The late BBC Radio 1 DJ John Peel was perhaps the ultimate music tastemaker. For the better part of his incredible career that spanned over five decades, Peel championed new music from various genres from all over the world. A few years before his death I had the pleasure of interviewing Peel, and his passion for everything from obscure acid house tracks to death metal was as infectious during our lengthy phone chat as it was on his radio show. Peel died in 2004 after suffering a heart attack in Peru in 2004, but his legacy lives on as his massive record collection — which is rumored to exceed 100,000 records — is being made public.
Starting today, music fans can log onto John Peel’s Record Archive and use a nifty user interface to literally thumb through Peel’s vinyl, using Spotify to listen to his tunes.
While only a small portion of his collection is currently available for streaming, more tunes — and hopefully his coveted Peel Sessions — will be coming online in the near future. Knowing Peel’s unbridled thirst for sharing music, this sort of technological feat would’ve made him quite happy.