• Plink-Plonk

Tom Service in his Guardian article today – ‘The five myths about contemporary music’ – referred to a current derisive term for contemporary music, ‘squeaky gate music’.  Does anyone know how long this has been in use? When I was a student, the description ‘plink-plonk’ was the most common, but I don’t know when that started either.* Perhaps someone has already done some research into such terms and their chronology.  I’d love to know more.

Princess Margaret

Thinking about the term ‘plink-plonk’ earlier today, I remembered an incident that occurred when I was working at Radio 3 in the early 1990s.  Each November there is a Festival of Saint Cecilia concert in aid of the Musicians Benevolent Fund.  It is a tradition for a member of the royal family to be guest of honour and to be presented to people involved in the concert beforehand.  I met Princess Anne before the 1991 concert and was also introduced to Princess Margaret the following year (I dug up this photo this afternoon).  I was towards the end of the line and was introduced as the Head of Music at Radio 3.  I bowed obsequiously and crushed her hand.

Princess Margaret, who was the most musical of the royal family, looked me straight in the eye and half-whispered: “Can’t stand it when it’s ‘ding-dong’. Switch off when it’s ‘ding-dong’.”  And with that she moved on.  Only later did it dawn on me that she was referring to ‘plink-plonk’ music on Radio 3.  Perhaps she’d got it muddled up with Leslie Phillips’s famous catchphrase.  By all accounts, she enjoyed a bit of ding-dong herself, as well as gin-gin.  I doubt that she ever drank plonk.

…….

* If you search online for uses of both these terms, they have been appropriated for positive rather than critical purposes:

• www.squeakygate.org.uk is a Cambridge-based charity: ‘Squeaky Gate is an extraordinary and creative charity, empowering people through music and the arts. We deliver a wide programme of live performance, creative training and accredited learning, focusing on producing and performing strong and original work.’
while
• http://www.plinkplonk.co.uk/ is the website of a harp teacher in Tunbridge Wells.