By Cassy van Eeden
The app, which launched on Wednesday, 1 April, is a 24-hour stream of rock and roll music that can be listened to anytime, anywhere. “It’s about the rock culture and it’s about guitar riffs and rock stars,” says Simon.
Simon, South Africa’s very own rock music expert, has curated the entire playlist himself. “The compiling must be perfect,” says Simon. “My whole thing is that the song you’ve just heard now, the next one must be better than the one we’ve just played.” He adds that creating this hand-picked playlist is no easy feat.
The playlist includes rock, metal and alternative tracks from the past three decades. “Every song we put on the app was a hit at some point or it’s familiar,” says Simon. “You still get goose bumps when you hear that kind of thing.”
The app was developed and published by media house Kagiso Media, who own
Jacaranda FM where Simon currently works. Vincent Maher, chief innovation officer at Kagiso Media explains that the launch of the Rock On app fits into a much larger strategy for the company. The strategy involves finding ways “to unlock talent and people and skills and to use them in new and interesting ways”, says Maher.
For Kagiso Media, launching an app with Simon’s name behind it was a no-brainer. As a much-loved radio personality whose brand throughout his career has been everything alternative, it made perfect sense to create a platform where his biggest fans could listen to his personal playlist. “Barney is iconic,” says Maher, “It was an obvious choice.”
As our cars, phones and internet connections get smarter, it is expected that internet radio streaming will be the next big thing. But what does this mean for the radio industry? “I think that people will always get in their cars and want to listen to radio and have that live companion,” says Simon.” Maher agrees: “It’s quite difficult for the internet to compete with something as consistently available as radio broadcast, mainly because it works everywhere and is crystal clear.”
The challenge then, was not to create something to compete with radio, but rather to provide an alternative that fills a gap that South African radio currently cannot cover. Maher explains that the app is “not necessarily an alternative to radio, but rather another way to spend your time”.
“Radio stations don’t play the music I used to play anymore,” says Simon. He explains that people get tired of listening to their CDs over and over in the car when they don’t like what the radio has to offer. Which is why he got behind the app.
Rock On is not just a music streaming app like many of its competitors. The songs you hear are not programmed for you by algorithms and computers. What you’re listening to is human-centred. The stream offers snippets where Simon speaks, it offers rock music news and even the iconic
Uncle Paul’s Bedtime Stories.
Not only is Rock On human-centred, but everything about it is built with the audience in mind. “The listener comes first,” says Simon. Maher and Simon both agree that a large part of the audience will be his fans. Fans that have supported him since his first radio gig. “It’s something I want to give back to all the metal and rock and alternative fans that supported me over the years,” says Simon. “It’s payback time.”
Although the app has already racked up a substantial following, there is still much more to come. Simon will be playing uncut interviews that never made it to radio with some of the biggest bands of all time, including Metallica, REM, Def Leopard and Limp Bizkit. He will also be playing audio from previous live concerts that he recorded years ago.
Reaching a five-star rating on
iTunes and being ranked number 18 in South Africa for streaming apps is not what matters to Kagiso Media and Barney Simon. What matters to them is providing a first-of-its-kind alternative to radio that connects on a deep level to dedicated rock music fans.
Download Barney Simon’s Rock On app via Google Play and iTunes and connect with him via Facebook and Twitter.