To be terminally disappointed with Desert Island Discs

[Jemima232]

………. because the music people choose is so awful these days.

I used to enjoy it but I don't bother listening any more.

I don't really listen to it for the music. For me, it's all about the person, their experiences, their story. I heard John Cooper Clarke this morning and absolutely loved hearing him speak. Charming and so funny.

I got out of the habit of listening to it for other reasons. What kind of music is pissing you off, or what's missing? When I do catch a bit it sounds pretty much like it always did.

I listen when I'm working from home (like today) but turn it off pretty quickly unless its an interesting person, or who has interesting music. Continual selections of pop music bores me.

For me, it's the choice of music. Nobody nowadays seems able to choose anything other than pop music.

People used to choose eight pieces of classical music and I found their choices fascinating, and their reasons for choosing what they did.

Don't people listen to much classical music these days? Roy Plomley would have a fit at some of the rubbish picked by today's castaways.

Why should they choose classical music? The vast majority of people never listen to it. Why would you expect the people on DID to be different?

DID started in 1942. Are you expecting it to be like that, where only people who went to public school and went to classical concerts were interviewed?

It's pure snobbery.

Why should they choose classical music

Because pop music is trite and meaningless.

you can listen to all the episodes on the archive. I am doing this and finding some of the older ones quite fascinating.

And it utterly crass to dismiss pop music as 'trite and meaningless'. I cannot stand music snobbery. Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it doesn't have an emotional effect on someone else.

I do like some pop music.

I would struggle to find eight pieces of it to accompany me on a trip to a desert island, though.

Try private passions on radio 3, the guests and music choices are far more interesting.

That’s the difference between DID on R4 and Private Passions on R3.

In the former the music is only background to the life story. And it’s often the case that single minded, high achieving interviewees have surprisingly banal musical tastes, presumably because they haven’t had time to develop an informed interest.

If you want more unusual/eclectic music chosen by interviewees with more developed musical tastes - you want the latter programme.

Because pop music is trite and meaningless

Some is, much of it is not. It depends how intelligently you choose the artists you listen to.

And surely the whole point of Desert Island Discs was that it was like the Proustian madeleine, where the music conjured up a memory. For many of us, the music that will bring back a memory of our youth will be pop music - or rock, or country, or rap, or whatever. It's not up to you to police people's experiences.

Are you Elisabeth Schwartzkopf the opera singer who chose eight of her own recordings?
www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/3SWpZzL7yTCqVWhq7TcsGYr/eight-of-the-most-unexpected-moments-from-desert-island-discs

You can listen to all the episodes on the archive

And I do.

But I suppose it's me. Forever disappointed by the guests' choices.

Am I just getting old?

Jeez, no. I'm not Elisabeth Schwartzkopf.

How old are you? You sound quite narrow-minded and with a limited knowledge of non-classical music.

I very much doubt it's your age. I'm knocking on 70 and have a keen appreciation of current "trite and meaningless" pop music.

i like (some) of Stormzy ( most of) Ragnbone Man and all of Gregory Porter.

You sound hidebound, elitist, and lacking in imagination.

I love classical and pop. Don't be such a music snob

You want Private Passions on R3. Interviewees do talk about their interesting lives but are also selected to talk about their choices of classical music and how they became interested in those particular choices in some depth. And you get much longer extracts of the pieces.

Until recently didnt even realise this was still going TBH!.My friend listens to it a lot .May give it a go when not on Mumsnet!

The worst ever was Zaha Hadid. You could tell she just had no interest in music, and had just chosen random songs. She picked one by Drake, for pity's sake!

I suspect that Desert Island Discs is approached by many of the guests as a PR exercise, so they pick things that they/their team think will fit in with the 'brand message'.

It definitely sounds far more scripted (and stilted) than Private Passions, where the guests genuinely sound like they've heard the music before and actually like it.

I'm a card carrying culture vulture and a lot of classical music is grim. I'd rather some Aretha Franklin than horrible, banal Elgar. I'd choose Queen over Smetana's Bartered Bride. The Beatles over Pachabel's canon. Conversely I love Thomas Adès and Jonathan Dove and James Macmillan but I know most people wouldn't enjoy them either. And don't get me started on Wagner, I happily will sit through hours of the Ring or Meistersinger but I know plenty of people would be bored silly.