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John Peel’s record collection to be released online

The background music team at Soundnet were very excited to hear that the record collection of John Peel, radio DJ and iconic music legend, is being made available to the general public in an interactive online museum.

Access to the record collection, which includes 25,000 LPs and 40,000 singles, has been granted by Peel’s family and will appear alphabetical order on thespace.org over the following months. At present, music lovers can listen to tracks featured in the A-B section, including A.C.D.C, Adam and the Ants and the B-52s.

Over the course of the next six months, music lovers will be able to get a glimpse into the record collection of one of the pioneers of new music and we’re very interested to see what other gems will be revealed.

Speaking about the release of the record collection, Feargal Sharkey, lead singer of The Undertones, commented:

“John Peel had the most complete, intricate, knowledgeable and experienced record collection anybody in this country has ever put together.

“I’m absolutely delighted it’s intact, preserved and now it’s going to be available to everybody around the world. I think John would be quietly pleased by this.”

Of course, there are a number of songs which will be forever associated with John Peel. His love of The Undertones, Don French and The Quads was well-documented and Peel’s reputation for making new bands famous was legendary. Here are just some of the tracks we expect to see in Peel’s record collection over the next few months. For the record, our favourite track would be The Fall with ‘This Nation’s Saving Grace’:

The Buzzcocks

‘Ever Fallen in Love’ is a favourite track for our background music customers in pubs and bars across the country. Peel was a renowned fan of the band, so we can be certain of seeing a few Buzzcocks tracks over the next few months.

The White Stripes

The documentary, John Peel’s Record Box, discovered a number of tracks from The White Stripes in his collection of favourite music. Out of 130 singles, the Detroit rock band was featured on 11 separate occasions.

The Undertones

Peel’s favourite single was widely known to be ‘Teenage Kicks’ by The Undertones. Indeed, Peel requested to have the lyrics inscribed on his gravestone.

The Beatles

A popular band with our background music customers, Peel included three Beatles’ tracks in his favourite music collection, including ‘Come Together’ and ‘Something’.

Status Quo

Peel’s favourite record collection included two tracks from The Quo; ‘Down Down’ and ‘Night Ride’. There’s a good chance we’ll be seeing an appearance from the long-running UK group over the next few months.

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