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6 Music to celebrate independent music as pre-lockdown schedule returns
By Chris Cooke | Published on Friday 21 August 2020
BBC 6 Music will mark the station returning to its pre-lockdown schedule next month with a whole day specifically celebrating independent artists, labels, record shops and venues. Schedules will return to normal on 7 Sep, with the State Of Independents Day happening on 10 Sep.
The station says that, on that day, “right across the schedule, from Lauren Laverne’s [breakfast] show through to Marc Riley’s [evening] show, 6 Music will shine a light on the challenges and opportunities currently facing the independent music industry, as a result of the coronavirus pandemic”.
Station boss Samantha Moy adds: “The pandemic has impacted everybody in different ways and, as we return to our pre-lockdown schedule, we’ll be taking the opportunity to reflect on how COVID-19 has impacted the independent music sector and all those who work within it – from venues, to record shops, labels and artists themselves – with our State Of Independents Day”.
All the tracks played by the station on 10 Sep will be from artists who independently release their music or who are signed to independent labels.
Which will be fun for us music industry geeks – as we listen super carefully for music from labels that appear to be independent, but are actually sneaky major label imprints. And around about lunchtime we’ll also instigate a “what does independent even mean?” debate.
But if you want to, you can just listen to all the fine music being played. Or the promised features on how COVID has impacted on indie retailers, indie venues and club culture. Lovely stuff.
Meanwhile, over on BBC Radio 1, September will see the return of ‘Live Lounge Month’, where the regular ‘Live Lounge’ feature takes place every day (well, Monday through Thursday).
Some of that will be re-airing content from the ‘Live Lounge’ archives, though there’ll be new diligently socially distanced performances from Anne-Marie, Arlo Parks, Biffy Clyro, Declan McKenna, Jorja Smith, Little Mix, London Grammar, Miley Cyrus and Yungblud.
