The Voice Of Pop was a radio programme, first broadcast on BBC Radio One on 21 September 1968, about pop music and censorship and presented by John Peel. The programme looked into questions whether pop music is a purely commercial phenomenon, do lyrics really matter, and should certain songs be banned.
Peel also talked to guests about the subject including:
- Marc Bolan (Tyrannosaurus Rex)
- Mick Farren (Deviants)
- Mick Jagger (Rolling Stones)
- Alan Keen (previous musical director of Radio London)
- Barry Mason (who with Les Reed composed some of the biggest pop ballad hits of the late 1960s for artists like Englebert Humperdinck, and was also briefly a Radio 1 DJ))
- Tim Rose
- Robin Scott(2) (controller of BBC Radio One and Two)
- Clive Selwood (record company executive)
The programme was followed by a discussion of the issues between George Melly, Pete Murray and Gillian Reynolds.
A review in the Listener of 26 September 1968 said the programme "had the great advantage of being compiled and presented by one of the best of Radio-1's team of disc-jockeys, John Peel", but "the slightly pretentious discussion which followed the programme added little".
The Listener printed some extracts in its "Out Of The Air" column in the issue of 7 November 1968 (p. 610). Mick Farren claimed that "Pop music is probably the last free medium" and that "Until now...it's been very easy to ignore the lyrics of pop songs, but with the arrival of the Thugs [sic; actually the Fugs] that has all changed..." Robin Scott (2) is quoted at length on the BBC's attitude to songs which refer to drugs and explains why the Beatles' "A Day In The Life" was "officially not played, or banned if you like". However, no recording of the complete show is known to exist,