Following the recent anniversary of broadcasting legend John Peel’s death, voting has now opened in the official 2011 Festive Fifty, John Peel’s legendary end-of-year listeners poll at www.dandelionradio.com.
A broadcasting institution for 35 years, the Festive Fifty has been hosted by Internet station Dandelion Radio since 2006, when Peel’s former BBC production team asked them to continue it following his sad death in 2004. The winner will be revealed in a co-hosted countdown show repeating daily from Christmas Day until the end of January.
Helping with this year’s Festive Fifty will be new DJ Mark Coles, the award-winning former BBC Radio 4 and World Service presenter whose first show on Dandelion Radio plays in November’s schedule. Mark said: “As a kid, John Peel was my hero and my mentor into a whole new world of music. I’m honoured to be on a station dedicated to him, particularly in the month which sees the launch of the annual Festive Fifty vote. It only feels like yesterday that I was sat wondering how many Joy Division tracks would be in the final fifty… whether ‘Atmosphere’ or ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’ would be number one.”
Acts topping the Festive Fifty in recent years include Battleswith the very worthy ‘Atlas’ in 2007, and John’s favourite band of all time, The Fallin 2008 with the epic ’50 Year Old Man’. Voters pick their three favourite tracks of the past year. These could be singles, downloads, album tracks, or session recordings featured on Dandelion Radio. Each voter will be entered into a prize draw to win CDs and John Peel related books.
Voting is open now at www.dandelionradio.com until 30 November. This year, the promotion of the poll is being jointly promoted by Dandelion Radio and music websites SoundsXP (www.soundsxp.com) and l’Apartament18 (http://apartament18.wordpress.com).
