At sea with a playlist
Think of the plot as “two turntables and a mixing board meet the Titanic”. Imagine that the Moody Blues are providing the background music for a whole lot of unwanted water. Yes folks, I’ve finally watched Pirate Radio, and I had fun.
Here in Canada, the idea of anchoring a big old boat off the coast and playing records never caught on. Cultural thing, or an overload of coastline; we had normal radio. England, on the other hand, had the Beeb, and rock wasn’t playlisted. Hence, innovation. At least, that’s the storyline of the movie. Actual history tells a slightly different tale, but why quibble with entertainment. Then again, we didn’t have MPs with anal retentive tendencies.
The average listener will fail to notice the anachronisms; after all, only a few of the select among us spent hours in 4th Main, trying to cue the right cut from an album before the previous song ended on the other turntable. For the really young, the idea that music isn’t available in a non-iPod friendly form factor will simply bewilder. Ignore the details; there’s a story here. Love, pharmaceuticals and hip-hop is the natural progression from sex, drugs and rock and roll.
The movie has a wonderful soundtrack, some great winks at early rock movies and a cast of crazies that would be comfortable in any college radio station of the sixties and seventies. There may even be a moral behind the “in your face” attitude. We never learn how the station is powered (the engines were stopped during the visit to the lower deck). We never get “203 Meters” in the North American context (1480 KHz). We never saw a station engineer (no radio station runs without an engineer, believe me). Little matter; this one is a keeper.
