Selling the Sixties: The Pirates and Pop Music Radio

Was it a non-stop psychedelic party or was there more to pirate radio in the sixties than hedonism and hip radicalism? Selling the Sixties examines the development of offshore pirate radio in Britain, challenging the myths surrounding its maverick Kings Road’ image, and separating popularist consumerism from the economic and political machinations which were the flipside of the pirate phenomenon. Robert Chapman analyses pirate radio and its legacy in the shape of two contrasting models of unauthorised pop radio: Radio Carolines and London. He situates these influential stations in their social and cultural contexts, and frames them in an examinationof the growth of European and American commercial radio. Chapman also examines the boom in pirate stations in the of the BBC’s reluctance to respond to consmer demand, and its eventual adoption and assimilationof aspects of unoffical pop radio into its own pop service, Radio One. This fascinating look at the place of unauthorized braodcasting in sixties subculture brings to light previously unseen evidence from the pirates’ archives and makes use of revealing interviews with those directly involved plus an unrivalled selection of rare audio materials.