playing to the converted. And if you’re not converting more people to your act, you’re dying. And for a heritage act, your audience might actually be dying off too.

So despite listener figures consistently dropping for music radio, it’s still the best place to grow an audience and as a songwriter it’s one of the most profitable places for your music to played. You’re not going to pay the rent from Spotify royalties…but if you’re on regular rotation on the BBC you can buy a house*

I remember repeatedly talking about ‘ILR’ during the writing of Make It Better, how our new material had to sound good on ‘Independent Local Radio’ because that was key to a wider audience. I think this may have played on Sarah’s nerves and when you listen back to the album I don’t think I could have gotten the results more wrong. Hey ho… 

A final thought…there’s more to radio play than the quality of your music. The context, the environment in which your music is released is everything: if you’re perceived to be new and bright and young and on the way up AND the BBC is playing you, then you stand a chance of getting on to more playlists. Hopefully all of them countrywide.

And if the company you’re keeping is cool too, then everyone wants to associate with you, because you are the stepping stone to the other cool people. Endorse this act and you yourself are an attractive proposition by association. This is one of the key reasons why it’s so hard for self - financed acts to get radio play. Who endorses you, who wants to stand next to you when you’re essentially David Brent but without the (unintended) irony?

There has to be another way forward, at least in the short term. And that’s onstage. You have to play live to survive.

Want more? You can find the story behind every Dubstar song ever recorded including dozens of unreleased songs right here at Dubstar.com

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