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Nine ways to celebrate BBC Music Day – you won’t believe number six!

By | Published on Thursday 26 September 2019

BBC Music Day

Guys, it’s finally here! Today is BBC Music Day! So don the hat you cut out of this week’s Radio Times and get ready to celebrate! If you’re a fan of music – and unless you’re a major record label executive reading this, I’m going to assume you are – then this is the one day of the year when you get to wear it on your sleeve without fear of repercussions. Your love of music, I mean. Not the Radio Times hat.

We know it can be daunting though, with so much going on. That’s why we’ve put together this quick guide to getting the most out of the next twelve hours…

1. Turn on the radio
All day today selected BBC Radio stations – including Radio 1 and 6 Music – will be playing music. Yes, music! All day! With some talking bits, obviously. But get this, they’ll be talking about MUSIC! Just tune in, listen and let the sound wash over you before they all fall silent tomorrow.

2. Go outside
Want to get involved yourself? Just head outside and get creative. Sing your heart out, click your fingers, stamp your feet, pick up that instrument you haven’t played since you were twelve and wave it around above your head, and then bang on a bin with a discarded shoe. There are no limits to the ways you can go about making some music. One of the thousands of roving BBC broadcast vans that are driving aimlessly around the country today will eventually stop and transmit your talents to the world.

3. Mourn ‘Top Of The Pops’
Remember when we all used to watch ‘Top Of The Pops’ on a Thursday evening? That was good, wasn’t it? And if you’re remembering watching it on a Friday evening or Sunday teatime, you’re a liar. No one watch ‘TOTP’ after 1996.

4. Call in sick
For those of with nine-to-five jobs, it can be all too easy to see your BBC Music Day slip away before you while you’ve got your head buried in a spreadsheet or you’re busy sobbing in a toilet. It doesn’t have to be that way though! Just phone your boss and croak these words: “OH FUCK, MY HEAD, MAKE IT STOP”. With a duvet day secured, you can then enjoy BBC Music Day as the musical gods intended, glued in to BBC telly from dawn till dusk. Best of all, you’ll get to watch special editions of the daytime TV shows you’ve not seen since you were a student, all with guest pop stars involved. Tune in to ‘Heir Hunters’, where Harry Styles discovers he’s the sole beneficiary of a long-lost uncle’s fortune and just spaffs it all on a really over-priced hat. Exciting times. Kind of wish I’d told you about all this before you were actually at work.

5. Nile Rodgers
Nile Rodgers

6. Stay inside
Because it’s the BBC’s Music Day, most of the stuff happening takes place on a telly set or wireless, and those tend to be in your house. Unless they’re not in your house, I suppose. Do people still listen to the radio in the car? Oh, and you can access all those BBC things on a smartphone now can’t you! So fuck staying inside, head out to the park and fire up the BBC Sounds app right now! But not the BBC Radio Player app. That’s dead.

7. Get the kids involved
There are loads of opportunities for children to be part of the action today, including getting involved with the CBBC Fuzz Band. Just download the BBC Fuzz app and record your little ones banging, screaming and demanding juice. The app will automatically add layers of distortion and then combine it with every other uploaded recording. The resulting noise will be used to scare unruly teenagers away from Jeremy Vine’s Merc.

8. Say ‘John Peel’ three times into a mirror
Legend has it that if you stare into a mirror and say ‘John Peel’ three times on BBC Music Day, the great man himself will appear and set your record player to the wrong speed. If you don’t have a record player, don’t worry, he’ll just kill you with a hook.

9. Take the bus
All buses in Manchester today will be driven by former members of The Fall.

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