Music is a great leveller – but can this Commonwealth-themed playlist convince the British public that Charles is one of us?
A playlist fit for a King! The nation is rejoicing this morning as we have been granted a selection of songs with the royal stamp of approval.
The King’s Music Room, available now on Apple Music, is a one-hour radio show hosted by Charles himself and containing a variety of music that, as he puts it, “lifts our spirits” and “brings us joy” to celebrate Commonwealth Day.
The humble playlist is no stranger to politicisation – former US President Barack Obama has released one annually for years – and while the King does not directly involve himself in political matters, he does need to send a message, keep people happy, and bolster his own personal brand. Not least because that personal brand is synonymous with the nation.
So how does the playlist stack up?
Well, it goes without saying that the reigning monarch’s choice of songs from various former British colonies won’t please everyone. But it’s also clear that his playlist has been put together with every sensitivity in mind. It’s comprehensive, inclusive, light-hearted and joyful.
He opens with Bob Marley’s “Could You Be Loved” and stays in Jamaica for Millie Small’s “My Boy Lollipop” before taking us to Africa, India, Australia and New Zealand with a couple of Brits thrown in along the way.
The King is hardly going to have the accessible relatability of Nick Grimshaw, but there is something about the presence of music that levels things out.
Charles gives a bit of background to each song, throwing a personal anecdote in if he has one (such as meeting the prime minister of Ghana at Balmoral aged eight) – but mostly his interjections are comforting in an archaic sort of way, like the shipping forecast.
But then some of the words sound so wrong coming from his mouth that we are reminded all of this is very much a PR exercise – among them “Afrobeats”, “Beyoncé” and “Hot Hot Hot” (the latter, by Montserratian artist Arrow, an undeniable banger). Although some of the songs – like “The Very Thought of You” by the 1930s British-South African Crooner Al Bowllby, the Grace Jones version of “La Vie en Rose”, and the Ghanaian star Daddy Lumba’s “Mpempem Do Me” – feel genuine, others feel entirely shoehorned.
Canadian Michael Bublé’s “Haven’t Met You Yet” and Australian Kylie Minogue’s debut hit “The Loco-Motion” are surely box-tickers. Someone in the Palace has decided that they needed to include the British star Raye, who has Ghanaian heritage, but picked “Love Me Again”, a slightly generic song released years before she become the tour-de-force in soul she is today.
The Afrobeats track by the Nigerian artist Davido doesn’t feel like it’d be blaring from the Sonos at Highgrove anytime soon. But then, at least it fits with the theme – at the end we get two random bonus tracks just for fun: Beyoncé’s “Crazy in Love” and Diana Ross’s “Upside Down”. I couldn’t tell you why.
So we cannot exactly presume this isn’t a true Desert Island Discs – rather, a selection of discs from desert islands that are no longer ours, presented with the tiniest hint of wistfulness about that fact.
What is the point of all of it, you may wonder? Well, the royals have got to find some way of moving with the times. And music is, as Charles knows well, the great leveller – we may never experience him dancing to “YMCA” on a wedding dancefloor, but one almost feels, by the end, as though he could be just a little bit like us.
The King’s playlist in full
- Bob Marley and The Wailers – “Could You Be Loved”
- Millie Small – “My Boy Lollipop”
- Kylie Minogue – “The Loco-Motion”
- Al Bowlly – “The Very Thought of You”
- Grace Jones – “La Vie en Rose”
- Raye – “Love Me Again”
- Daddy Lumba – “Mpempem Do Me”
- Davido (featuring Fave) – “Kante”
- Miriam Makeba – “The Click Song”
- Jools Holland and Ruby Turner – “My Country Man”
- Anoushka Shankar – “Indian Summer”
- Siti Nurhaliza – “Anta Permana”
- Kiri Te Kanawa – “E Te Iwi E (Call to the People)”
- Michael Bublé – “Haven’t Met You Yet”
- Arrow – “Hot Hot Hot”
Bonus tracks: Beyoncé (featuring Jay-Z) – “Crazy in Love”; Diana Ross – “Upside Down”
