BBC Radiophonic Workshop: A Retrospective

33⅓ Main Series #173

by William L. Weir

In 1958, an anonymous group of overworked and under-budgeted BBC employees set out to make some new sounds for radio and TV. They ended up changing the course of 20th-century music. For millions of people, the work of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop was the first electronic music they had ever heard. Sampling, loops, and the earliest synthesizers-long before audiences knew what they were-made up the groundbreaking scores for news programs, auto maintenance shows, and children's programming. They also produced the Doctor Who theme, one of the first electronic music masterpieces.

The Beatles, Pink Floyd, and others borrowed from them. A generation of musicians raised on BBC programming-Aphex Twin, Portishead, and Prodigy among them-took these once-alien sounds and carried on the Workshop's legacy. Ignored for decades by music historians, the Workshop is now recognized as one of the most influential forebears of electronica, psychedelia, ambient music, and synth-pop.

Genres: Music, Nonfiction, History

176 pages, Paperback

First published May 4, 2023

Reviews

[Alex Sarll]

I spent a fair chunk of this wondering whether Weir had made a deliberate choice to avoid the too-obvious word 'boffin', before his presentation of 'redundancies' as a bit of local colour when discussing the Workshop's 1998 dissolution made me realise that he's from the other side of the fishpond, where it doesn't tend to be a word they use. Still, make no mistake, this is absolutely a book about boffins, people with an amazing gift for making unearthly noises that could blur (or eat up) the distinction between sound effects and music out of equipment never intended for the purpose: lampshades, bottles, oscillators. Hell, even the magnetic tape they manipulated so expertly, sometimes stretching it out along what they described as the longest corridor in London, turns out originally to have been a byproduct of the tobacco industry, with duck-hunting and Nazism also playing key roles in its transition to the defining medium of the twentieth century's latter half. But as well as marvelling at the technological resourcefulness (and Weir freely admits that his interest wanes once the Workshop moves from tape experiments to synthesisers), the book prods at all sorts of wider cultural issues. Such as, what does it mean that rather than operating within the music industry template, the Radiophonic Workshop were a department (albeit an oddball one) within a bureaucratic organisation, employees gossiping about colleagues and management rather than idols smashing up hotel rooms? And, related to that, for all that co-founder Daphne Oram resented the Workshop's subordination to programme-making, having initially hoped the BBC would create a free-standing high art experimental music facility similar to what was happening in Paris and Cologne, wasn't it really much more interesting, not to mention influential, that all these crazy, impossible sounds were sneaking into TV and radio shows across the spectrum, such that whatever people were watching or listening to, they – and even more importantly, their children, who would go on to make Britain the world capital of synthpop – were being exposed to experimental composition that would never have had anything like the same audience were it presented as a thing in itself? Which, of course, it subsequently was on this album, and Weir is aware that he's slightly cheating on the 33 1/3 remit there. But it's resulted in a sufficiently fascinating and fun entry in the series that I think he can be forgiven that. Sadly, in his discussion of the Workshop's most famous achievement, though he is quite correctly awestruck by the Doctor Who theme and how perfectly the TARDIS sound evokes a space-time machine, he does trot out some hoary lines about the supposed shoddiness of the rest of the show, and that is a far graver offence.

[Jazza1971 · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although this book is loosely about the album "A Retrospective", it is really about the history of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop and it's influence on electronic music.
The research and writing on the music side of things is impressive and makes for a goof read.
Where this book falls down however is when the author strays away from commenting on things musical and makes statements about life in the UK/Britain.
For a start he seems to think that UK=England and frequently will refer to the country as England when he is actually refering to the United Kingdom as a whole. This would be like someone continually refering to the USA as Utah or New York.
At one point he claims that the "National Loaf" - a lower substitute for normal bread that was produced during WW2 due to a shortage of raw materials - made a come back during Covid. As someone who lives in the UK this came as rather a surprise to me. A quick Google check came up with a single article on NBC which had an interview with a Scottish Baker who used some of the elements of this loaf during Covid to make bread, but crucially added elements to make it more edible. So not quite the same thing, and I can tell you the usual bread was available as normal during this time, although maybe not in the same quantities.
Simirlarly he states that the WW2 air raid sirens were kept operative after the war to alert people to get to fallout shelters. Utter nonsense - the handful of such shelters in the UK were for government officials in the case of nuclear war. The air raid sirens were kept in some areas for a variety of reasons such as warnings of floods, etc. In my area they used to use it to call out the reserved fire brigade before the use of pagers became widespread.
He also states that in 1962 that Coventry Cathedral was "officially declared restored", which rather misses the point. Coventry Cathedral, along with the city itself, took a heavy battering from German bombing. The cathedral was destroyed. In 1962 a new Cathedral was opened sitting next to the ruined shell of the former one.
These points make you realise the person writing doesn't have a full grasp of the place he is writing about and it highlights how little research he has done with anything not related to the music (none of these point I mention have citations, whereas there are numerous relating to his writing on the music). As a result I had to mark the book down.

[RA · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent historical overview of the creation, maintenance, and influence of the legendary BBC Radiophonic Workshop, one of the most influential parts of 20th-Century music (and culture).

The author presents a chronological look at the Workshop, with details about the various members who cycled through, with personal details & stories. He does a very good job of tying the influence of the Workshop to wider British culture, to budding & "current" musicians (at the time of the Workshop's output), and to musicians in other countries.

This book creates a desire to search for the works of some members of the Workshop: Daphne Oram & Delia Derbyshire being the most notable.

[Rich · Rating 5 out of 5]

I knew nothing about the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, and kind of wrote this book off as just another boring exploration of a long ago set of science nerds who made music, and i was right about all of it except the boring part! This book was great and moved quickly. The innovative ways the music was made and the impact it had was engrossing to read about. The influence they had on electronic music (Brian Eno!!!) cannot be understated. An excellent addition to the series.

[Nathan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Opening up, I thought the story here began well. I expected it at a certain point to take a twist, but I was enjoying the discussion on the earliest developments of electronic music, particularly as it involved the everything and the kitchen sink method. But, as it progressed, it sort of delved into a bunch of hearsay and oral history from those that spent time there, but didn't really add much to to where it began, so my interest certainly waned in the latter stage of the book.

[Dennis Seese · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an excellent look at the creativity people are capable of when they have to improvise and adapt.
If you love electronic music, sound design or the history of radio...this is for you.
Very well-written history of the madcap visionaries who willed the BBC's Radiophonic Workshop into existence and changed the course of both popular and highbrow music.

[Lily Middleton · Rating 5 out of 5]

My Dad gave me this book as he's a big fan of synthesisers and electronic music generally. I have to admit I expected to find it a little dry, but it was so brilliantly written. Engaging, intriguing, and full of remarkable facts about the BBC Radiophonic Workshop.

[Camiel Leake]

Really enjoyed this!

[Megan · Rating 5 out of 5]

my fav 33 1/3 book so far. such good insights into the technology, the culture, and the legacy of the radiophonic workshop. fun little anecdotes. left me feeling inspired 😇