The Alternative Jukebox: 500 extraordinary tracks that tell a story of alternative music

by BBC 6 Music

BBC Radio 6 Music is the station for people who are passionate about its award-winning presenters are constantly bringing a wealth of fresh tracks to the airwaves, from both new and established artists.

In this book, BBC Radio 6 Music draws on its pool of knowledge and experience to provide an alternative offering to the mainstream music most radio stations offer, bringing the reader an authoritative guide to 500 alternative classic songs and the stories behind them.

Featuring contributions from the station's most popular DJs and producers, BBC Radio 6 Music's Alternative Jukebox is the perfect route to escaping the mainstream and discovering a world of unforgettable tracks.

Genres: Music, Nonfiction

304 pages, Hardcover

First published November 4, 2014

Reviews

[Chris Charlton · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you have any knowledge or love of music from the last 100 years, then you'll probably have intimate knowledge of 95% of the songs contained within these pages. The small descriptions and back story of each track, however do help shed new light on them and offer a fresh perspective. As well as providing some essential pub quiz answers!
However...the last section of the book is almost unbearable/unlistenable. As someone with a deep love of the last 70 years of pop music, from Buddy Holly to Bjork, the section from 2005 onwards (or pick your own year from roughly around this point) only serves to highlight the embarrassing decline in songwriting since the turn of the millennium.
The contrast and drop off in quality from around this period onwards borders on cringeworthy and makes the last 70 pages or so, if your listening along with the Spotify created playlist, almost painful.
Whilst there are certainly comparisons to be made between the severe drop off in the quality of both music and film since around the same period, 2002-2005, with the saturation and over supply of superhero films at the cinema, in parallel with the banal, unimaginative, same four chords school of songwriting, as both mediums have moved away from being essential outlets for the working class, in terms of storytelling and participation, and fell into the hands of the eternally dull middle classes, and there even duller corporate offspring, with absolutely nothing at all of worth to say, as the ugly and the interesting have been pushed to one side....not to mention the same cycle of the same 12 songs, every hour on every FM station in the UK ( including the obligatory 2 Ed Sheeran songs within that hour....payola being alive and well obviously), so thank God for 6 music, intact.
Both of these mediums are certainty dead or dying, but luckily enough for those that love at least one of these art forms, there is enough digging through the past to be done to last a lifetime, even if nothing if any worth if created from this point onwards. Indeed, 3/4 of this book is a celebration of what we once had and for that period of songwriting at least, I'm grateful.

[Earl DeVere · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not bad, but I did not like the write ups nor the organization as much as I did Steve Taylor's book on Alternative Music. A good addition to your bookshelf if you love Alternative music, but there are better books.

[Steven Pilling · Rating 3 out of 5]

interesting selections.

Pen pictures really but well selected , that said some choices seem almost to be sympathy also some choices for me seem strange but they do remind you of some really great songs, make you want to check out some different stuff and what more can you want